THE RL1908 BLOG

News, Reviews & Opinion - Sean Fagan - RL1908.com

The ongoing conundrum is how to expand the NRL beyond NSW and Queensland while keeping the game's traditional heartland content (ie Sydney clubs and their fans).

I admit it - I've no idea how rugby league in Australia could fund this, but hey, I'm gonna toss up the idea anyway...

The problem is once a club is no longer in the NRL competition, its supporter and financial bases are hard to hold on to.

In many ways, it is argued, this is what is holding up rationalisation of the number of NRL clubs in Sydney needed to provide the room for new regional clubs.

Promotion and relegation is not viable, but how about this alternative...

1. Set up a NSW Cup and a Queensland Cup - set some reasonable entry criteria, and let any football club or privately backed team enter. Perhaps these two Cups are run separately, or combined into one NSW/QLD Cup competition or whatever. Perhaps the winners of the NSW Cup play the winners of the QLD Cup in a Grand Final. Either way, eventually one club emerges by the end of August as the winner of this combined NSW/QLD arrangement.

2. Allow the winner of the NSW/QLD competition to enter the NRL semi-finals in position 8 as a NRL "Wildcard" team. In other words, the NRL semi-final teams are the NRL's top 7 teams plus the NSW/QLD Wildcard team.

This arrangement would give non-NRL clubs in NSW and Queensland a real incentive - their ultimate goal being that they could reach and win the NRL Grand Final. In effect, the combined NSW/QLD Cups would become a sub-conference of the NRL competition.

So, at the moment, perhaps Newtown and Norths could be fighting it out with Brisbane Norths and the Sunshine Coast for that NRL wildcard place. Any club that drops out of the NRL competition (for whatever reason) could find life in this 2nd-tier competition and still have a shot at being in the NRL play-offs and Grand Final.

If hard decisions need to be made in a few years time that lead to a current Sydney NRL club dropping out of the NRL, then it won't be a fatal blow.

Sure, the odds of a NSW/QLD Cup winner making it through is a long shot. Perhaps the wildcard's hopes could be improved by re-adopting the NRL's old Top 8 play-offs system (currently used by the AFL) so that the wildcard team plays the 5th placed team and not the NRL minor premiers.

I acknowledge this is a simplistic notion of an idea, but maybe there is something in it.