With NRL expansion seemingly back on the agenda, every man and his dog has an opinion on which, and how many teams should get the all-clear to join Australasia’s top tier of rugby league.
What is the right number? One? Two? Four? Where should the new teams be located? Perth? Adelaide? Papua New Guinea? Pacific Islands? New Zealand? Central Coast? Queensland?
I would argue that two teams are probably the right amount to start with. You want to have a competition with an even amount of teams so as to avoid weekly byes like we had in the years following Souths’ readmission into the NRL, and preceding the admission of the Gold Coast Titans.
The question of ‘where?’ is a far more difficult one. The question of ‘where not?’ is slightly easier to answer. I’ll start with Adelaide. Rugby of either kind does not exist out there.
The Adelaide Rams were an abysmal failure on and off the field. I’m not saying never, but putting a team in Adelaide will require a 20-30 year plan – something the ARLC does not have the foresight to put together.
What about Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands? It’d be nice. Papua New Guinea loves their league, and the game is growing in nations like Samoa, Tonga and especially Fiji. But let’s be fair dinkum here – these are essentially third world countries.
There are immense logistical issues related to these countries fielding NRL teams. This includes travel, attracting marquee players, and the possession of infrastructure that makes Brookvale Oval look world-class.
Get these nations into lower tiers by all means (Papua New Guinea already have a Queensland Cup team and Fiji look set to join the NSW Cup next year – eventually, Tonga and Samoa need to follow suit).
Giving their local players pathways to the NRL to will improve our player depth, making expansion easier, and will improve their national teams. This would be good for the game as a whole. But as far as NRL representation goes, it’s an emphatic no from me.
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That leaves us with New Zealand, Central Coast, Perth, and Queensland (could be Brisbane, Ipswich, Logan/South-East or Central Queensland). These are all viable options, and I would be happy to see any of these teams enter the NRL.
I won’t delve into which teams I would prefer – it is much more about the “how?” than the “where?” Simply put, teams should not be brought in straight off the bat like the Melbourne Storm were.
Yes, the Melbourne Storm is a great rugby league success story, but they are the exception rather than the rule. Their success has come through a series of lucky coincidences rather than through good planning by the governing body.
It’s not that they haven’t been successful. If three (or five, depending on who you ask) premierships in 20 years isn’t success, then what is?
I’m certainly not saying they don’t deserve their success. There are many people at the Melbourne Storm who have worked bloody hard for everything that they have achieved.
But there was no plan for Melbourne when they were brought in in 1998, other than ‘let’s give them a bunch of stars like Glenn Lazarus, Robbie Kearns and Brett Kimmorley and hope for the best’.
Admittedly, it worked in that it resulted in their maiden premiership in 1999. However, their success beyond that has been down to nothing but chance.
They happened to sign a coach who would turn out to be one of the greatest of all-time (he’s now in his 16th season in charge of the Storm).
He happened to bring the three cornerstones of their success in the last decade to the club as unknown 17-year-olds. Not to mention, the club happened to have financial backing from News Ltd, without which they wouldn’t have survived the 2010 salary cap scandal
All this resulted in tremendous success at the elite level. But let’s not forget that in two decades, Melbourne has produced two juniors – Mahe Fonua and Young Tonumaipea.
In other words, their success is top-down, not bottom-up. The chances of this success being replicated in Perth, or New Zealand, with the same approach are very slim.
If any of these teams want to play in the NRL, they need to have teams in the lower tiers first (and not just the NSW and Queensland Cups). I’m talking Harold Matthews, SG Ball, Jersey Flegg, and/or their Queensland equivalents.
Obviously, this doesn’t apply to any Queensland sides looking to join the NRL, or to the Central Coast. These are rugby league heartland areas – they already have quality junior development systems in place.
It is far less costly for the NRL to invest heavily in WA or New Zealand grass-roots than it is for them to artificially prop up the West Coast Pirates or the Wellington Whatevers in the NRL for a year, similarly to what the AFL are doing with GWS and the Gold Coast.
Get them playing in the U16s, U18s, U20s and reserve grade competitions in Queensland or NSW with locally grown players. Allow them to create feeder relationships with existing NRL clubs so that their best juniors still have a path to the NRL.
If the NRL wants to expand to anywhere beyond Queensland or NSW in the next decade, the above needs to happen right now. Otherwise, we’ll likely have a bunch of money-hole clubs that will not achieve anything unless they happen across champions like the Storm did.
Pool
Roar Rookie
If I were to start the league from scratch there would be 18 teams including: 1. Brisbane Bombers 2. Brisbane Broncos 3. Canberra Raiders 4. Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs 5. Central Queensland 6. Gold Coast Titans 7. Manly-Warringah Sea eagles 8. Melbourne Storm 9. Newcastle Knights 10. New Zealand Warriors 11. North Queensland Cowboys 12. Penrith Panthers 13. South Sydney Rabbitohs 14. St George-Illawarra Dragons 15. Sydney Roosters 16. West Coast Pirates 17. Western Corridor Thunder 18. Wests Tigers
Queenslander!
Guest
South east Qld needs another team Redcliffe Dolphins I would have thought are the obvious choice. New stadium and club that is recognised anywhere in Qld already.
Crosscoder
Roar Guru
And Cam Smith has been on that show also.I get it ,but remember its channel 9 cross pollination, they also benefit. When I described blinkered I'm suggesting the print media in the main and a couple of national programs emanating from Melbourne. I responded to a comment about the" blinkered rugby heartlands",and stated coaches from various codes exchange ideas and sometimes have mixed training sessions.Adam Goodes has given talks also.
ac
Guest
Watched AFL Footy show and they had a fabulous segment on Billy Slaters 300 games. The audience was terrific and you got the sense that whilst it wasn't AFL the Storm certainly had made a impression. It was a very good segment indeed. BTW the 100 percent footy show on Nine on Monday night is brilliant also.
Alan Muscroft
Guest
So lets put a new N.R.L club in a corridor in N.S.W or Q.L.D where 150,000 people live and for get about South Australia and Western Australia where 5 million people live good idea ?. average crowd in Adelaide 1998 16.000, bigger than some of the Sydney clubs, 22.000 in 2017 for the Roosters Storm game played in Adelaide.If we had new clubs in the N.R.L the players would not have to play in the Super League in England,Barba, Roberts, Bird ,Inu, Parcell Tuimavau,Moa,Kelly, Matautia, Masila, Goodwin Masoa Cuthbertson, Peteru, Brown Akouola Fifita Mamo Lefao. 19 players if you put these players in a club in Adelaide with 8 or 9 young players from around Australia and New Zealand it would not make one bit of differance to the 16 N.R.L clubs so this talk about weakening the competition does not wash with me,and just let me say there is a lot more Australian and New Zealand players in England than the 19 I have mentioned.So long for now I enjoy all your emails have a nice weekend
Mondo
Roar Rookie
AAMI Park has a capacity nearly double that of the old Olympic Park (where the Storm played up to 2009). Coincidence?
Mondo
Roar Rookie
Up to 2009, the Storm played at a stadium that held about 15,000 people. Since 2010, they've played at a stadium that holds 30,000 people. Coincidence?
duecer
Guest
You can't compare PNG to China, Sth Korea and especially Japan - those 3 countries have had their ups and downs, but all have had successful times. PNG has never had that advantage, they have always been struggling - perhaps they may come good at some stage, but 20 years is wildly optimistic. Just having resources doesn't equate to good times ahead, if it did all of Africa would be living in luxury.
Nat
Roar Guru
I did read the whole thing. The false premise is that a successful club must start with a team in the SG/HM Ball except in Qld or NSW because that is the heartland. Dismissive; A, "There are immense logistical issues related to these countries fielding NRL teams. This includes travel, attracting marquee players, and the possession of infrastructure that makes Brookvale Oval look world-class" PNG not only have a Stadium that makes Brookvale look like a 3rd world stadium, Current Q cup premiers, massive financial support, would sell out the stadium every week and no different than getting to NZ. B, Adelaide were an abysmal failure. They were a victim of the reunification only. 27k turned out to watch them and averaged 15k. They weren't too successful off the field but if that's your measure, you should have bumped off Cronulla 45 yrs ago along with the Cowboys, Titans etc. Given time, they could have been anything just every other club. Why couldn't Adelaide, given the chance do what Melbourne done - from the top down? Today Perth are in the box seat to do much the same with out any of your prerequisites. Melbourne players, Gareth Widdop, Jeremy Smith and Richard Kennar (yes born OS but so was Young Tonumaipea and you highlighted him) all through the Melbourne Junior system. Timana Tahu left Melbourne in his teens and played for the Knights at 19. The Storm were "Lucky" and "exception rather than the rule. Their success has come through a series of lucky coincidences rather than through good planning by the governing body" Compared to what? Brisbane, Titans, Newcastle as they were the last expansion efforts that were not super league based. They attracted significant financial support in AFL heartland achieved a premiership 2nd year - before Bellamy. That's good administration not luck. Lucky Bellamy turned out to be pretty good, You may not have heard of him but he coached Canberra in the Presidents Cup including a premiership in 95. In 98, he was under Bennett to an NRL Premiership and by 03, when he signed with Melbourne, he had multiple clubs lined up to sign him. Again, that's good administration not luck. It would be 3 years later before he took Storm to a losing GF so his success was not instant. He done his apprenticeship, he learned from the best and like all coaches he got better at his craft, while the Melbourne football club attracted all these good young players thousands of KM away from home and the team they thought they would be playing for. Bellamy didn't attract Smith, Slater, Inglis, Cronk etc it was the Storm support team. So, good business is not luck. It is good people doing good work. Melbourne, started with a top down approach and you can attribute the majority of their success to foresight by the ARLC and Melbourne football club - not luck.
peeeko
Roar Guru
the crowds and members have only recently grown- even during 07-11 they had terrible crowds
peeeko
Roar Guru
Nat, there is some untruths here. News limited owned the Storm and they lost tens of millions funding them. it is a fact that they paid way overs for junior talent in the early days. Revised history to say they didnt inherit a good team at birth - Kearney, Howe, Nikau were all starrs and they werel ucky to pick up some great young guys like Ross, Noddy etc the two Victorians cant even make an NRL side
peeeko
Roar Guru
3 all time greats are the reason - not learning from Malbourne AFL plus its not called Rugby
Fred
Guest
You can't compare PNG (population 8 million) to Tonga (population of Albury-Wodonga). I'd love to see a PNG NRL team down the track, and establishing the Hunters was the perfect platform for it (which really aligns with the argument of your article). PNG is a resource-rich country with relatively rapid rate of economic growth. Just because they're relatively poor now doesn't mean they'll be that way in twenty years. E.g: n the mid twentieth century Japan, China, South Korea were "poor third world countries".
Big Daddy
Guest
They have a team in s g ball. Next step is to get a team in intrust cup. Fiji are supposedly doing it for next year on a stand alone basis but it does cost money even at that level unless you are a feeder club. The NRL if they are serious have to throw heaps of money at it. You can't expect just to waltz in and set up anew franchise without some sort of grassroots set up. Its not as easy as it sounds. And if they do this do you think the AFL will make it easy for them.
Daniel Szabo
Roar Guru
I'm not putting their success down to luck. As I wrote, all the administrators, coaches and players have obviously worked very hard to achieve what they have. But they were it is luck that they happened to sign one of the greatest coaches of all time as an unknown, and three of the greatest players of all time as unknowns. And it has more to do with that, and their hard work, than anything that the NRL did in terms of planning and investment in GR to assist the Storm in their mission of expansion.
John
Guest
Any talks of expansion should really be based on clubs being self sustaining first and foremost. After the NRL has taken care of player salaries along with some other playing related expenses, the onus should be on the clubs to ensure they themselves turn a profit. If they don't they shouldn't be propped up by the NRL. What this would effectively do, is place the onus on the clubs to self examine whether they have fully explored and exhausted all business opportunities within the region and whether their interests are best served by relocating themselves. Right now clubs don't have that survival mentality, they have the handout entitlement mentality which effectively means the NRL has to direct dollars to help these clubs survive instead of directing those dollars to grassroots and actually expanding the game.
Daniel Szabo
Roar Guru
Where am I factually wrong? What's this false premise that I've made? Who are all these born and raised Melbournians who have made it to the NRL? It's very easy to throw inflammatory words around with no substance. I'm not saying it's all luck that they've had success. You obviously didn't read my article in full if you think that's what I said. But the fact remains that in 2003 they signed a relatively unknown coach who turned out to be great. They signed three seventeen-year-olds who turned out to be great. Thanks largely to those 4 men (and others) they've had a lengthy and sustained period of on-field success, without which I don't think they'd have the crowds or members that they have. And my point with Melbourne is that the NRL needs to plan better if they want to expand to new areas, rather than just plonk a team in Perth or Adelaide and hope that they happen to sign another Bellamy, Smith, Slater and Cronk. Lightning won't strike twice. I agree that GR has strengthened because of the Storm, but it's taken 20 years to produce 2 NRL standard players. I don't know about you, but I don't think that's a very good strike rate.
BA Sports
Roar Guru
So how do you put together (competitive) sides in the junior ranks, if they have nothing to aspire to? Why would a 13 year old want to start playing rugby league in Perth as it stands?
Big Daddy
Guest
I think Melbourne are a very good example of expansion but in saying that going into the unknown in Perth or Adelaide is a completely different kettle of fish. Both of these area's if they are serious should have the junior and second tier infrastructure well in place before contemplating any attempt at top level. What is the point of giving franchise's to unproven area's without that grass roots infrastructure in place. Sure it's okay to have one offs or double header s every now and again but that doesn't prove these area's are ready. To add 2-4 teams to an already stretched player base means an extra 60-120 first grade standard player's and where do we get them from. If we get some from super league it only weakens their comp. And to get 30 player's to domicile in somewhere like Perth you have to pay overs and the NRL are not in a position to do that. The infrastructure must be in placentral as Dr chop has said and there's not to many in a geographical or financial position to do that.
The Barry
Roar Guru
Bottom up also aligns with Proctor's approach to expansion...