If the FFA could get its head around getting some local football onto free to air, then it might get a bit interesting. Time will tell I suppose.

The old adage that if Parramatta is doing well Rugby League is doing well. The team has come through a great transformation in the later part of this season. The attitude and general feeling that the players are expressing is what makes them better than the other teams at the present time. 2001 the year the eels should and were heavilly backed to win is a distant memory, this is a different team with a different attitude.

I hope your son does well and rises to the heights that he is capable of. His SG coach is well known to me and a well grounded and generous individual who epitiomises the great things about the club.

Click go the………..

Thank you for your comments such as ‘rentboy’, ‘idiot’, ‘too stupid’ and general abuse. It really helps ensure the stereotype continues.

It was at Etihad Stadium (not Olympic Park). We were talking about crowd sizes, I was talking about what affected the Melbourne Storm crowd.

However it doesn’t change my original comment.

I mentioned things like the AFL Grandfinal being on several hours before and being in the same area as the NRL Prelim (Storm vs .. whoever it was). The author of the piece stated that the size of the prelim in Melbourne was a shame compared to the Sydney prelim size.

I stated that it was amiss of him to omit the fact that the prelim in Melbourne was played on the same day as the AFL Grandfinal.

Hopefully I’ve managed to repeat this enough times for it to make sense to you and avoid further prolonged nonsensical abuse.

Furthermore, in an article about Rugby League surely you shouldn’t be so upset when I condense it to simply ‘rugby’. I assumed you would be able to work that out but apparently not.

I await your further insults eagerly.

A couple of things, viz

1 Western Sydney have a large population of pacific islander kids. They have been raised on rugby union and rugby league. Their body shapes suit the demands of the rugby codes and their parents push them that way. They are not interested in AFL. This is a rugby league town.

2 Aerial ping-pong, thugby league. It’s the age old rivalry between QLD, NSW and Victoria. One thing I know for sure is that there is more violence in AFL. The number of cheap shots I see go unchecked must scare a lot of parents from signing their kids up to this sport. Rugby league has cleaned their act up on the field and they should be applauded for doing so.

3 Rod hits the nail on the head when he refers to the storm as “synthetic, a stooge ‘club’ fronting for a media corporation”. Compare how Parramatta develop their own juniors and the massive crowd support they get. They’ve got soul, a heart. I don’t think Melbourne can match that. It’s tribalism vs the corporate dollar.

With so many imports on their books covering the under 18’s, under 20’s and NRL teams - how do they stay under the salary cap? I wish Mr Waldron would share with us how they do it. We could use it as a blueprint for all the other NRL clubs.

Thanks everyone - and go the mighty Eels!

same enough from a distance to the outsider, but deeply divided close up.

This ‘idiot’ was referring to Olympic Park Stadium which the Melways puts roughly 400m from the MCG. You should perhaps reflect upon your own ignorance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Park_Stadium

Your intellectual sniping clearly designates you as ‘born and bred in Parra’.

NRL is Rugby League… correct? I am quite sure a convenient way of shortening it in an article about NRL would be to ‘Rugby’. Context and all that.

I await your replies and apologies with keen interest.

Having said that - the AFL’s move into Western Sydney is incredibly naive. Seage’s point is rock solid. There’s no heart for australian rules in Sydney’s west. This will be a debacle, along with Karmichael Hunt’s Gold Coast bar crawl. The AFL should definitely have set up a one state team in Tasmania.

As for Melbourne in the NRL - Seage covers this adequately too - they’re synthetic, a stooge ‘club’ fronting for a media corporation that 12 or so years ago wanted to own pipeline and content. Rugby league has suffered ever since - compare the paltry TV monies league derives as against AFL - it’s not because Demetriou and his mates are better at bargaining. It’s because News (and the free to air broadcaster in Nine) sit on both sides of the deal.

Pretty sure that if you’re in this article reading these comments you know what you’re up for… not sure why you are surprised or groaning with disgust.

I’m also quite sure that it’s good natured fun that you don’t have to participate in if you don’t wish.

And it’s almost certain that you didn’t read what I wrote. Or failed to comprehend. Please feel free to have another read and then post further comments.

I actually occasionally enjoy watching NRL. I don’t particularly enjoy continual sniping at the Storm from the Circus folk of the north.

As always the passionate defences of the dying sport known in cultured places as thugby fall somewhat between misguided and deceptive. The are also highly entertaining.

You may not be aware but a large crowd of over 99,000 fans (actually it was probably 12 fans and 98,988 corporates, but I digress) crowded into the glorious MCG just before the Storm game for what you dismiss as ‘aerial pingpong’. If you manage to get such a large crowd for the NRL Grandfinal I would be somewhat surprised.

You should have mentioned the fact that Olympic Stadium and the MCG are only several hundred metres from each other and intimately share public transport and parking facilities would have had a huge impact on numbers at the game. But of course that would have somewhat tainted your ground that was high and mighty.

I also find amusing the average NRL supporter’s continued passion for taking Melbourne out of the competition. Why would you want to make your sport smaller and less successful? Why would you limit the audience? Why would you limit the competition? NRL is struggling enough without shooting itself in the foot like this.
To be honest I’m quite keen for no NRL outside QLD and NSW as it would help accelerate the demise of thugby as a professional sport.

Honestly I would have rather seen the AFL go to Tasmania before West Sydney anyway.

And to the beloved Casserole - when your club has been around for 150 years come back and chat. I would like to take bets that Rugby won’t be around as a professional sport in 100 years.

Rod, North Sydney? bwahahahahahaha!

As for tribalism, passion, blah blah blah - I travelled over 1000km last weekend to watch the Bears lose by a golden point deep in extra time to the Tigers at Leichhardt in the NSW Cup - along with legions of other red and black supporters. First chance I’d had to watch them live in 10 years, thanks to the disgraceful relegation following Super League. As you say, “nothing beats following the greatest football team God has put on this earth.”

As for the Storm - any of their supporters (are there any out there?) want to give a price they’ll be celebrating a century in 2098? I’m happy to take long range bets.