Hey All,

 Now that representative football is coming around down under again, I thought run something by the rest of the members of the forum.

Every year around this time there is always talk of player burnout etc etc.

I don't know why we don't play State of Origin on the weekend and no club games that weekend. I know this was tried before but that meant having only one game played that weekend.

I reckon we should play three city vs. country games as well as three state of origin games. Maybe Queensland might want to play a city vs. country aswell which would be good.

Then maybe you could have an Australian Aborigines vs NZ Maoris or something. And maybe a North Island vs. South Island if that is possible (I don't think there are enough NZ players for this to be possible atm but I could be wrong).

I reckon the weekend line up could look something like:

Friday: State of Origin

Saturday: NSW City vs. NSW Country

Saturday: QLD City vs. QLD Country

Sunday: Australian Aborigines vs. NZ Maoris

 

Does anyone else reckon this will ever be possible?

I think that we should be playing about 22 weeks of club games plus finals and have the representative week as discussed above for 3 weeks of the year. i reckon that might alleviate a little bit of the player burnout and also help players on the fringe of origin selection.

 

I would appreciate some feedback.

This is the problem, players getting injured, origin takes its told on players and clubs wear this because its such a important occausion. Now if you look at the test coming up next week, the sydney officials are worried about not filling the stadium,

We need to grow test football, and fast, if we dont then we are in danger of losing lots of international recognition, I look at it like this, take the game to other cities where they would love to see a test match, sydney is becoming a bit of a drain on league, its crowds are crap, and they are not supporting the code with bums on seats.

Have the tests played around the country for awhile , let people who would love to see a test 'see it'.

We cant have more city country games because they dont play to get hurt, and why would you, its origin that matters.

We might be better off just letting the kangaroos go overseas to play tests , at least they will pull a crowd, being the best world cup winning team on the planet?

Its a damn shame sydney siders dont get out to the tests, they seem to be a bit of a fickle bunch.

 

Brisbane supports tests fantastically, so would North QLD and the Gold Coast area. I think Oikee is right, we should take it out of Sydney for awhile. Maybe it would be more appreciated there if they didnt have any for a few years.

 

 

Well I would rather instead of youyr version of the rep weekend we have an internation rep weekened. I have said it before but i think there should be 2 a year where all NRL and SL games are stopped for a week to maake way for this internation weekend. I would have 2 a year so everyone gets a home fixture and it would also serve as 2 byes for NRL and ESL clubs.

I've done up a list somewhere else but something like this:

1. Australia Vs NZ
2. England Vs France
3. Ireland Vs Scotland
4. Wales Vs South Africa
5. PNG Vs Fiji
6. USA Vs Russia
7. Jamaica Vs Canada
8. Japan Vs South Korea
9. UAE VS Lebanon
10. Serbia Vs Czech Republic
11. Germany Vs Italy

The list could go on and on and on. Anyway leave it open to whatever teams want to participate and flog the hell out it with advertising, would bring IRL back toeveryone's attention IMO.

Super Steve:

Its a damn shame sydney siders dont get out to the tests, they seem to be a bit of a fickle bunch.

 

Brisbane supports tests fantastically, so would North QLD and the Gold Coast area. I think Oikee is right, we should take it out of Sydney for awhile. Maybe it would be more appreciated there if they didnt have any for a few years.

Well even the sydney club games have been pretty poorly attended this year, last week was an improvement but still there should be a hell of alot more. I suppose if there were less teams based in sydney the support would be higher for individual games. Maybe It's time for another thinning out. Look at the 3 QLD teams they're crowds are great guns, the Broncos got 35,000 to a game against the happless souths, the cowboys got 25,000 to the game against mebourne, take into account the population of townsville is onle 170,000 odd and the GC got 25,000 to a game against the Warriors that wasn't really built up at all.

I couldnt agree more Jim,

 

Although it might hurt in the very short term, I think if some more Sydney clubs were to merge, it would do the code a great favour. One that comes to mind straight away for me would be Parrmatta and Penrith.

i dont think mergein clubs would be the best idea it will just make crowds worse i wouldent want to see my bulldogs merge with say wests or south sydney etc. the only way we maybe can see mergers is if the club is goin broke or something like that.

 and yeah i no i live in sydney and i try to get to as much dogs games as i can even do some of our surporters are wreakin the games, i think it'z happening in every sport in sydney fans aint comeing out and surporting it maybe afl but every other code is not doing well with crowds, maybe with all the crowd troubles happening specialy dogs games people dont want to come out or take there family,i just really hope that when this 2nd sydney afl club comes in that afl in sydney will become the number 1 code better not!

Club mergers would be a disaster... haven't we learnt anything from the last round... St's have been abysmall and basiclly killed off one half of their merger, same happened with the Northern Eagles... bitter rivals merging just does not work. Wests tigers haven't been that great a success either albeit better than the others.

Test footy needs way better promotion, and not just the two usual suspects playing.

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I think we need to wait a couple of years to see how things pan out, i read on a blog about this same issue, fans not supporting test matches, and one guy said that the tri nations is alot better and closer series, this is probably right, and if we get france up to speed and some of the island nations, also with other emerging nations, this whole argument will probably dissapear,

remember , they are going to have these games in the future, lets just sit back and enjoy the world cup, then see how the tri nations goes next year.

I'd prefer to see test matches played at the end of the season like the four nations will be from next year onwards. I think that the test match on 9 May will be the last one in the middle of the NRL comp because of things like player burnout etc.

Not many people have really replied to my original question but that is ok i guess.

Sydney people tend to follow their team when they are winning and if you look at the stats, all the QLD teams are up the top as well as Melbourne.

I just think putting on City vs. Country and State of Origin in the middle of NRL rounds will not be able to happen in the long term. But just having the one game of State of Origin on that weekend is not a good solution either. That's why I thought of several games such as what i proposed earlier.

The only trouble Scotty is that there are quite a few players that play for NSW country and city, that would have to back up the very next day to play to play the Origin game.

 

The old debate comes up every year at City Country time over whether its worth having or not. Even though im a Queenslander I still believe it has its place. Scotty the QRL does play a city country match aswell, but it only features QRL players, not players from the NRL.