Last year the debate about how the NRL should be structured if at all was raging on the forum. One of the Posters Keith Whitelock had a very interesting idea using the conference system. So for this blog I have asked Keith to write a about and explain it in some more detail.
David Gallop has done nothing to distil the widely believed consensus that two new teams will be admitted into the NRL in 2013. This has triggered a flurry of activity from many areas keen to boost their local economy with a top tier rugby league team. In fact offers have either been fielded, or are in the making, from three different countries. The most serious bid (and more than likely a shoe in) comes from the Central Coast Bears(NSW). Other potential bids have come in from Central Queensland, South East Queensland, Wellington, Perth and even the country of Papua New Guinea.
Some of these bids are more advanced than others and each have their own positives and negatives. Your average rugby league fan would agree that each of these bids has merit and would offer something to the future of the NRL. However, only two can be admitted to take the total amount of teams up to 18.
There have been a total of 33 team since the Australian Rugby League competition started 101 years ago. Obviously gaining an average based of these sorts of statistics is extremely black and white. For arguments sake though, let’s derive our statistics in a black and white view. Not including the eight inaugural clubs that participated in rugby leagues inception year in 1908, a new club has been admitted just over every four years. Let’s be conservative and round that down to two new clubs every 10 years.
Fast forward to 2013; two new clubs have just been admitted. Is that the end of expansion in the NRL forever? Obviously not. As indicated in the last “cycle of expansion” in 2007 where Central Coast Bears and Wellington Orcas missed out in favour of Gold Coast Titans, regions usually persist with their bids in the hope of gaining entry in the future, or “next cycle”. Other viable bids will more than likely come up as the years go by. If each bid were to eventually be granted entry than the NRL would end up with 30+ teams.
Around the world when a sporting competition becomes too successful/ large for one sole competition they either become a conference system or split into multiple tiers; a relegation system. Geographically, competitions that span large areas (such as the USA) usually go with the conference system with smaller countries (such as Britain) going with the relegation system. To go by this theory and automatically put Australia in the larger area conference group would be ignorant to the uniqueness of the situation Australia finds itself in (a relatively low population with a large land mass).
Despite this uniqueness, the conference system is still the logical way to go. The obviously two conferences would be the NSW/ACT tier along with a tier consisting of the out of NSW/ACT team (in essence “the rest”) Needless to say, one can’t predict the future but below is a potential look at what a conference system would be like:
Canberra Raiders
Central Coast Bears
Newcastle Knights
Illawarra Steelers
St George Dragons
Cronulla Sharks
South Sydney Rabbitohs
Eastern Suburbs Roosters
Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs
Parramatta Eels
Penrith Panthers
Manly Sea Eagles
Western Suburbs Magpies (or Macarthur Magpies)
Balmain Tigers.
Brisbane Broncos
Melbourne Storm
North Queensland Cowboys
South East Queensland or Central Queensland (only one)
Gold Coast Titans
PNG Kumuls
Auckland Warriors
Wellington Orcas
Second Melbourne team
Adelaide Rams
Perth Reds
Christchurch
There is not a team on either list with a population of below 200,000 in the area they represent.
Each conference would go for 20 rounds with an emphasis put on traditional derbies to help with fiscal management. This would be followed by a 6 week finals series with home region advantage derived from rankings. The final series would be totally decentralised allowing a grand final to be played in any of a number of cities. A minimum stadium capacity of 50,000 would be required to host a grand final.
The depth in player number would need to be very strong for this system to be truly successful. However, this system is an option for Australasian rugby league at least 20 years from now thus player numbers and general population figures would be significantly higher. Current registered player numbers stand at just over 200,000 rugby league players in Australia (not including schools, Austag or Touch Football) along with over 150,000 in PNG. New Zealand is said to have around 25,000 although that number is hoped to increase with the recent restructuring of NZRL with an emphasis on the future (perhaps 100,000 registered players in 20 years). Non traditional player pools such as South Africa could also be tapped into to provide further depth.
Perhaps all of this sounds far-fetched, dreaming or simply unviable. With the certainty that expansion areas will keep knocking on the door, how less viable can it be than a 30 team competition?
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