Flicked on Foxtel to see the Las Vegas thing
NRL claims 45,000 tickets sold
Reality GWS would have a bigger crowd
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They’re blaming the wind for late/non arrivals?
Over 100 click winds yesterday and airport came to a standstill. Was over 300 flights delayed by several hours and 60 cancelled and doesn’t look like the delays have improved much today. There were apparently a heap of tickets sold to people flying in to Vegas.
Theres a decent crowd. Souths Manly.
Top deck is half full.
Id say they would be very happy, think its a 5 year plan to open the season there every year
Well, the crowd looks to be at last equal to what these teams would get in Sydney (20K) and they’re not silent. So by NRL standards not a failure (assuming they got someone else to pay for all of this).
Crowd looks pretty good to me. If the USA was ever going to semi kind of be mildly interested in another sport it would be Rugby League.
they can’t tell the difference between footy and rugby union. a third option will overheat them
38K there apparently for the first game.
Still more than the pathetic crowds they’d get here. The figures the nrl throw around on everything are total bullshit though, they’ve been caught out plenty of times.
I’m still impressed there hasn’t been an arrest in Vegas.
I guess there is still the post-game period which could be highest risk.
Lived on the Gold Coast for 5 years. Tried really ■■■■■■■ hard to like this ■■■■ game. I couldn’t do it.
I think I worked it out. The commentators. They would go bananas because one of the fractions in the middle passed the ball and someone else caught it.
It’s ■■■■. No one goes for a reason.
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Lol it’s low skill, repetitive and predictable, but easy to follow for anyone that doesn’t wanna think too much. If it didn’t have the Sydney media machine pushing it up and the afl down, it would have fizzled out like union is doing imo.
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Have you ever played it ?
Toughest and hardest game I ever played. I lasted three games and gave it away as the Monday after every game I still could not walk without pain. Skills are also much higher than you suggest and the strategy and set plays are difficult to remember. And I was playing in a local Churches competition.
I went back to Aussie Rules in Sydney and it was so much easier.
Watching it live it also fascinating, and the noise of crunching bodies is huge. Good friend in Sydney was a Manly supporter and I would go sometimes with him and I also enjoyed it.
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My mate at work played rep footy in both Australian football and rugby league growing up in Canberra, was one of those dual sport athletes, reckons league is easy as ■■■■ in comparison to footy. He played the hooker position in league too, the hardest position i think he said. This would have been in the 90s early 2000s.
They used to use a leather ball back in the day in league, but then changed to a rubber ball which is much easier to catch from a metre or two away under no pressure, i agree they tackle hard though.
I personally am of the opinion that there is no need to heap ■■■■ on a sport you don’t like. For me, I will always be an Aussie Rules bloke, but I can appreciate the NRL for what it is. The best players have enormous skill, relative to the game they are playing. The skill sets are different, the fitness requirements are different and the set plays are far more important. Both codes can still deliver big hits, but those days are numbered in both codes due to concussion and the fear of litigation. The days of these blokes simply being thugs going out to injure their opponent are long past. Don’t get me wrong, there are still the occasional brain fades, but the game has evolved a lot over the last 50 odd years.
The funny thing is that the two codes are almost totally diametrically opposed to each other. League is a 180 degree game, AFL 360. In League, holding on to the ball no matter what is the primary objective, in AFL that gets you penalised. In the AFL, keeping the ball in motion, even if you don’t have possession is the #1 oblective, in NRL that is a knock on. I will admit to frustration when NRL gorilla’s complain that us aerial ping pong players can’t even hold the ball, when most don’t even know that the League changed to the current pimpled, synthetic Steeden football because their players were constantly dropping the wet slippery leather ball.
For me, I enjoy both games because they are nothing alike. In all honesty, the only thing they have in common is that they are a winter sport.
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Indeed. See Nathan Cleary in last years GF. One of the most brilliant efforts of skill and sheer brilliance I have seen from a sportsperson in any sport ever. You can never tell me League is a sport with no skill.
As I said above I played three games after training for about two months with a Team of mostly big Samoans and Fijians. It was some time ago, and I was fit after moving to Sydney after years playing footy in the EDFL. I am 178 cm and at that time weighed about 94 kgs, and while I was tackled at training which I thought hurt it it was nothing like during a game.
I am not talking about illegal or high tackles either, just body on body contact. First time I really got smashed was in my first game. I was a winger as I could run a bit, was passed the ball and set off down the field. These big lumbering Islanders are surprisingly quick and 120 kg of man hit me side-on and another mass of human flesh then from front on. Didnt touch my head but my whole body was jelly. I honestly thought I was dead.
How I went back for two more games still amazes me at how stupid I am.
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Which game did he do first ? I reckon maybe if you spent years playing rugby as a kid then your body would toughen up maybe. Toughest game on earth.
He played rugby league first. He told me he use to play against the islanders rep teams that would visit Australia too. Yeah probably like any type of workout the body takes time to adjust to the new type of pounding it’s copping. I even remember when i played indoor soccer, the first few months I’d wake up the next morning aching and my shins were black and blue, same with boxing, couldn’t lift my arms after sessions, till the body adjusted.
The main thing i can’t stand about rugby league is it’s fans and the Sydney/ Murdoch media pushing it up constantly, while they heap ■■■■ on our own invented sport. I know it’s coz afl is a threat up north, but it’s pathetic and tiresome, particularly when it has the least amount of skills to master out of any of the football codes.
Never had a problem with League supporters but the Sydney Media are moronic.
I lived at Dee Why and Brookvale Oval was close, but I couldn’t support Manly, so I was quiet at games. Then I saw a match vs Parramatta and there was this big Indiginous bloke who received the ball and ran to the line with three Manly players hanging off him. His name was Arthur Beetson and loved watching him play.
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