Expansion Cronulla - Sutherland Shire

[dylan93]

Cairns is NRL territory. At least 80/20

Northern Queensland in general I'd argue is Aussie Rules.

 

[Walshawk]

Northern Queensland in general I'd argue is Aussie Rules.

What makes you say that?

Port Douglas is the only town in NQ that would be pro AFL. Spend a week in Cairns and it is apparent that is is an NRL town. Not even close there or anywhere north of the Gold Coast.

 

[Canberra Pear]

If there was to be a third Sydney team, it would probably be in the south-west. Sort of like the A-League Macarthur. Liverpool/Campbelltown type region. GWS reaches there in name, but not in practice, and would be able to focus more on the Parramatta-Penrith corridor (a little short of Brisbane size in its own right).
And arguably a city the size of Sydney is spread too thin with just two teams trying to cover the promotion, school visits, etc, required for widespread growth in such a population and spread out city.
But not before team 23, imo. So quite some long way off, but still "no beaches". hardly a compelling reason to place a footy team. I reckon Gold Coast might have as beach hidden away somewhere nearby, and aren't exactly player retention heaven.

I reckon the AFL should be getting in early with the Aerotropolis and making sure there's an AFL-capable stadium (or at least room for one), near the middle of that development.

 

[Borisdog]

Northern Queensland in general I'd argue is Aussie Rules.

You’d argue incorrectly.

There’s plenty of expats from the core Aussie Rules states up here, but they are mostly transient residents. The Broncos and the Cowboys have massive support. Most of the born and bred up here don’t follow AFL at all.

I don’t know anything about the Cairns Aussie rules comp but the Townsville one is pretty much a joke. And TSV is a bigger city than CNS. Rugby league utterly dominates at all levels of school sport also.

It’d be a waste of time and money in much the same way as the NRL/Superleague found when they tried to put clubs in Adelaide and Perth.

 

[Giant YoYo]

I reckon the AFL should be getting in early with the Aerotropolis and making sure there's an AFL-capable stadium (or at least room for one), near the middle of that development.

The AFL struggles in older, established suburbs in Western Sydney, particularly the centre of Sydney. They tend to do much better in new suburbs. The fringes being the exception where footy seems to have a presence (Penrith, Camden, Richmond).

They have a number of footy fields in new / new growth suburbs but these are all so far from Olympic Park.

Their struggle seems to be in old, established suburbs mostly in the centre of western Sydney where you won't find any footy fields in the centre of Sydney. Between the inner west and Western Sydney, it's a long way away from the next public footy field.

 

[Canberra Pear]

The AFL struggles in older, established suburbs in Western Sydney, particularly the centre of Sydney. They tend to do much better in new suburbs. The fringes being the exception where footy seems to have a presence (Penrith, Camden, Richmond).

They have a number of footy fields in new / new growth suburbs but these are all so far from Olympic Park.

Their struggle seems to be in old, established suburbs mostly in the centre of western Sydney where you won't find any footy fields in the centre of Sydney. Between the inner west and Western Sydney, it's a long way away from the next public footy field.

Exactly. It's easier to build in greenfield areas then push your way into already built suburbs.

Bradfield (the Aerotropolis) is expected to be centre of the "Western Parkland City", within 30 minutes for people in Liverpool, Campbelltown and Penrith.

It might seem getting a bit ahead of ourselves, but if we had our time again, I'm sure the AFL would've loved to get a stadium into Parramatta when it was still viable.

 

[Freomaniac]

The whole "Canberra struggles to attract talent because there's no beach" thing is a convenient media beat up.

The Raiders, like all NRL sides outside of the metros, struggle to attract top talent because they have to pay overs to get them to leave Sydney, and SEQ to a lesser extent, and the cap equalisation methods in the NRL are totally broken.

Look at it this way; if you were settled in Sydney and you had two offers on the table, one to move to Canberra that paid $50-100k more, and another to play for a different team a suburb over that didn't require you to relocate, move the kids schools, be separated from friends and family and have to form new relationships, etc, which would you take?

The reality is that most people go for the later unless there's some other factor pressuring them to move.

It's also not just the Raiders either. The Knights, Cowboys, Titans, and NZ all struggle to attract talent from interstate as well. In fact I can't remember the last time any of them signed an established star in their prime that had other options from Sydney. Maybe when Tuivasa-Sheck went to the Warriors before going to rugby, but they only pulled that off because of his desire to return to NZ. The Storm rarely attract established talent either to be honest.

If you look back over NSWRL/NRL history the "regional" teams have only won the premiership 6 times. The core of the great Raiders teams of the 90s was built before the salary cap was introduced, and the Knights and Cowboys got lucky and stumbled on two of the greatest players of all time. Andrew Johns was a local hero and Thurston was overlooked by pretty much everybody and ended up at the Cowboys. Both of them could have had much more successful careers had they taken big money offers to move to one of the bigger teams in Sydney, Brisbane, or Melbourne, but chose to stay loyal.

There's also the Brumbies and other sports. The Brumbies are Canberra based, have little trouble attracting talent, and are the most successful Australian side in Super Rugby. If Canberra being "boring" and not having a beach was the issue it'd effect them as well, but it doesn't, and never really has.

The ACT Brumbies In Rugby union was well run in the 1990s and 2000s. George Gregan was one of the best Wallabies in history.

In a way ACT Brumbies were basically a mixture of NSW and Queensland rejects and decent young Canberra locals.

An AFL side in Southern NSW could work. If you wanna spread the fan base from Redfern to the south coast.

 

[Pie eyed]

People who repeatedly inflicted Scott Morrison on us don't deserve nice things.

Based solely on that fact The Shire should either be gifted to NZ or sold to Trump.
Either way they pay to dig it up and get it to their country.

 

[Mitchell Madness]

Newcastle is the untapped market. The locals there are dedicated to their NRL team, but unlike other parts of NSW, they will support any team that represents them, rather than just supporting the code

 

[Chunky Steak]

I'm a biased Canberran but Canberra is the clear option and if I'd had my way, the Giants would have just been a Canberra side from the start. The capital and surrounds are projected to hit 800k population by 2060 and we have a health and sport focused population with disposable income to burn.

The beach factor barely makes a dent in comparison to Cronulla Sutherland, when it comes to all the other factors. And the growth of Canberra has made it a much more interesting and "fun" place to live than it was 30 years ago.

I'm a Pie and always will be, but becoming a foundation member of a Canberra side would be one of the easiest decisions of my life.