Expansion A third team in Queensland? AFL acknowledges QLD3 as a 20th licence option

[LeBronco]

And?
How is that going to do the same to league as what super league did, which is what was being discussed.
Union being a worldwide sport (sort of). means it’s going to target mostly union players. It will of course try and target some NRL players: given the talent there it would be crazy not to.

Losing a few players is not going to damage the NRL in comparison to a war within the actual code itself in this country that ultimately ended with four teams merging to become two, another two doing likewise which resulted in the extinction of one, and a handful of other teams disappearing as well.

NRL have already lost two star players in Lomax and Papenhuyzen it could be just the beginning with the amount of cash R360 have to splash. This is coming at a time when Australian Football is gaining ground on Rugby League in Queensland and New South Wales.

 

[PhatBoy]

NRL have already lost two star players in Lomax and Papenhuyzen it could be just the beginning with the amount of cash R360 have to splash. This is coming at a time when Australian Football is gaining ground on Rugby League in Queensland and New South Wales.

Lomax is a good player but a replaceable one. He’s not ‘gifted.’ He’s an effort player who plays the most easily filled position on the field.

Papenhuyzen as someone rightfully pointed out elsewhere is one injury away from the end of his career and has never played rep footy.


The team that went from second last, a third of the way through last year, and made the finals, has just released the halfback who helped get them there for most of the season, there is talk that they may lose another if the halves that helped get them there as he is rumoured to be unhappy playing off the bench, and they (the Roosters) still have a hugely rated junior halfback waiting in the lower grades in Toby Rodwell. That’s after losing 7 regular first graders at the end of the previous season. They beat 3 of the top 4 sides from last year and should have beaten Canberra to make it 4. That’s just one very quick example of how quickly teams fill gaps and regenerate.

Rumours of the lack of depth within the NRL are somewhat exaggerated.

 

[Bjo187]

But apparently there was enough talent to go around when we decided to go to 16 teams in 1997, even though the Aussie Rules participation base was about two-thirds of what it was now, and AFL salaries are much higher so there's clearly more motivation for people to become and continue to be an AFL player. Throw in the northern academies contributing a few players and a few Irish etc. players around that weren't in the 90s and it makes the difference even more extreme.

This argument has never made sense to me. We've added only 2 new teams since 1997 when the overall talent pool has clearly increased by more than 1/8th

Yeah I follow the draft closely every year and the amount of talented kids that miss out every year is really surprising.

 

[Big Animal]

Gees. Imagine that. Come draft day and 18 of the first 20 picks ends up at a QLD club. Funtimes.

 

[LeBronco]

Lomax is a good player but a replaceable one. He’s not ‘gifted.’ He’s an effort player who plays the most easily filled position on the field.

Papenhuyzen as someone rightfully pointed out elsewhere is one injury away from the end of his career and has never played rep footy.


The team that went from second last, a third of the way through last year, and made the finals, has just released the halfback who helped get them there for most of the season, there is talk that they may lose another if the halves that helped get them there as he is rumoured to be unhappy playing off the bench, and they (the Roosters) still have a hugely rated junior halfback waiting in the lower grades in Toby Rodwell. That’s after losing 7 regular first graders at the end of the previous season. They beat 3 of the top 4 sides from last year and should have beaten Canberra to make it 4. That’s just one very quick example of how quickly teams fill gaps and regenerate.

Rumours of the lack of depth within the NRL are somewhat exaggerated.

NRL is continuing to lose ground to AFL in its heartland states of Queensland and NSW they have every right to be concerned. Won't be long and Gold Coast will become an AFL bubble city like Melbourne/Geelong it's no wonder the NRL are concerned about the Titans.

 

[hampton]

NRL is continuing to lose ground to AFL in its heartland states of Queensland and NSW they have every right to be concerned. Won't be long and Gold Coast will become an AFL bubble city like Melbourne/Geelong it's no wonder the NRL are concerned about the Titans.

NRL are concerned about the titans because the best league schools are in the Gold Coast, and they have a very large junior catchment, yet over 40 years there hasn’t been a club that’s found success there. The best schoolboy talent wants to go to the broncos or Sydney clubs rather the titans. Unlike the suns, the titans don’t get preferential treatment and extra money to rig the comp in their favour so they need a good strategy to convert their vast local talent into titan stars.

Still despite the ‘concern’ they’re not getting much help from the nrl but they’ve recently had an ownership change so we’ll see what happens.

Keeping in mind titans crowds, while coming dead last, and in a stadium in a worse location than the suns, still got bigger crowds than the suns did.

The titans are a massive sleeping giant in the nrl.

Australian football is going pretty well on the GC for sure but let’s not go into hyperbole.

 

[PhatBoy]

NRL is continuing to lose ground to AFL in its heartland states of Queensland and NSW they have every right to be concerned. Won't be long and Gold Coast will become an AFL bubble city like Melbourne/Geelong it's no wonder the NRL are concerned about the Titans.

The Gold Coast has been a twilight zone for 37 years. It’s not like it’s a rugby league fortress that’s about to get stormed. I’m sure they’d love the Titans to be a juggernaut and pulling in 25k a game. But it’s not like that’s ever happened before and suddenly it’s not.

 

[Prince Imperial]

Keeping in mind titans crowds, while coming dead last, and in a stadium in a worse location than the suns, still got bigger crowds than the suns did.

No they didn't. It's very close but here are the 2025 attendance averages on the GC:

Carrara - 16,704
Robina - 16,694

Robina is right next to a railway station whilst Carrara is only serviced by buses - it's highly dubious than the former is in a worse location.

 

[hampton]

The Gold Coast has been a twilight zone for 37 years. It’s not like it’s a rugby league fortress that’s about to get stormed. I’m sure they’d love the Titans to be a juggernaut and pulling in 25k a game. But it’s not like that’s ever happened before and suddenly it’s not.

Gold Coast will always be more of a transient type of town. But don’t mistake that rugby league has certainly been very popular there for a long time with a well established junior catchment and many league schools. As I mentioned a lot of nrl talent comes out of the Gold Coast. It’s also generally a hotbed of sporting participation, which is also evident with good and growing afl participation as well. The area punches above its weight when it comes to sporting prowess.

But the Gold Coast most certainly is a rugby league town it’s not like it’s a 50/50 split with Afl that some here seem to think, and not even as much afl leaning as say Canberra. Gold Coast is a town where sport of many kinds do well, if not from a professional club level at least from a participation and pathways perspective.

 

[PhatBoy]

Gold Coast will always be more of a transient type of town. But don’t mistake that rugby league has certainly been very popular there for a long time with a well established junior catchment and many league schools. As I mentioned a lot of nrl talent comes out of the Gold Coast. It’s a hotbed of sporting participation, which is also evident with good afl participation as well. The area punches above its weight when it comes to sporting prowess.

At a development and public level yes, agreed.

But at a professional level it’s not like it’s a sudden issue.

 

[GC2015]

No they didn't. It's very close but here are the 2025 attendance averages on the GC:

Carrara - 16,704
Robina - 16,694

Robina is right next to a railway station whilst Carrara is only serviced by buses - it's highly dubious than the former is in a worse location.

For some reason, RL fans like to pretend that the 40k+ crowd that shows up for the Titans' "home" game that they play at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane during Magic Round should be included, despite not pulling over 24k when playing on the Gold Coast at Robina. Mind you, the Broncos also played at Suncorp Stadium on the same day that the Titans did this year so they were virtually always guaranteed to pull a big crowd for that one, but it's obviously not a true reflection of the Gold Coast market and shouldn't be included in comparisons like this. Likewise, you shouldn't include the Darwin crowds for the Suns that slightly pull their average down.

If you calculate the averages fairly by only including games actually played on the GC (like you have above) then you will come to the conclusion that the Suns pulled slightly more than the Titans this year. It will be interesting to see if there is a spike in home crowds for the Suns next year, as we often see after a team plays finals after a long period of struggling.

 

[LeBronco]

The Gold Coast has been a twilight zone for 37 years. It’s not like it’s a rugby league fortress that’s about to get stormed. I’m sure they’d love the Titans to be a juggernaut and pulling in 25k a game. But it’s not like that’s ever happened before and suddenly it’s not.

Queensland has always been a fortress for Rugby League but since the coronavirus the fortress has been breached by Victorians. May as well rename the state to Victoria North.

 

[The Educator]

No they didn't. It's very close but here are the 2025 attendance averages on the GC:

Carrara - 16,704
Robina - 16,694

Robina is right next to a railway station whilst Carrara is only serviced by buses - it's highly dubious than the former is in a worse location.

Also, the Titans crowds are more inflated

 

[LeBronco]

Also, the Titans crowds are more inflated

NRL have always had poor to average crowds and the excuse has usually been it's hard to get to games in Sydney due to road infrastructure and people on the Gold Coast have better things to do like surfing, beaches, nightclubs, theme parks.