I was in the local mall in Wagga Wagga and there was AFL beating the drum and getting young kids to sign up to play. League is suffering through no grass roots development and another country town team has pulled out of the group playing in the area. Are we alone or is the league giving up in areas like ours and conceding that AFL is more popular and therefore not worth the effort.
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If AFL wasn’t such a queer boring game The NRL would’ve lost me ages ago . I can honestly say I watched about 50% less games last year and 50% Less last year vs the year before . In fact I’d say the games virtually lost me already and I only watch Eels games when it suits my schedule . A few years ago I would’ve missed my child’s birth if it coincided with a Parra game .
I demanded a TV at my wedding reception in the smoking area cause we were playing The Warriors round 1 that night . 11 years ago to the day on St Patrick’s day.
I hear ya,I used to be right into it but now I only watch Parra games. Haven’t taken much notice of grand final day for years and it used to be a big day when I was growing up. I don’t know exactly when it died but it seems to be getting worse every year.
AFL is in a lot of country towns in NSW and Qld
The problem in some of the qld towns which also are mining towns is the fly in fly out drive in drive out ,these towns are becoming camps families are living elsewhere.
I went home to over charismas and I heard ruby union taking over there and the group 14 area
Eel bandit i dont know about your area but i do know this. I am on the central coast and here there is huge competition from soccer which is big; and as i work in education we have afl trying to get into my school every year.....to me the NRL has done little to ‘meaningfully promote’ league to kids. They have pushed the girls etc and i think that’s at the detriment of boys; as parents are open to the promotions of AFL / soccer...which is different contact. I also have a regional rep team and know that we fail to get many kids from the Beecroft / Ryde area as afl / soccer and union are big....
The nrl has a bit to answer for as they do not seem to be meaningfully getting into schools etc its superficial stuff, which is not real. They need to work hard and do this year in year out and not just talks by players; they need to put real money into schools / and clubs to promote the game for boys and girls - a 30 min talk by an nrl player isn’t going to change much; but meaningful skills sessions etc will do more.
Rugby league was big here until a few years ago. Sport conversation is almost all AFL and very little league and this is from an area that Sterling and the Mortimer Brothers as well as a lot of other great footballers came from. It’s a shame that this is happening.
Rugby League has been shown up big time in Australia with the "boys club" administration falling asleep at wheel. The NRL took Western Sydney for granted and limped along from scandal to scandal, meanwhile the AFL, soccer and cricket went on a grass roots binge in RL heartland.
The programs that the AFL, cricket NSW and Football Australia offer to kids and schools are superb! Well trained clean cut players speak (well) to kids and parents and give them great free swag.
And now the AFL and BBL both have prominent women's leagues so they're getting both the sons and daughters. RL has some massive catch up work to do and it needs to do it fast because other sports are doing grass roots way better.
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