I do like the idea of having two divisions, though... and as a Soccer man first and foremost, it is something i often think about... Open up the Salary Cap, and re-enter The Steelers, and Western Suburbs, and North Sydney in the second tear... As for more QLD Teams... Townsville, Brisbane, and the Gold Coast are just about your only major cities... and i doubt very much any of those towns could cope with more than one club. Can you imagine South Brisbane, North Brisbane, East Brisbane, and West Brisbane? Which is the scenario in Sydney.... where do you think all the money would come from??? They might open 3 more massive Leagues' clubs and back them that way, i wonder? i dont think so...
I dont think anyone that follows the game in NSW would be against this commision and merging all the different bodies and stuff... Maybe you need to take issue with the people who actually run the game in NSW, and not the New South Welshman themselves because i think you'll find that we would probably agree on most points...
But for me, we shouldnt be spending money on making it a 'national' game... because as we both agree.. the other states just do not care... The money needs to be spent in the community and the first thing i'd be doing is replicating the 'Auskick' program because that is the #1 killer in our game...
my partners' mum is involved in teaching and ive found myself time and time again talking to primary school teachers about how brilliant Auskick is.. they come in, take the kids away from the teachers, so the schools themselves love it, they give the kids free stuff, and they make the whole day fun... so they go home and tell their mum that they want to play AFL.. that's where it begins... They even sent out some Swans to an all GIRLS school in our area the other day.. Apparantly all rugby will do is organise to have a couple of players come out to the school, but then it's up to the school themselves to set out activites and whatever...
Anyway.. that's the first thing! but there are a million little things that need changing... and before they start giving money to Melbourne again, or looking at setting up teams in Perth.. they need to fix the game in it's heart land...
Guys I must say it is awesome to see the passion switch from Fords to Steedens occasionally.
Storm cheated simple as that, if there was a mix up regarding third party support the files propably wouldn't have been at Waldrons place. The players dont have to go, for the club to stay under the salary cap, they just dont screw so hard in negotiations. Unfortunately the lack of a "loyalty Clause" in the cap does not allow LOYALTY from either party. The fact that Sydney has had 100 yrs to develop fan bases does not allow for the changing demographics of the city, I dont think there is too much working class in Redfern these days, and it is surprising how much support is from interstate and country areas, especially with new membership packages which are designed for this and much more affordable. The game is growing but no where near big enough to support much more than we have, even in a two tier system all the money will go to the top tier and sponsorship will drop after relegaton. Compare sponsorship of Fujitsu to the main game.
Anyhow bring on Origin and lets wipe the smile off of those Toads faces.
Is there any truth to the rumour Sam Burgess is playing for the maroons this year as he flew over it on the way to Sydney??? Bit like Inglis.
Good luck and God Speed at Winton boys.
Hey Mitch if the Sydney people turned up to follow the Sydney teams like they did to watch a 16 year old QLD girl come home after sailing around the world we wouldn't be having this conversation [sa][sa][sa]
Brisbane has one team. If Sydney had one team I'm quite certain we'd fill the ground, but as I keep saying, we have 7 or 8 teams all fighting for the same market. And our 100 years of tradition died when the super league arrived.
Canterbury were stripped of all their points when they got done, but they got busted at the end of the season so they never really had the 'playing for nothing' scenario that melbourne find themselves in. Sucked in to em...
AND Sterlo never played football in QLD. He was raised and played his first footy in NSW. The only reason Inglis went to Brisbane was because he signed for Melbourne and that's where they had their juniors. He learnt to play for bowraville in nsw