By 1998's standards, which NRL teams should face the axe today?

Anzac Day game alternates each year for both teams. Next year I believe it's Dragons home game

Souths should have stayed out. When they were allowed back in they struggled for years and really don't represent any area. Think of the progress we could have made without Souths. A new team in Perth established for 20 years. Legally it may have been right, but for the good of the game they needed to stay out.

That simply isn't true. The Dragons are one of the best supported club in the NRL, and usually have a higher attendance of fans than the Roosters, but two Sydney teams helps sell the occasion. Roosters vs Titans would be a dull affair.

Their own ground is out of action for next season so that comment is irrelevant. As it stands they don't have a home ground

It would be plain dumb to remove Manly from the comp as we would have no teams north of the bridge in Sydney

I doubt that any sane person would kick the Dogs out of the comp . They are struggling at the moment but they’ll bounce back and as a Souths supporter I always hope both clubs are strong . At least once a year at ANZ we should be able to get 40k . if all the planets align we may even get close to 60k for our Easter clashes

Steve - Really not sure what they actually bring to the NRL? Hmm... successful financial management, smart recruiting and on-field success. Oh, and a few rusted on fans too. Yeah, I'm puzzled too... [eyeroll...]

You've got some point re population. There should be some sort of broad target range of population per team. Brisbane's at 2.5 million is far too big - creating this urgent need for a second team. Those spruiking the Central Coast seem to be overlooking it's a very long archipeligo-like strip broken up by a myriad of waterways and national parks. Roughly speaking, it might be a 100km x 15km strip with 400k people sparsely and sporadically populated. It lacks a big centre and cohesion. A similar lesser criticism could be aimed at the Gold Coast. Interestingly, greater Sydney should be reaching towards 6 million people before long. Can't see why that wouldn't support 7 or 8 clubs long-term, meaning 800k-900k population per club. The "Sydney problem" is a little about too many teams, but more about rejigging collection boundaries. The 'Inner West' is 100% inner-East. Old boundaries for Norths, Newtown, Glebe-Annandale, etc are just dropped and ignored. Areas in the South-West, North West and North are poorly connected to clubs. The absence of a Strategy to adapt to population movements across decades and centuries is myopic, these movements are large and obvious. It contributes to weirdness where in the past North's juniors have gone to South's, Newtown juniors have gone to Cronulla and Wyong juniors have gone to the Roosters.

which is just smart scheduling, nothing to do with the roosters Actually, the exact reverse. Games like Anzac Day and the big Easter games (Dogs v Bunnies and Tigers v Eels) are now part of each club's DNA. They didn't just 'fluke it' - the teams are a rich part of NSW culture & the games work because of team history, fan-base & rivalry. The Roosters and Dragons took the initiative to get Anzac Day game rolling 18 years back or whenever. Any clubs on the outer are free to find their own 'thing' (see Anzac Day - Storm v Warriors for a great example). No, that doesn't rate at all. What rates hugely as issues are they must factor in: screen viewers (which would massively 'swamp' ring-side crowds), performance over 2 or 3 decades, plus for newer teams the growth trend of performance, crowds, etc, to estimate where they should be in a couple of decades.

Whilst interesting read, I wonder if away home games were included, also, size of stadium, Manly is the only team that hasn’t been given a free stadium upgrade but yet home crowds are low cause it only holds 16k, imagine the numbers if the stadium was upgraded and so on, as said interesting read but flawed!!!

Western Bulldogs name change was in October 1996, so it would need to have been rushed through. Truth be told Parramatta or even Penrith and Wests would have made more geographical sense, perhaps Souths or Easts and Balmain could have been an option at the risk of further alienation of 90 year rivals. At the time though mergers would have had to be carefully thought through with the Waratahs relevant in the advent of the professional age and the Swans capturing the market like they did 10 years earlier (no threat from the world game at that stage, still largely ethnic community based underpinning their numbers). There was also a push in the UK when their Super League was being established to merge clubs which was quashed by the people. From memory I think they wanted to merge the Hull teams, have a 3 way with Castleford/Wakefield and one other, make Salford and someone else a Manchester team, but nobody wanted it and instead the sum of the expansion was into Paris (London Broncos having being formed a couple of years earlier). Perhaps fearing a repeat the administrators wanted to keep as many happy as possible rather than pushing many away through forced mergers upon unification.

I think in this case it's they won't support a lost cause, and the Titans are a lost cause. I'll hand it to the NRL - they really have tried to make it work this time.

cool

Good points Birdy, but only to a degree. At some point in a clubs existence, it needs to start making things work. I quite clearly remember being handed tickets to Swans games while drinking in their club in Kings Cross because they were having trouble getting people to go. To say they were a laughing stock for 30 years is a bit of a stretch though, they have only been in Sydney since 1982. A much better analogy would have been the Melbourne Storm, however they have been successful from pretty much the off which makes it difficult to compare. Had the Storm been flogged week in / week out for years on end would they still be there?? Secondly you are talking about moving a team into an area that largely didn't follow the game, that is the primary reason the Swans struggled to attract attention. The GC are a rugby league team located in rugby league territory and still struggling. There has to be a reason for that and it's not all down to the NRL. It's not like the Gold Coast is a bad place to live, yet they struggle to attract quality players, and the ones they have are just not performing. The NRL can only help to a degree, the clubs have to take some responsibility as well. I don't know what they need to do at the GC but I really hope it comes good for them. I would hate to see another team die up there.

DB, yours is the reasoning that makes the AFL a better run business than the NRL The Sydney ducks where the laughing stock for 30 years ,now there well established The GC bears after they merged with the lions weren't given a real chance either but had AFL backing, look at them now. The GC suns, your kidding me. Never Gunna make it. Well I'm willing to bet theylly still be there in 50 years with AFL backing. GWS, surely they're dreaming , ".fraud not" If you start a small business and it is successful enough to have another branch, you don't just hire a manager and say go for it. You research the new area, hire competent staff and minister it until it runs at a profit.even then you still monitor it. Now let's look at the GC rugby league NRL clubs from the giants to now. No it's too embarrassing. There's a licensed boys, nice jersey, you'll go good.

They've sold their biggest asset. That money won't last forever.

lol there’s always got to be a couple haters who try to twist things to claim Sydney’s most successful club of the NRL era should go. You can complain about the juniors all you like, but if we’re being fair we should really just take back everything East of Anzac Pd that we have them to save their sorry butts back in the old eras.

Away crowds are definitely relevant.