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The National Rugby League has been copping it in the neck all
week for its inability to change venues at the last minute to
accommodate Wests Tigers fans, who still cannot believe that their
side has gone to within a game of the grand final. It seems so
logical. Move the Eels-Cowboys game to Saturday night and Aussie
Stadium; move the blockbuster of the year so far Tigers-Dragons
to the Sunday arvo and the monolithic Telstra Stadium.
Unfortunately this is not the era of Super League: a contract
actually is a contract.
It's understood that the NRL was making calls to the SCG Trust
which controls Aussie Stadium as the seconds wound down in the
Tigers' massive win over the Broncos last Sunday. But surely the
game's controllers should have been trying their darndest to avert
this situation long before that. Surely it should have and could
have forecast when the Tigers were churning up the ladder and
then through the play-offs that this almighty problem it faces
now could be real. The NRL has got many things right in 2005;
this is one of the rare times it has got it wrong.
But while NRL boss David Gallop coils into the foetal position,
apologising profusely to those disgruntled fans in the same position,
let's understand what really is at the heart of this problem:
a good old fashioned stadium stink. The SCG Trust and Telstra
Stadium have been embroiled in a propaganda war all year. It has
been press releases at 10 paces. Telstra pinched Souths and Tigers
home games off them earlier this year. The Trust thwarted an attempt
during summer over Test and one-day cricket matches. Telstra will
host the big games of the Waratahs' Super 14 season from 2007.
To that end, business really means business. Souths boss Shane
Richardson said that the Trust showed it didn't care about rugby
league by not handing the game over to Telstra and picking up
the Eels-Cowboys match that will be lucky to sell more than 25,000
tickets. Rugby league doesn't come into it. It's all about product
and signage and pourage and corporates and all these other terms
that are irrelevant to the fans but intrinsic in modern-day sport.
Welcome to footy, 2005. Sentiment does not enter the equation.
What do you think? Click your way to
our Comebacks
page and tell us. You could win a Shimano 2000 Fishing
Reel worth $80.00
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