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Expansion? Moving teams? Nah let's do it a different way

Roar Rookie
20th March, 2019
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Roar Rookie
20th March, 2019
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Everyone loves a good expansion article, and everyone seems to want to move teams all over the country to make it happen.

Need a team in Perth? No worries, let’s ship out the Sharks, nobody likes them anyway. Job done. Need another team in Brisbane? Excellent, Souths will work, we could just call them the South Brisbane Rabbits and carry on. Job done.

What people fail to take into account is that these ideas are all well and good, so long as it isn’t your team in the firing line. As a Sharks fan would I really care if they were moved so long as they stayed in the comp? Not really, but then again, I don’t live in the Shire so it doesn’t affect me as much as the locals. They would have strongly different views I am sure.

Therefore, in the name of out there expansion articles, I have created another idea for the direction of the NRL. I’ve posted this as a comment on a few articles but felt I really needed to flesh it out a bit more and submit it as my own article so that my point of view can be better appreciated and torn apart properly by the fine minds here on The Roar.

There a few major issues identified with the NRL as it currently stands. These are the catalysts used to fuel expansion or relocation articles.

1. There are too many teams in Sydney. This isn’t surprising seeing as the NRL is really the bloated former NSWRL.

2. The season is way too long at 26 weeks.

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3. The talent pool doesn’t seem sufficient enough to support the 16 teams we have, let alone any expansion. Remember when we had 20 teams in 1998? Good times, except they weren’t. The top teams played on and the bottom teams were roundly flogged every week. Great if you supported the Broncos but not so good for a Magpies fan. So, relocation is for this point alone.

How do we fix this? Easy, start again.

While I believe this is what Super League was trying to do (ALA Super Rugby) it wasn’t done well, or right, or honestly, or with the best interests of the game at heart. SL was all about money and TV rights, not the good of the game.

Now I understand this is a radical concept that a lot of people can’t get their heads around. I hear lots of comments like “but RL is built around tribalism, you can’t build tribalism around new clubs” which is a really a load of garbage.

It also seems ok for these types to bang on about tribalism when it suits, but they think it doesn’t matter as much when it comes to relocating teams to a completely different state “It’s ok, they will get new fans”.

Yes, they will in time, but so would a new competition. The Big Bash started from scratch, so did the A League (but for very different reasons). It can be done if you have the will to do it.

Would I be sad to see great teams like the Bunnies relegated to history, sure I would because I have history with that club, as well as all the other clubs. I grew up with these clubs and they are as much a part of my life as anything else.

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Would I be the same well rounded, slightly bitter man I am today without my love for the Sharks, or my loathing of Manly and, a bit later, Brisbane? Maybe, but more than likely not. Would I have the same resilience and ability to accept defeat if I didn’t support Cronulla and NSW? Probably not.

The question is, could I just pick a new team and start again? Yes, I absolutely could, as could everyone. It will hurt in the short to medium term, but over the long run, it will work.

So, the new competition looks like this. Pick four teams for NSW (two in Sydney, one in Newcastle and one in Wollongong), four teams for Queensland (two Brisbane, one GC and one Townsville), two teams for New Zealand (Auckland and Wellington), two Teams for Victoria (North and South Melbourne) and one team each for ACT, WA, SA and Tassie.

Jordan Kahu runs the ball

Jordan Kahu of the Cowboys runs with the ball. (Photo by Ian Hitchcock/Getty Images)

Why Tasmania? Because the AFL has decided not to go there so why not? It makes about as much sense as putting a team in South Australia. At least the sandgropers follow league and rugby.

I have no idea what to name all these new teams, but at least this time let’s pick Australian animals ok? The reason I say to start again with team names is so there is no prior bias.

Let’s face it three quarters of the proposal for QLD are already in place so why not just keep the Broncos, Cowboys and Titans. Why not let the Raiders and Warriors and Storm keep their identity as well?

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I guess you could but then fans of the Bulldogs, for example, will have a whinge as to why their team folded while the others got to stay. Even if you stated categorically over and over again that it’s a new team and a new comp, that will not wash with some people.

If they were renamed the North Melbourne Koalas for example, then everyone is equally annoyed which makes it all even.

As for season length, it can work in a few ways. Keep it at the proposed 16 teams and play each other once, then play a top five final series and crown your victor.

Otherwise, drop the teams to 12 and play each other twice, then play a top four and crown your victor. Or you could keep it at 16, play each other once, then the top eight teams play each other again once and then the top four play a semi-final, then grand final. Kind of like a progressive knockout series.

After that, pick a Kangaroos team and play some international games that actually mean something. Bring on a cup to rival the Bledisloe, bring on a tour or the old country, invite over the USA and give them a good spanking.

The international league is a big thing, right? Make playing for the Kangaroos the ultimate prize, not playing for QLD or NSW, not lifting the as yet unnamed trophy, but playing for your country. That’s the dream.

Andrew Ettingshausen

Andrew Ettingshausen in Kangaroos colours on the 1990 Kangaroo tour. (Photo by Getty Images)

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Wow, this is all so easy on paper, isn’t it? I now know why so many people write expansion articles, it’s a lot of fun playing God with the NRL. If only life were so easy.

So, what do we do when after five to ten years the Adelaide Numbats are still only playing in front of 25 people each week who thought they were the new AFL team in town?

What do we do if the Tasmanian Tigers end up just as extinct as their namesake? What do we do if it turns out that sports-mad (so long as it is AFL or one-off games that don’t clash with the AFL season fixtures) Melbourne just can’t keep two RL teams going? What if it turns out rugby-mad New Zealand just doesn’t want a new team?

Well, I think if the teams from NZ, WA, SA, Tas and second Vic end up not economically viable then they need to be folded after a period of time and those teams brought back to where the true passion for rugby league is in this country, namely NSW and QLD.

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Then we could keep the league alive and enjoy it for what it is, a niche sport in Australia, enjoyed by a relatively small but passionate sector of the community. We could revive some of the old names like Rabbits, Dragons, Broncos and Knights.

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We could even bring back the good old State Of Origin series and bag each other endlessly about our dubious parentage and inability to accept daylight savings, or our pest-riddled living environment and inability to win anything.

Or is that what we already have? Was this whole article just a massive waste of time, effort and energy?

You decide.

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