TWO Sydney NRL club CEOs have rejected the idea of dumping a Sydney club for the sake of a second Brisbane team.

Wests Tigers boss Justin Pascoe declared the joint-venture would be ‘’going nowhere’’, which was a timely response to an exclusive Daily Telegraph online poll that had the club raging favourites to be the first to go if nine local teams were reduced to eight.

Parramatta’s Bernie Gurr and Penrith’s Brian Fletcher said there was no need to axe any club in Sydney, and it would do nothing to improve the worrying crowds.

If anything, dumping or relocating a club would ‘’only alienate a lot of fans’’, said Gurr.

Gurr said unlike Melbourne, Sydney was not an easy city to get around, and the locals not renowned for flocking to sporting events.

“My view is if nine clubs can financially sustain themselves, they should survive,’’ Gurr said.

“The negativity that came from getting rid of Souths certainly outweighed any potential benefit of losing one club.

“And let’s face it, getting rid of one club won’t solve crowd problems for the other eight clubs. Quite frankly, it will only alienate a lot of fans.’’

Gurr said Sydney needed a big venue like ANZ Stadium to host major events, but venues like the new western Sydney stadium that will seat 30,000 fans — and be the Eels’ new home from 2019 — was ‘’ideal’’.

While fans cringe at the idea of their club being punted, they also get worked up about the number of regular season games at ANZ Stadium, with the rows of empty seats at the 80,000 Sydney Olympic Park venue a dreadful look for the game.

Fletcher said the game needed to explore a return to suburban venues to drive crowds, rather than worrying about a debate of which Sydney club should go.

“We need to look at relocating games to suburban areas and back to the heartland where a club’s fans are,’’ Fletcher said.

“It’s not about the number of sides. You will always have strong sides and weak sides, and crowds follow winners, not if you’re losing.

“If you play more games in suburban areas, it will be packed out and look $1 million on TV. Our game against Canberra against Bathurst looked just that because the ground was full.’’

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/nrl/teams/tigers/nrl-ceos-warning-axing-sydney-club-for-another-brisbane-team-wont-boost-crowds/news-story/b97925e83d2edff384b86d9191444f84

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  • Tigers are a disgrase. 6000 to a match is just rubbish. Make a Perth team or something

  • Baby, i see your point, but tell me where are juniors in Perth? I always get skeptical when reading a goose like Buzz Rothfield, and where he works and who for. The NRL have not done nearly enough for the country and real junior development and I am talking about getting into schools, and not just having a mickey mouse comp for girls etc. they need to pump more into development officers etc and flood holiday time with clinics that parents can see are real and affordable for a start. These guys do a good job but they need more help.

    The only reason they would like Perth is for tv time, which again does not mean much for crowds; and i cannot imagine a Syd team working in Perth. Melb have only recently had Melb bred players come though...i think

    • Alright, What about a pacific islander team. Just putting it out there but like 1/4 of our league pacific islanders so we may as well...

    • Agree with all that you have said apart from the Perth juniors. They do have a healthy junior program over there and when the western Reds were playing the junior comps were really strong. They did however collapse some what after the Reds were kicked out.

      Perth is unusual in that it has had a recent population explosion due to the mining boom and that extra population came from migration, mainly Kiwi's, South African and British and interstate migration including from Qld and NSW.

      The Western Reds had healthy crowds when they played of 12,000 to 14,000. I was there for the first game against St George and there was more than 20,000. A ground record for the WACA.

  • What a yawn seriously where has all this talk come from?

    As some people have already mentioned, killing off the Wests Tigers or any other Sydney club will achieve nothing. The Bern has nailed it - Sydney is a different sporting landscape to Melbourne. We don't flock to events. Crowd numbers swell when their teams are winning. That's it. Okay so Wests Tigers had 6,000 fans show up...if they were top of the ladder playing cross town rivals it would be cracking 15,000 which is above average for a Sydney NRL crowd. Members and passive Wests Tigers fans you're talking about 50,000 - 70,000 maybe out there . I guarantee there are nowhere near those numbers in perth or Adelaide or central qld and unlike the AFL the NRL doesn't have the money or brains to see their ambitious expansion clubs succeed on any level.
    • It's all come from Buzz who was bored and decided to kick off some controversy earlier in the week.

    • Good comment Traditional. 

      I still think the NRL are failing juniors in some of these areas; Wests / Tigers have a huge area, and soccer is strong right through Sydney and outskirts, and that is always a danger.

  • Ha, then there will be a push an ATSI team; Cook Is etc. who knows Baby, maybe if they stopped league over SOO, they could have these teams play then? 

  • The Bulldogs Ceo should really be warning about the disastrous riots that would happen if they canned the dogs
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