An alternative to the NRL expansion

"I like the geographical model that says if you’re registered to a club in that city, that state, that country, then that’s who you’ll represent." When NSW was defeating Queensland under the residential rule the reason given was NSW had financial support from poker machine revenue, therefore, attracting players from other states. Queensland at the time didn't have poker machines in their state. The time now says Queensland can support themselves because of poker machine revenue clearing the way for a return to the residential rule.

For a full season format, state competition match played Tuesday, state v state competition match played Wednesday, international competition match played Thursday. Personally, that’s interest for Saints Tuesday, New South Wales Wednesday, Australia Thursday. Australia would get the first choice of players, New South Wales next, and the clubs registered in NSW playing in the NSW state competition the remainder. The question arises how to strengthen clubs and states outside of NSW. Apart from reducing squad sizes and teams in NSW creating a surplus which can be supplied to other states and clubs, we have to wait for the crop to grow in those areas, and as we know, there's a drought.

If you try to guard everything in equal measures you'll be exposed to everything in equal measures. The major sporting events in most countries in the world don't have state competitions, they have city v city competitions. For quality reasons, we would have eight teams to start with... Townsville, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Newcastle, Canberra, Melbourne, Auckland, Sydney. Twenty-one rounds, one home match, one away match, one match at a probable expansion area, maybe Adelaide and Perth. Never know, cities may grow and warrant selection for inclusion in the future. People might argue the validity of Auckland and have a point and why not have an Oceania competition. What would happen if there was one team representing Sydney? The surplus of players who can play first grade and miss out would probably go to other teams outside of Sydney rather than settle for a lower reputation league. Or maybe not. What if teams outside of Sydney were at full strength and do not take the surplus from Sydney? Then expansion talks get aired. From what I understand there's no salary cap on state teams and national teams. Example, selectors don't say to a player, "You can't play for New South Wales or Australia because if you did we would be over the salary cap." On the contrary, selectors want epic players playing and epic coaches coaching for quality reasons, but for some reason there is a salary cap on clubs. Which brings us to the question of qualification criteria for the national competition team, example Sydney, considering the criteria for New South Wales and Australia, and keeping the selection model consistent. I like the geographical model that says if you're registered to a club in that city, that state, that country, then that's who you'll represent. There are players who miss out on state selection because there's one state team, there are players who miss out on national selection because there's one national team. This creates a surplus. Surpluses are dealt with much the same way as immigration. People leave to find opportunity elsewhere and this could be a good thing for the sport. Ideas. It's not a crime to think.

I agree there are a lot of issues to work out with this idea and it may not be possible even in the next decade or two but its an awesome idea. Imagine a second tier comp of: - West Coast Pirates - Adelaide Rams - Central Coast/NS Bears - Central Queensland - Brisbane 2 - Western Corridor - Southern Orcas - Newtown Jets - PNG - A Pac Islands team and more! All fighting for a place in the NRL. People complain about talent but if you think about it, this would replace the Instrust super comps and you'd have roughly 24 teams all now funnelling into 10 or 12. You'd get a better concentration of talent. People are complaining about supporter bases, however if these 2nd grade teams have glory to play for then that would galvanise a lot of fans. Being solely a reserve grade team doesn't quite cut the mustard in terms of getting people pumped. The downside is true that this could mean fans are lost in key markets when relegated, but this system wouldn't be the death kneel that reserve grade clubs face now.

First of all the Titans are an easy target for someone who wants to bag them and the NRL. The Gold Coast Titans lack of success is down to a few factors, the main one being that Searle invested in building the Centre of Excellence just as the GFC hit. He went broke taking all the goodwill that the Titans had built up down with him. To the unpaid sub-contractors and suppliers the Titans were the blame, not Searle, so they carried the can for his failures. Throw in questionable activities by players in their free time and the Titans recruiting mistakes and the public is offside. This year they got Gold Coast junior Jai Arrow back to the club and blooded another local junior in young Brimson and the club whilst not setting the competition on fire made improvements. On the back of these two locals the club can move forward both on and off the field. In regards to the 2nd Division and promotion and relegation, I am pretty sure that the clubs over in the ESL and 2nd Division have a loan system where players on the fringe of squads can be loaned to other clubs in another Division. This might help with player depth. But currently there is only two teams in the Queensland Cup who don't have any affiliation with an NRL club and that's the PNG Hunters and Central Queensland Capras, all the other clubs are aligned with the either Cowboys, Broncos, Titans and Storm. So for instance if the the Dolphins were promoted, Staggs, Turpin and Opacic would either be released by the Broncos to play with the Dolphins or the Dolphins would need to find replacements for them in their squad. Add in the tyranny of distance in having clubs in the 2nd Division potentially based in Port Moresby, Auckland, Melbourne, Cairns and Canberra all in the one competition and it is a logistical nightmare. And whilst the Wolfpack are based in Toronto, that is one game that there is to plan around, not potentially half the competition, remembering that the British Isles can fit into Queensland alone, over seven times, so a 2nd Division team can maybe afford one big trip to Toronto but not 5 big trips.

Brutal but unfortunately accurate. Promition / relegation is a lovely idea but it’s just not practical. One of the strengths of the NRL is that a team that finishes last can be challenging or making the 8 within a couple of seasons. This would destroy that. There’s no practical way for teams to upscale from second division teams to NRL clubs from October to February from an operational or playing roster perspective. There’s the issue of where NRL squad players play. All ISP teams have a number of players that have played NRL in any one season so the second division would be weaker by definition. There’s too many “what if’s” If this system was in place we could very well be going into 2019 with no Newcastle and no Eels. Completely untenable for the NRL. What if the Storm come last? The Cowboys? Broncos? Disastrous.

It wasn't that long ago that the Titans were placed in Administration. The new private ownership appears to have eased some of the issues, but i doubt the owners are making any money

Everyone is entitled to their opinion and forums are the place to bring ideas forward. That said, promotion/relegation - in pretty much any sport in this country is daft. You yourself stuffed your own theory with your example if Parramatta. So Parramatta get relegated.... The team who is about to get a new 30,000 seat stadium will play infont of crowds of 2-3,000 once relegated at their new stadium.. wait, no they won't, because the new expensive lease they have just paid, they can no longer afford because they have next to no sponsors willing to stick by a club who will get next to no FTA coverage and will have no one buying merchandise. So the Eels, a club with a stong supporter base (stronger when they do well), dies a slow death, while the club you bring up, which has a membership base of 12, now fills our screens for a year getting pumped by professional teams unti Parramatta comes back a year or two later with a reserve grade team, and a lot of lost members while the club you brought up last time, blows back into non-exisistance. If the goal is to expdeiate the death of the game, promotion and relegation is a great idea. To your example of how exciting it would be to watch Manly play North Sydney - well, if you have 30 odd teams playing across two leagues, the odds of that happening are incredibly small (not to mention North Sydney actually only have 11 supporters left). But lets throw the baby in with the bath water for the 1-194 chance that Manly and Norths will play in a game that matters sometime in the next 50 years.... That will be riveting for the rest of us

It isn’t naysaying to critically analyse an idea and find fault with it. This idea, and that’s all it is, has so many downsides to it, there isn’t any chance of it ever getting off the ground. And using the Gold Coast as an example made no sense. It is a huge league nursery and just needs time to succeed.

What would this mean for contracts as well. If you have players on a 4 year deal and in year three you get relegated could the clubs then be in a position where they can't afford to pay a players his correct salary. Imagine the damage if you had a Des Hasler in a comp like this. He could kill off a team in a few years.

This is where the idea hits it's first hurdle. The teams playing in the second tier would need to be independent of teams playing in the first tier. So, where do the contracted squad players of NRL clubs play when not in the first grade team. They can't play for a second tier team because they are then playing for a club that is in essence competing against the club they are contracted to. The only solution is to have a reserve grade competition for NRL teams. This will then spread the playing talent across NRL, reserve grade and a second tier competition. The quality of the second tier competition would be quite poor in this scenario.

Gold Coast chargers didn’t fail they were kicked out like a lot of other clubs. They had a $ million in the bank when wound up.

Agree totally coming from Perth who wants to watch reserve grade but that is exactly what the NRL are contemplating having a side from here in the NSW In trust cup. Abosolute folly and will damage the local game here if they haven’t done enough already killing it with the super league war fiasco which was more to do about tv networks than the game itself.

Gold Coast is a different city to what it was in the 90s and the NSWRL/ARL never really gave the Giants/Seagulls/Chargers much support to be fair. Anyway there are Sydney clubs who haven't really been that successful on and off the field either and who have been around more than 50 years longer. But for some reason there is a double standard for the expansion teams and the sydney teams...

Population too small for promotion and relegation, apart from the tyranny of distance this country possesses.Might sound good in theory, but there is to the overall national support to do so. Gold Coast has, I read the 3rd largest number of juniors in the NRL.Demotion of such a team, with their stadium would do little for the code on the coast, a growing city . Imagine if the Broncos were demoted, the mind boggles as to the loss of patronage. It's not a case of the naysayers, but the reality of 4 major football codes competing in population of 25million, all wanting their market share, all wanting sponsorship from a limited number of companies. Has North Sydney's "demotion/removal" assisted rugby league on the North shore?

Totally agree with these comments. And how on earth can clubs sign up long term sponsorships or players if they can’t guarantee playing in the top grade? Like many things it’s okay in theory but simply would not be practical.

Spot on. As much as I love the idea and would love to have a competition and culture to support such a thing the fact is we don't. Lack of players, lack of finances and in reality lack of public interest. I am curious as to how the SuperLeague does it, without knowledge though I would guess that it contributes to the lack of depth in that competition.

There's no history of promotion / relegation in Australia and with good reason - neither RL or AFL are dominant nationally like Football is in England. What happens if Melbourne get demoted - that would spell an end to any gains in Melbourne - interest would wane quickly. Even worse - what would happen in the Broncos went down - the average attendance would plummet - how would that be helpful for NRL growth.

So what happens to the NRL contracted players playing in the team that wins the state championship? Josh Cleeland, Rhys Martin, John Olive etc etc?

Thanks Cheesy for the article. I love the debate. As you can see the naysayers are out saying nay. I think it could work if there was sufficient investment. The big issue that hasn’t been discussed is the gulf in quality between the comps. The NRL to the next level is a big gap. So my way of adjusting for that is that instead of automatically relegating the wooden spooners, the big game on grand final day isn’t the ‘Intrust Championship’ GF, but the relegation/promotion playoff. The Championship winners play the NRL wooden spooners for the right to play in the NRL. If the championship team can’t beat the wooden spooners, then the gap is too big. Try again next year son. But if the spooners can’t beat a second tier side then they deserve relegation. Contracts would have to be rewritten with getout clauses in case your team gets relegated, but it absolutely could work.