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Wanderers Ways. Neil Thompson 1961-2021

Rugby Is Back....


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I thought we might beat the Aussies and then get hammered in the final.

 

Seems daft that when Aussies and NZ seem to have the upper hand we split the GB team so Scotland or Wales or Ireland nick players who play for us.

 

Why not just play GB , Aussies and NZ ?

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I thought we might beat the Aussies and then get hammered in the final.

 

Seems daft that when Aussies and NZ seem to have the upper hand we split the GB team so Scotland or Wales or Ireland nick players who play for us.

 

Why not just play GB , Aussies and NZ ?

Just trying to expand the RL game out of the hinterlands of Lancs & Yorks.

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Just trying to expand the RL game out of the hinterlands of Lancs & Yorks.

Been trying to expand it for as long as I can remember, and It's not really working. In Aussie RL is at worst the No2 most popular sport. In England RL is behind hopscotch but just in front of dwarf throwing.

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And no Tarquin has shoed it three furlongs into the stand yet to avoid getting tackled by the bigger boys. And I can't help but notice the absence of any meaningful scrums of any description. An RL farce really..

 

 

Amended free of all charge.

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Been trying to expand it for as long as I can remember, and It's not really working. In Aussie RL is at worst the No2 most popular sport. In England RL is behind hopscotch but just in front of dwarf throwing.

 

 

Arguable now mate. Since the advent of the A League (association football), if you wish to go off crowd sizes, then it's possibly a piss weak third.

 

They have tried everything to get it to spread down here. Almost every expansion club away from NSW and Queensland has folded. The public vote with their feet. Can't get near Aussie Rules and real football is slowly but surely moving towards the first chime of the death knell for RL.

 

Even though it's clearly incorrect, RL is still perceived as a game for fat, piss head miners and associated with Working Mens clubs, brass bands etc. Clearly wrong but it seems it's never going to change. Minority sport forever.

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Even though it's clearly incorrect, RL is still perceived as a game for fat, piss head miners and associated with Working Mens clubs, brass bands etc. Clearly wrong but it seems it's never going to change. Minority sport forever.

 

I spoke with quite a few RL fans this weekend, almost all of them conceded that as great as RL is (in their eyes) it is a sport that is in massive decline. The reasons for this ranged from Sky fucking them over, changing it to a summer sport, awful marketing and my favourite was the game being "too robotic"  (which I'm not sure I understood)

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I've seen some of it on tele, it's boring as fuck. Every single try goes to the video ref, every single one. Can I just check the grounding? Can I just go back and check blah blah blah. It results in everyone in the ground watching the screen awaiting the result. Tedious.

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I was at an under 16's game of RU at the weekend.

Bloody hell there were three punch ups and a brawl, tackles that made your eyes water and one lad with a dislocated shoulder.

Not for the faint hearted.

16 year olds do that no matter where they are. Putting them together on a rugby pitch is probably less brutal.

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All of the test series between GB and the Aussies in the 80's/90's were some of the most skilful and brutal sport I have ever seen. Attended every single one and each time they beat us by a relatively small margin

 

The Aussie side that beat us on Sunday were nowhere near the levels of the Meninga/Lewis/Kenny sides of the past yet they barely seemed to break sweat

 

Breaking GB into the different nations has done us no good. That said I can't pick a GB side that would have done any better

 

I'd still take a Rugby League game over a Prem game at the moment though and The Grand Final is still my sporting highlight of the year

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I spoke with quite a few RL fans this weekend, almost all of them conceded that as great as RL is (in their eyes) it is a sport that is in massive decline. The reasons for this ranged from Sky fucking them over, changing it to a summer sport, awful marketing and my favourite was the game being "too robotic" (which I'm not sure I understood)

Wouldn't go that far. Summer rugby is miles better and sky have "ruined" many sports. They also keep them alive.

 

The marketing however is straight out of the 18th century. The product is there...more people watched the Scotland v NZ game on Saturday that the England South Africa game later on. Somehow though we manage to stumble from.one disaster to another.

 

Or another way of looking at it is we had 25000 watch the game in Coventry and 35000 in East London.

 

And bolty, read up on how many people watch nrl in Australia. It shits all over the fat lads game week in week out and is why they pay so much for nrl rights. 4.5million watched state of origin, barely a million watched Aus v England in union. Take away the huge aussie rules attendances in Melbourne (does anyone else even bother with it outside there) and nrl is more popular.

 

http://www.footyindustry.com/?p=2919

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And bolty, read up on how many people watch nrl in Australia. It shits all over the fat lads game week in week out and is why they pay so much for nrl rights. 4.5million watched state of origin, barely a million watched Aus v England in union. Take away the huge aussie rules attendances in Melbourne (does anyone else even bother with it outside there) and nrl is more popular.

 

 

 

Smiffers - AFL is the national game mate. Two teams in Sydney, two in Queensland, two in Adelaide, two in Perth and they all get good crowds.

 

TBF I have not checked NRL regular weekly crowds in detail over here and concede that SOO is huge and sells out (and is usually a beltin' watch purely because of its intensity). From what I have seen, not many NRL games exceed 20,000 attendance. AFL matches in Adelaide and Perth sell out (there are waiting lists for the West Coast Eagles, Port Adelaide and Adelaide Crows season tickets). NRL comes a very poor second and are becoming hysterically worried about the huge growth in football from every angle.

 

Parents are now choosing 'soccer' for their kids before what they perceive to be dangerous pastimes like AFL and NRL. There have been crowds of 40,000 and 50,000 at recent A League games (which NRL can only match with SOO games). The two established games are openly shitting themselves and discussing their fears on TV talk shows etc.

 

Both acknowledge their 'limited appeal' and the aspirational side of association football (i.e. play all over the world, World Cups, European Cups and championships - note a lot of Aussie kids have dual nationality) and can't see how they can compete. They have both been actively working against the growth of football for decades but fighting a losing battle. The floodgates have opened now and Australia having found an easier route to World Cup finals has had a massive part to play. When they used to have to two leg it in a qualifying match with the fourth best team in South America, they rarely got through. Now they are in a SE Asia qualifying group, their chances have improved dramatically.

 

Your loyalty to the mining towns game is admirable sir but reality has to be faced. It is not going to grow and will remain a minority sport in world terms for the foreseeable future.

 

Comparing RL to RU is like comparing a rowing boat to the HMS Prince Of Wales.

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That link I posted shows that other than 80000 sell puts at Mcg for the aussie rules, nrl more often than not better attendances. TV audiences is where it's at though. And if what you say is right nrl must be year after year punching above its weight. Odd that for a pub game.

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That link I posted shows that other than 80000 sell puts at Mcg for the aussie rules, nrl more often than not better attendances. TV audiences is where it's at though. And if what you say is right nrl must be year after year punching above its weight. Odd that for a pub game.

 

 

As NSW is the biggest population and NRL is their game, I suppose it is logical.

 

Apart from one team in Melbourne though it has never been able to establish outside of NSW and Queensland.

 

Aussie rules has - very successfully. Not sure where the West Coast Eagles show up in those charts but I assure you every home game is sold out which is why they are moving from the 43,500 capacity Patersons Stadium to this:-

 

http://www.perthstadium.com.au/

 

I am unaware of any NRL club which can boast regular crowds like that. It seems that average crowds are around 15,000:-

 

http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/why-cant-the-nrl-get-crowds-like-the-afl-does-20150915-gjne5i.html

Edited by bolty58
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Arguing? Discussing.

 

You are correct about NRL and AFL being minority sports though. One played in two thirds of one country, the other in two fifths of one country, three English counties and token presence in France and Papua New Guinea.

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