2025 Pre-season discussion. Training the house down.

[kman]

It's not but if they did that the season would be like 32 rounds and way too long.

It's only 5 extra games that's not exactly that many, I would agree with playing each other twice.

 

[McHunt]

It's only 5 extra games that's not exactly that many, I would agree with playing each other twice.

Yes, they could play these games instead of taking a holiday.

 

[Brotherdu]

I still think it's stupid that not every team plays each other twice... how is that fair?

It can never be fair......add onto that the origin affected period. Only certain teams get smashed and lose 5+ players.

 

[BroncsFan]

It can never be fair......add onto that the origin affected period. Only certain teams get smashed and lose 5+ players.

If they go with a conference AND division system similar to NFL then it could be fairer.

Assuming say 4 divisions of 5 teams each (20 team comp)... then teams within the division all play the same teams and winner of the division automatically qualifies for the finals.

In short each division play each other twice home and away, and then they rotate around the other divisions to play once... and rotation of the divisions is cyclical across a 5 yr period or whatever... so we wouldnt get stuck with playing storm twice every fucking year, whilst never 'drawing' the tigers.

So if our division was us, cows, titans, dolphins and PNG... then we're basically competing for a finals spot with those teams initially, but we all play the same teams over the course of the year.

Home and away for teams outside the division and origin affected rounds still impacts the draw, but at least cows and dolphins would have to play the same teams as us and whoever tops the group is in the finals... so at least it is a fairer system.

 

[mitch222]

Just fucking give us the Cowboys at Suncorp on a Friday night for the opening game. Guaranteed sell out.

We aren’t a Sydney team that needs to play their rivalry games further in the season to boost interest for the games. We get good crowds and good ratings no matter what so just give us that Round 1 opening game against Cowboys we used to get back.

Union normally ***** that game for a round 1 when they book Suncorp for a Friday night for the Reds to play in front of 5K people. There is a reason we haven't played at home in round 1 for quite a few years now.

 

[Broncapz]

Just fucking give us the Cowboys at Suncorp on a Friday night for the opening game. Guaranteed sell out.

We aren’t a Sydney team that needs to play their rivalry games further in the season to boost interest for the games. We get good crowds and good ratings no matter what so just give us that Round 1 opening game against Cowboys we used to get back.

100% this.

Ingrain it into the QLD zeitgeist and it becomes the biggest thing behind origin. Round 1 Broncos vs Cowboys. Ratings and Crowd bonanza.

It's really the only way to fire up an NRL season. Cowboys might start to hate it after a while though.

 

[Big Pete]

It's certainly unfair, but it's not unprecedented. In the NFL, they have an eighteen round competition with thirty-two teams with each conference playing each other twice. It's a flawed system but it still draws huge TV ratings.

If Rugby League continues to expand in Queensland, then it should only be a matter of time before we see another Broncos/Cowboys season opener. Granted, it's been awhile since either team has a bonafide classic against one another. It's either been one sided or just a low quality game since JT retired.

 

[BroncsFan]

It's certainly unfair, but it's not unprecedented. In the NFL, they have an eighteen round competition with thirty-two teams with each conference playing each other twice. It's a flawed system but it still draws huge TV ratings.

If Rugby League continues to expand in Queensland, then it should only be a matter of time before we see another Broncos/Cowboys season opener. Granted, it's been awhile since either team has a bonafide classic against one another. It's either been one sided or just a low quality game since JT retired.

The NFL system is what they'd have to go with if they keep talking up a conference system.

In Sydney's head I think they see a conference system as 10 'Sydney' teams and then the rest... so that would have the "other" teams travelling all over the shop to Perth, PNG, Melbourne, NZ, T'ville, etc. whilst the Sydney comp just harks back to pre-1988 days.

However what I dont think they consider is that under a conference system the finals would have to be split even across the two conferences... so under a top 8 only 4 'Sydney' conference teams could qualify any given year.

In this year's finals there were 6 'Sydney' conference teams... assuming they claim Knights and shaft Canberra to the also rans conference... so majority Sydney teams wouldnt occur again under a conference system... which I think would have Sydney media up in arms... but they havent realised it yet.

To make it fairer I think they would have to divvy up the Sydney teams and go with divisions instead of conferences.

Assuming 4 divisions of 5 teams each you could go North, South, East and West.

With the longest travelling team spread across each so
North - PNG
South - Melb and Canberra
East - NZ
West - Perth

And then divvy the Sydney teams across that.

North - Broncos, Cows, Dolphins, Titans, PNG
South - Melb, Canberra, dargs, sharks, 20th team*
East - NZ, rorters, souths, Newcastle, Manly
West - Perth, parra, dogs, penrith, tigers
* 20th team to be allocated pending location

Issue with the above is you lose some of the rivalries that go beyond the devisions, like Melb vs Manly, sharks vs manly, etc... maybe Manly moves into 'South' and NZ2 comes into East as the 20th team. It could also stuff around with future expansion plans... what happens with a 22 team comp and an extra qld team?? Who would drop out of north if central QLD came in??

Suddenly one division is out of whack with the rest.

NRL would still want every team playing each other at least once (19 games) and their division rivals twice (+4 games)... so we're up to 23 games already and no opportunity for teams to play each other twice outside the division.

That might be ok as long as they flip the home and away from the year earlier... so a rivalry like Manly vs Melb, if they're in different divisions, would have Melb travel to Brookie one year and then Manly to Melb the next and so on... which may not be the end of the world, because it just means more hype can be generated from that team visiting every second year... excluding finals.

It does end up restricting what the NRL can do promotion wise though (best teams vs best teams) and pretty much locks them into a set draw every year... can see Sydney media thinking that becomes stale... but their job would be hyping up division rivals.

 

[Santa]

Just expand to 20 teams - everyone play each other once - have a month break in the middle for origin/rep games. Easy.

Have some wildcard matches if you want it to be longer too.

 

[Mustafur]

Cows at Suncorp is a guaranteed sell out whenever it's played... Channel 9 don't want to waste that for round 1... hell they barely give us a home game in round 1 recently, because they know a round 2 home game will be a sell out anyway.

Our usual opening to the season includes... Round 1 away game to a Sydney team, Round 2 home against whoever and then Cows at Suncorp sometime within the first 5 games.

We've had 2 round 1 home games since 2016... Rabbits in 2022 i.e. Reynolds vs Souths (and Reynolds wasn't even there) and 2021 vs Parra (still playing on the 58-0 finals exit from 2019).

Way back when our home opener was cows on a Sunday, but Channel 9 have gone away from that, because Cows game will sell out whenever.

Us playing a Sydney Team round 1 will get the most viewers and it's why it's almost always the case, playing the Cowboys does well in QLD but might lose a bit of the NSW viewers so while it's great for crowds it's not the ideal TV game.

If we got the ideal draw for our crowds it would look a bit different, but TV companies make nothing on that that's why we barely play on Sunday.

 

[HarryAllan7]

If the NRL ever gets to the point where it has enough teams to establish a division / conference system then the sport will be dead.

There’s already too many teams as it is, with not nearly enough talented players to produce a consistent quality product (especially with the ‘faster’ game resulting in way more injuries than ever before). The fact that they want to add more teams and continue to fill them with sub-standard players and ruin the product is really baffling.

Dolphins shouldn’t exist. Merge them with the titans next door.
Sharks and Dragons merge.
Tigers and bulldogs merge.

Then each team can play each other twice.

Suddenly you have a fair draw, huge increase in roster quality and therefore game quality, and haven’t lost or sacrificed any geographic location. And you’ve also eliminated a bunch of garbage non-sustainable clubs that can’t win or turn a profit to save their lives.

Simple… but V’Landys won’t be happy until there’s 30 teams filled with third grade level talent playing games with scores like 80-78 every week in Vegas for all 10 American fans.

 

[Mustafur]

If the NRL ever gets to the point where it has enough teams to establish a division / conference system then the sport will be dead.

There’s already too many teams as it is, with not nearly enough talented players to produce a consistent quality product (especially with the ‘faster’ game resulting in way more injuries than ever before). The fact that they want to add more teams and continue to fill them with sub-standard players and ruin the product is really baffling.

Dolphins shouldn’t exist. Merge them with the titans next door.
Sharks and Dragons merge.
Tigers and bulldogs merge.

Then each team can play each other twice.

Suddenly you have a fair draw, huge increase in roster quality and therefore game quality, and haven’t lost or sacrificed any geographic location. And you’ve also eliminated a bunch of garbage non-sustainable clubs that can’t win or turn a profit to save their lives.

Simple… but V’Landys won’t be happy until there’s 30 teams filled with third grade level talent playing games with scores like 80-78 every week in Vegas for all 10 American fans.

Dolphins almost made the 8 and have one of the highest attendances of clubs in NRL, weird opinion.

The more money in the game the more we can get players of quality from elsewhere so I don't think it's an issue, Super league has plenty of players who are at an NRL level quality still and there is definitely still the untapped union player pool which is much larger than ours which will come available when our TV contracts get bigger.

Also with more teams in the game there is more top 30 players meaning more Full timers, what hurts RL depth at the moment is the fact players are not full time outside the NRL top 30 bubble, increase that and you increase quality with it too.

 

[HarryAllan7]

Dolphins almost made the 8 and have one of the highest attendances of clubs in NRL, weird opinion.

The more money in the game the more we can get players of quality from elsewhere so I don't think it's an issue, Super league has plenty of players who are at an NRL level quality still and there is definitely still the untapped union player pool which is much larger than ours which will come available when our TV contracts get bigger.

Also with more teams in the game there is more top 30 players meaning more Full timers, what hurts RL depth at the moment is the fact players are not full time outside the NRL top 30 bubble, increase that and you increase quality with it too.

The dolphins didn’t exist 5 minutes ago and were forced into the competition by the NRL for no reason.

If they ceased to exist tomorrow I doubt many would be bothered.

 

[Mustafur]

The dolphins didn’t exist 5 minutes ago and were forced into the competition by the NRL for no reason.

If they ceased to exist tomorrow I doubt many would be bothered.

Dolphins existed as a Qcup and BRL identity longer than us...

 

[HarryAllan7]

Dolphins existed as a Qcup and BRL identity longer than us...

Not according to the NRL, who are insistent that this iteration is NOT the REDCLIFFE dolphins despite even fox commentators referring to them as such.

Dolphins can return to their spiritual home as a reserve grade side. I’m sure lots of their fans would prefer to follow their actual Redcliffe team instead of this weird hybrid the NRL has created.

 

[Mustafur]

Not according to the NRL, who are insistent that this iteration is NOT the REDCLIFFE dolphins despite even fox commentators referring to them as such

It's because of QRL rules, you can't have a one to one NRL team franchise in the Queensland system, unlike NSWcup.

 

[HarryAllan7]

It's because of QRL rules, you can't have a one to one NRL team franchise in the Queensland system, unlike NSWcup.

I think you need to look a little deeper into the whole Moreton Bay drama and how ‘the’ Dolphins ended up the abomination they are.

 

[Mustafur]

I think you need to look a little deeper into the whole Moreton Bay drama and how ‘the’ Dolphins ended up the abomination they are.

The fact remains they can't call themselves Redcliffe dolphins atm even if they wanted to, and the club is still related, otherwise they wouldn't share the same leagues club because no other RL team in the country does.