What if Super League never happened?.

If Super League never happened would the competition today be better or worse?.  What teams would remain and which ones would have gone if it was or was not for mergers?.  Do you agree with some people who say the game has never really recovered since the super league war?. 

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  • It will never be the same.

    teams I think would be gone are:

    the steelers would still be in the comp if they followed graham murry to Super league. Cronulla only survived cos they went to super.league.

    I still feel there are too many teams just my opinion.

    teams.

    Cronulla, St George, west tigers, .

    the eels dogs and panthers would make a great western Sydney club.  but being an eel supporter I would give up supporting if the eels merged or folded.

    I know so many friends don't watch league now due to the steelers folding. they support the swans.

    • There are too mamy teams based on the $$ being spent on grassroots level, both juniors in Sydney and Brisbane, as well as the CRL.

      14 teams is the right number. But I'm not sure what teams should comprise that 14.
    • Why The Steelers were pushed into that merge still baffles me . They were struggling financially due to BHP struggling at the time , however with a bit of NRL assistance they could’ve recovered, Wollongong has plenty of corporate dollars outside of Bluescope these days  . League down here is a religion and the junior base is so strong . But you’re 1000% correct , the amount of older generation that don’t have a team anymore due to The Steelers being no longer is pretty common .  

      That merge was all about strengthening the Dragons , and they just assumed the people of the Illawarra would just merge into Dragons fans like good little sheep .  The Steelers would’ve had some pretty successful years by now considering the players we’ve produced down here . 

      • Sounds about right Wiz. I wonder over time whether the younger fans will just take to St George as they would not have known Illawarra?

        • Yeah , not sure if future generations will take to them as like you say , they’ll seem like the norm . However moving forward I can see them dropping the Illawarra from their name similar to the Cronulla-Sutherland one .  

          Right now , the old Steelers fans mostly reject the merged team so are probably influencing their kids to go for another team . Funnily enough the area is full of Canterbury and Eels fans from my era and you still see plenty of kids wearing Eels and Canterbury becasue of this  , but now I see kids wearing mostly Souths and Roosters stuff as the alternative . I’m guessing these are partly the result of the parents who were old Steelers fans . I do know that Souths became very popular with old Steelers fans due to their battles with the NRL to be let back into the comp .  Still don’t see too many kids wearing St Merge stuff . 

          The thing with when the Steelers were in the comp was that locals loved them and even locals who went for other teams used to go and support The Steelers when they played at home . I still have a Steelers jersey at home somewhere from the day they played Canberra in the semi finals at the SFS . Half of Wollongong traveled up to see them play even people who weren’t Steelers supporters officially . 

          I cant ever see the place embracing St Merge like that no matter how long they pretend to be partially a local team . 

  • Worst thing that ever happened, it brought so much greed into the game, it destroyed junior football as we use to know it, use to love watching all grades. Prices went through the roof to pay players that ain't 1/2 the players of the past. Supporters were so passionate about their teams, you had great district rivalry, player were somewhat loyal to the junior areas. Whether all the above can be blamed on SL, I don't know but the game changed forever.
  • You can blame Brisbane and newscorp they fucked the league.
    • Not on their own they didn't. See my post page 2. The ARL corruption crew were selling the game short to Ch.9 for years and K Packer was looking after them, wink wink.

  • We probably wouldn't have Melbourne, which would be a good thing. Actually when you think about it, the only club today from ARL that seems to be able to do what they want is Easts - all the rest are SL teams. Whether or not the issues today are legacy from the SL wars, the NRL needs to sort them out of the sport will suffer.

    • Melbourne came into existence because Western Reds later Perth Reds were liquidated and were meant to be the replacement side for the 1998 Super League season. John Ribot was the creator of Melbourne along with News Limited. I imagine when the contracts were being drawn up for the peace deal that Ribot insisted he got to have a team in the newly formed NRL to continue his "legacy".
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