erhhh yes they do! Why do you think many clubs drew their biggest home crowds when Del Piero and Sydney FC were in town…?

1) His winger is moving toward the ball, the ball is goign away from HAyne, it is always the wingers kick
2/3) he probably does mis-read the kick, but he has also probably i’d that his winger’s biggest threat is the big winger from the other team, and he is trying to block him without getting done for blocking.

1:00: take Hayne out of the line, and what do you have a giant gap 10 out from your own line. He fills the gap and defuses the kick – he put in a double effort – you are not seriously blaming him for that!

1:20: you are kidding right? he is watching Aubusson in 12 who is running like the kick will go closer for him. he has to cover that.

1:42 maybe he could have shown a littl emore urgency, but he is pauing at every player incae the player cuts back through the gap, there was a few

2:09 – he gets over to help. He cant drive with his body because his teammates bod is in the way, the tackle becomes ineffective.

Seriously that is it?

What more can he do?

He follows their supposed creative players around, but they aren’t creating the way a Cronk or Marshall does, he just runs into brick walls.

He pops up in the back line and throws his killer cut out passes which come off sometimes, and othertimes… well he is throwing them to Ryan Morgan who wouldn’t get a start in many NSW Cup sides. When he gets the ball he does run hard. I woul dbe willing to bet his tackle bust numbers would be up there with anone in the league.

Moving him to lock isn’t the answer. He’ll have to do more tackling, get more tired, more likely to get injured and given he hasn’t had to do a tonne of tackling in his career, probably give away mroe penalties.

I would encourage (as someone suggested) for those who like to write these Roar articles about the Eels, try looking through the big league, learn a couple more names, watch them play this week and maybe write something about the rest of them – the weak links in the team

Dean, no Souths fans were going to watch them when they weren’t in the NRL!

And when are Foxtel going to televise these Div 2 games? Won’t they be on at the same time as the 1st Div matches? And remember Fox isn’t exactly reaching every household in Australia

And they won’t be able to lock players and sponsors into “water tight” contracts, because players won’t sign and sponsors won’t be willing to pay.

Seriously I realise I am the idiot for replying to thse, but a 2 teir’ed competition will never ever happen and it is such a waste of time discussing it. The only way ti would happen would be if the AFL and A-League folded. I need to find better things to do….

You over estimate significantly how many people will go to a game with no stars playing and where the team doesn’t have a chance of winning the title (A title that is worth something, a title they can celebrate, brag to their mates about).

I was at Shark Park on Saturday afternoon – Cronulla v Newtown in the NSW Cup. Newtown – supposed to have these die hard supporters and the Cronulla team with its connection to Melbourne, chock full of first grade talent. A game that could be described as a derby, a perfect afternoon weather wise. Brett Finch, Stuart Mills, Nathan Gardener, Waqa, Guerra, Moors, Townsend, good quality players for that league and next to nobody there.

In your system players will sign contracts with clubs that say “if the team goes down, I get out of my contract”, and your relegation teams will be left with nobody of any note. Their expenses will be the same except for the fact that they won’t be able to fill the salary cap because they won’t have th esponsors because they don’t have the exposure that first division teams get. Look at the teams who struggle for sponsors. Cronulla, Canberra – teams who don’t get much FTA – Now you are going to have at least 12 teams with zero FTA epxosure. Why would any company with signficant dollars sponsor them when they could sponsor one of the top tier teams, or an AFL team, or an A-League team.

They could have greater travel expenses if by chance the teams in Div 2 were spread far and wide.

I lived in Cairns. People will tell you that is one of those “rugby league heartlands”. They get an NRL trial match every year. A game that means nothing and they sell out the ground (15,000 people). They get 11 Q-Cup matches with their own, recently succesful, Q-Cup side who have been regular finalists and won a comp in recent years. Players like Tommy Humble, James Tamou were running around for them, they would get Cowboys players coming back from injury like Carl Webb, they had regular players like Chris Sheppard, Rod Jensen, Ty Williams etc.. and players playing for other teams like Dave Taylor, Matt Gillett coming with visiting teams. They had local talent with local exposure. Its cheaper to go to those games, you can get a great seat at those games, the weather is warm and perfect in winter, there is no professional sport they are competing with locally (in winter)… and they struggle to get 2,000 people. Why? Because it isn’t top tier football.

I will grant you where they don’t have any teams in the non NRL markets at the moment some could say a team is better than nothing, but haven’t they already tried running a team out of WA in the Bundy Cup? How did that work out?

Who is going to watch a second division team play in a second tier league. “Think for a moment what this gives us”…

1. Currently crowds go down signficantly for teams when they are not in contention – 2nd tier teams, no matter where they are on the ladder, are not in contention.
2. Nobody goes to NSW Cup now, this will be a more diluted and worse version of that. Who is going?
3. When Penrith is playing the Titans in division 2 there will be a crowd of less than 5,000 – probably closer to 2,000. So how are these clubs staying financial when noone is in the ground, they can’t sell their catering rights, they have travel costs to get them all around the country, they have the same administrative costs as a Div 1, but not the same income?
4. Who is signing to play with a team in DIv 1 with even the most remote bit of talent – especially now that you have 24 teams?
5. You say “Provides a more natural exit path for failing clubs”. A club will lose its sponsors – no one is paying top dollar to be a second tier team sponsor, lose it players, lose its key staff, lose its fringe fan base. It will diminish totally, and you won’t have 24 teams for very long!
6 How is Div 2 Canberra Raiders competing with the Brumbies? How are the 2nd tier Titans competing with the Gold Coast Suns? How are the 2nd tier Panthers or Perth based team competing with the Western Sydney Wanders or the West Coast Eagles?

Australian Rules fans (on mass) are more passionate than league fans, the VFL could never be a second tier league, it battles as is, and a second tier national rugby league competition would be worse!

The reason you get shot down, is because a 2nd tier will never, ever, ever work. We don’t have the population, we don’t have enough corporate dollars, we have too many different sports and we don’t have a culture of going to second tier events just because our team is playing.

The only problem with building and buying your own $200m Stadium, is once you pay it off, being able to maintain, uprade and replace the asset over time. Easier said than done.

My heart skipped a beat!

You had me for the briefest moment.

The Wanders season is a success end of story. I don’t think anyone could argue that, and it will still be a success even if they get knocked out early in the finals. It was all about giving the A-League a presence in western sydney and being competitive, and they did that.

If it were any other champion cyclist from any other country, would the significant drop in results and lack of comment from rider be just put down to getting older or lack of form, or would we be a little more sceptical…?

What?? Where did i say Manly didn’t serve to win that game? I said it was an oridinary game and was critical of Tigers and Sea Eagles players!

Mals I think you might be a lousy winner

Agree 100% with Gallop.

Its a different market to Europe, and the A-League has a different position on the sporting landscape than the EPL, La Liga etc. in their respective countries.

Awful game. Slow, error ridden, poorly officiated and dull. Wet whether games can be fascinating. This one wasn’t.

By the way. the star Tiger, Marshall was a complete non factor, not getting involved at all and Manly ace Stewart, did absolutely nothing for 60 minutes until his team was up 14 and in control, then he popped up a few times, but only a few… So where was the equivalent vitriol that was thrown at Hayne last week?

Only part i enjoyed was the Matai pattened, stay down with an upper body injury after an error midway through the second half, only to be able to play on like nothing was wrong the remainder of the match, then hobble around like he had been shot in the leg at fulltime. Given he made, what 5 errors on the night, I was suprised he didn’t go down earlier..

It was Reddy. And yes.

Then there was the no try to Williams where
Moltzen could have been penalised for diving feet first
Blair could have been penalised for a shoulder charge.
And Lyon (as a decoy runner) made ocntact with Anasta and knocked him over.

Three possible penalties.. ruling… goal line drop out…. go figure…

Ref’s haven’t been too bad this year. They were atrocious last night.

Why do you say that?

From what i understand (all rumor of course) the bigger shock would have been if Kasiano and Barba had come back this week.

Its not a big change but yes you can say that the banning of the shoulder charge is resulting in fewer stoppages, absolutley. I would say in previous years, on average there was at least one staoppage in every game for an injury from a shoulder charge, or a video review of a shoulder charge, or simply a penalrty from a shoulder charge which connected high. Now we are getting 1 a round.

So you are actually enjoying the game less because there is no shoulder charges in the game? IF that is the case, I feel sorry for you because you have been missing a lot of great skill and action for many years if all you watch for is shoulder charges…

Clipper. That may have some merit if the A-League was running against the NRL coverage for 26 weeks of the year, but as we know it isn’t the case.

I saw on Wide World of Sports on Sunday a story done on WSW and the impact of WSW on western Sydney, focusing on a fan who attends all the games. It was a good piece and A 100% positive story on WSW. I think it was Tim Sherridan, their most active sports journo.

Why would Nine run that story if they were so against soccer?

Ok
Never said i was a journalist – so good analysis there. People hold media passes for lots of different reasons, camera man, runners, statisticians, commentators etc…

The kids enjoyed the flares – what a suprise! Kids enjoy fireworks on the harbour at New Years – why not let them rig the fireworks up themselves. If there was a later edit to that story, no problem, but please don’t tell me that letting members of the public set of flares in crowded situations is safe, its quite obviously not.

As for “Just because you say “it happens” is not evidence that something happened.”. You are 100% right. The EVIDENCE isn’t what I say it is the unedited video footage taken by a member of the public as fans hurl abuse at a guy sitting in a restaurant.. It is the guy caught on camera walking up and cracking a bloke in the back of the head – mind you if the guy had actually been watching the game, maybe that doesn’t happen as well…

I went to A-League games long after I stopped attending games with media accreditation. But until football take some more responsibility, I won’t be going back – which should make both of us happy I suspect.

How can you name Waston as an opener and an all-rounder. If he can’t bat in the middle order and not bowl, then how do you expect him to open and bowl? It is quite clear he can’t do both. infact he struggles to do either well.

After three rounds, apart from the media talk, I haven’t noticed it missing from the game.

The game is still tough, there are still big hits. If anythig, it has meant fewer stoppages for high tackles, fewer players on report and fewer injuries.

You know what Sky Blue;

I will put my hand up and say I didn’t read your entire post above. So sorry. Why? Because the first two sentances painted a very clear picture of ignorance.

I watch the same news as you do, I have never seen a Ch 9 commentator/presenter/reporter label every soccer fan as a hooligan. Have you? No you haven’t. But you want to sensationalise it (the exact thing you acuse the media of doing) as away of building some sort of defence mechanism.

Again, no one is saying all soccer fans are the problem, but unfortunatley you can’t possibly deny or erase the history the sport has created for itself dating back to the NSL, and as a result of issues that have happened over seas. And while linking issues with A-legaue crowds to overseas examples probably isn’t fair, lets be honest, issues like what happened in Parramatta the other night, happen every other weekend in parts of Europe, and we would like to avoid that becoming the norm in this country, so behaviour needs to be altered now.

By blaming the media, which is what you are doing, you are denying wrong doing. I would think that is pretty obvious.

These guys sum up the problem perfectly.

The A-League and (a percentage of) their fans need to take responsiblity, but they either don’t think there is a problem, or they believe that their sport is somehow different from other sports and therefore people are entitled to behave differently.

Football United, your repsonse is frightening. Parking the social repsonsibility issue, lets just look at the logistics. You think seperating fans solves the problem. So how does that prevent what happened in the streets of Parramatta the other night? Does one set of fans need to get to the ground at a certain time, and the other fans at another time?

By your logic we should segregate different races in society because of a history of violence between those countires of origin and that will result in no violence in the streets of our major cities..

He still has some growing up to do, but he is only 20/21 so I can cut him some slack.

What I do like, is that he is honest. He isn’t hiding behind too many cliche’s. And on the court, he is definitely working harder.

LK you are right.
He was the golden child when made captain of the junior rep sides, and was fast tracked into the full test team ahead of players with many more credentials than him, and it has been no different throughout his career to the point he was made Australian VC despite having no leadership skills.

As for the article, to compare him the bowling numbers of Kallis, a player with 120 more test under his belt than Watson, is insulting. Apart from the sheer duration of the career, Kallis has been called on, his entire career to bowl long spells when wickets were hard to come by. Watson bowls short spells, and much like the mythical view that he can play shots all around the wicket, doesn’t really swing the ball as much as commentators say he does.

Look at the bright side – No more Glen Munsie either!