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All the talk about the expansion of our game seems to have a theme to it – a theme that is a mistake.
It makes sense why this theme exists, within the virtual echo chamber of nostalgia and bias that is rugby league.
But if we want to truly grow our game, we need to smash this bubble, at least from headquarters’ perspective.
The theme I’m alluding to is that Sydney rugby league is the game, the cliched DNA, ‘where it all started’, all of it.
For some reason, the mouthpieces of league in Sydney’s media are constantly telling us that the traditions of the Sydney suburban competition need to be preserved in the national competition.
This is absolute rubbish.
Those traditions belong to the state competition they started in. The game is and always has been bigger than the competition in Sydney.
True expansion of our game will not be achieved by telling everyone else to play Sydney’s game.
It can only be achieved by making the game everyone else’s game to play.
It’s achieved by sharing ownership of the national competition equally with those who might be new to it.
For far too long we’ve heard how we need to protect and consolidate rugby league in Sydney.
Why?
Those traditions don’t belong to the NRL, they don’t belong to anyone who cares about the game from outside of Sydney and they certainly don’t belong to anyone we might be trying to attract to our game, to truly expand it.
Forget tradition — the NRL needs to abandon historic suburban grounds like Leichhardt Oval if they want to expand the competition. (Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)
The NRL started in 1998, not 1908.
Some clubs started in 1908 and deserve to be congratulated for their longevity, for having teams compete in the NSWRL competition then also fielding teams in the NRL.
The NSWRL should be remembered for being a strong competition.
But the attempt to say they are the same competition is false and our game will be improved dramatically by altering this mentality.
It may feel good for Sydney fans, and keep them interested in the game, to tell them that this comp is the same as the one they used to follow.
It may have been necessary for the NRL to market themselves that way to ease Sydney fans across to a competition that was no longer solely run by ex-Sydney league players for the Sydney market.
That time has now passed.
We need to be a proper national competition or the game will slide even further behind the competitions that truly embraced the idea of a national competition.
There is a big difference between the NRL and the old ‘pies and tinnies on the hill at suburban grounds’.
There is a big difference between suburban rivalries and whole city rivalries. It’s still tribalism, just bigger.
All those sources of nostalgia still exist – they’re in the state competitions.
I still love going down the road and watching my local team play in the Intrust Super Cup while sitting on the hill.
Just because a suburban Sydney club isn’t in the national competition, that doesn’t mean they’re dead. That doesn’t mean that a region is unrepresented.
They’re just in the NSW competition where they started.
When we think of expansion, we need to think about truly expanding our game to people who will never have any skin in the game if we try to force one portion of the game’s history onto them.
How can a new league fan in Perth relate to a rivalry that started on the other side of the continent?
We need to create the best possible product for the future, and that means reducing the number of clubs in Sydney.
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