In this week’s edition of Let’s Talk Sport 4RO’s Aaron Stevens joined CQ Today and Gladstone Today journalist Liam Emerton to continue their chat about our national leagues expanding.
Aaron: A lot of talk about another Perth AFL team, a lot of talk about another New South Wales team, maybe a Western New South Wales team.
I think there’s two standout options here for the AFL. One is Darwin.
Obviously Darwin is the only territory as such, not represented by the AFL except the ACT. But the other one is Cairns.
Cairns has a massive AFL following. They already play games there regularly.
I think that that would be a move. So Cairns or Darwin, it wouldn’t surprise me if that was announced by the AFL either the year that Tasmania comes into or the following, and they’d want to do it pretty quickly if they’re giving Tassie five years.
But as for the NRL I’m just confused.
We are going to see another team coming to the competition eventually, but can we spend two or three seasons the way it is at the moment with the 17th team?
Can we spend two or three seasons where one team misses out a magic round?
Can we look at a ladder the way it is at the moment and be completely confused for two or three seasons?
And if they are going to go down the line of adding another team, even another couple of teams, it would seem to me that the front runners that we are hearing about is a Pacifica team playing out of Cairns.
I don’t know how a Pacifica team playing out of Cairns would work, how does a team represented by Tonga and Fiji and Samoa get any following in Cairns when most of them are either Broncos or Cowboy supporters?
You’re gonna get the team that they’re playing each week, obviously supporters for those teams, but I just don’t know how that system would work when most people pack up every second weekend and go and watch the Cowboys play.
Liam: It’s an interesting one. I don’t like that as much as I like the North Sydney Bears heading over to Perth, the Perth Bears or the Western Bears, whatever you want to call them.
I like that idea. I think we need to get into Western Australia. It’s a massive state, and I think they’re begging for rugby league football.
I also don’t mind the idea of going to the Northern Territory where we know it always puts on a massive crowd.
We saw it only a couple of weeks ago with the Parramatta game where they played out at Darwin.
So, I don’t mind those two. I don’t think it’s time to go north.
We’ve got Townsville, they’re close enough. It would be a great derby, but it’s too much.
I like the idea of going across or even to Tasmania.
I think we’ve gotta rival the AFL down there as well.
So you’ve gotta make a choice. You’ve gotta understand that if we let the AFL have so much, then they’re just gonna take it.
If we expand we’ve gotta go west or we’ve gotta go to the Northern Territory, one of the two.
Even a PNG team that has to play out a PNG I, I really like the idea of that.
But what’s the support gonna be when they arrive in Australia? So there’s a lot of questions to be answered.
Luckily, Aaron, we don’t make those decisions, we just get to speculate on them.
But It’s not working.
Poor Knight fans didn’t get to watch their team at Magic Round.
And I would assume that we actually get the 18th team before the AFL get their 19th and 20th, because I think they’ve, they’ve left it too long, and the NRL are gonna sneak in just before it all takes place.
Aaron: You’d, you’d like to see that happen. There’s been discussions about having three teams and jumping to a 20 team competition.
That’s probably a bit too dramatic in the short term, but definitely by 2028, 29, 30 seasons you’d like to see 20 teams in the competition.
I agree with you. A Western team obviously is beckoning.
It’s been on the cards for a long time. It’s a shame we left Western Australia in the first place. They love their rugby league in Adelaide too.
Adelaide is the big gap in the middle. But the other one that I’d like to see, and maybe a Tongan or a Samoan team would fix this. I’d love to see a team rival the Warriors.
The Warriors don’t have a natural rivalry in the NRL and I think it’d be great to see either another New Zealand team or a Pacifica team playing out of the Pacific region, rather than playing out of Cairns.
They don’t have a derby as such. So that’s always an option too. But you know, let’s get into Darwin before the AFL do. Let’s set ourselves up in Darwin. A place where as you said, Parramatta take a game every year. It’s always successful. There’s a lot of talk about NRL up there. It is a semi AFL heartland, so you’re attacking them on their own ground.
It’ll be a great opportunity. We’ve missed the Tasmania opportunity now, but I think there’s some great opportunities for the NRL and they need to make decisions really soon.
Let’s do it quickly.
Definitely. How much do you think that the Tasmanian team looks into the Dolphins situation and what they’ve done, mate?
Do they look and say, we have to sign one of the greatest coaches of all time.
We have to look for that option to sign him up quickly. Do they look a lot into what the Dolphins have done or because it’s so hard building a franchise team like that.
From my experience in the A League, the Wanderers did it perfectly while Macarthur did it awfully.
So you’ve got to take a lot out of that, don’t you?
Aaron: Once again I’m referring to my time in Tasmania and my understanding of Tasmanians, they consider us the northern island.
They’re passionate and they’re very parochial about being Tasmanian.
I think they will build their team around Tasmanians.
They’ll be looking for a coach that’s Tasmanian, they’ll be looking for players who are Tasmanian
And people at the top in the board who are well known and popular Tasmanians.
Peter Gutwein, who’s the former premier is a very smart man and it won’t take long till he is named as the chairman.It’s very likely that’ll happen. There are so many people who’ve been behind this process for the last not just five or six years but for the last 40 years.
They’ll have the red and green, which we see in cricket.
They’ll be the kind of colours, it’ll be very Tasmanian.
Mind you, if they are looking for a very experienced coach and someone who’s been successful bringing new teams into the competition, how do you reckon Wayne Bennett would go coaching in the AFL?
Liam: Oh, mate. He could coach anything. He could coach a rock down the hill.
And as much as we talk about Wayne Bennett, he did sign a lot of Queenslanders.
And that’s that passion, isn’t it? The Queensland spirit really does fly through the Dolphins, and I think their fans have responded to that.
And we’ve seen that with other expansion teams. Wanderers has signed a lot of Western Sydney boys, and that was a big thing for them.
So successful teams build on the back of what makes their city or their region successful. And I wouldn’t surprise me if Tasmania takes the pride of Tazzie and gives it to the rest of Australia.
Aaron: Let’s continue this conversation. What about the A-league? Are the, a-league ready to expand
Liam: The A-League already expanded too much.
It expanded before it was ready to expand and that became the problem with the North Queensland Fury.
We had the North Queensland Fury that failed. We had the Gold Coast United, it failed.
We had what we needed there was Wollongong. And, obviously I’m a little bit biassed.
I studied at Wollongong Uni and the passion that was there was massive.
But they went to Macarthur, which didn’t have that growth.
It’s a footy town and it always has been.
So they failed in their attempt. I can’t see them going any further.
What I would like to see is maybe another New Zealand side, like you said, to rival the other New Zealand team.
I would love to see a north -south island sort of derby, which would be great for the Rugby league as well.
But I think right now they’re treading above water. I don’t think they can afford to expand and they don’t have enough fans just to stretch them more.
I highly doubt it, mate. I don’t want to see it anymore. And it, it, it’s just not in the right position right now to do so.
Aaron: What about rugby Union? We know the code is struggling and they’re backing some big name recruits at the moment to try and get some headlines.
It’d be interesting to see what happens with Joseph Sua’ali’i and and where they sort of fit him into the system.
But is there room for expansion in rugby? Is it time to, if they are going to be as proactive as rugby need to be, to bring the code back to where it used to be? Is there room for expansion in Australia from a rugby point of view?
Liam: I think there is, but I don’t think it is now. I think it is built off the back of the World Cup. You need to draw that interest in to create that fan base and give those casual fans who are going to watch the World Cup and enjoy it, you have to give those casual fans something to cheer about.
Once it’s over. I think that would be the perfect time to pull the trigger, have it all set in stone beforehand, but then really bring that team in and give someone that’s a casual fan a team to support and start fresh.
I don’t see why you would expand before the World Cup. They’re spending enough money as it is on NRL players.
But one league that’s done really well is the NBL. And we talked about the Tasmanian Jack Jumpers a lot last year.
That was a great, great play from the NBL.
Aaron: It’s interesting, isn’t it?
Let’s dream for a moment. If any code were to come to Central Queensland, what would it be? I can’t see the AFL coming here because we’re, we’re, we’re a rugby league region.
We’re not gonna get a rugby league team anytime soon. That moment passed a few years ago.
A-league aren’t gonna be expanding anytime soon. If there was one code, which has a great following in Central Queensland and has the potential where there’s a massive gap would be maybe rugby union.
Could you see a super rugby side in the next 10 years being based in CQ?
There’s a wonderful rugby following. There’s obviously that massive gap outside of the major centres that would be our best hope. Or maybe basketball?
Liam: I actually thought you were going tp go to basketball, Aaron.
If I could have any team here, and like you said, if it was a logical choice, I think basketball would be really, really big here.
I think our arena here in Rockhampton has the potential to be big enough, obviously you would want to expand it.
But we’re selling out crowds every week for the Rockhampton for the Rockhampton Rockets who aren’t playing particularly well at the moment.
And Gladstone always draws a brilliant crowd and both of their teams are playing pretty well in the QSL-2.