The Loss Of A Legend, Las Vegas And Trying To Build A Legacy

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Hello, and welcome to episode 582 of Ferga on the Frick, on that book from Rocket League

Project, Andrew Ferguson, you know, if I'm on Twitter, I'm Andrew RLP, and Jeremy's

always is a glorious league freak, you know, so if I'm on Twitter, I'm at league freak.

Hey, Garnamut.

Oh, well, Andrew, I hope you're doing well as well, and I hope all of our listeners

are doing great as well as so good to have the foodie key now.

It is.

It's been a up and down week for this story, in any way, because A, the fleas come back.

But yeah, I'm going to bone everyone out the very side episode, because a friend of mine

and a very, very respectable and renowned Rocket League historian Terry Williams passed

away on Friday last week.

He was only 62 years old.

He wrote two books about the New Town Jets, one was called Out of Blue, and another one

was called True Blue Eyes.

If you ever find them somewhere, absolutely buy them, because just like anything Terry

Williams did, he did it with passion, vigor, thoroughness, and a phenomenal storyteller.

Anyone has ever been to the Rocket League Museum, I was able to tell you how passionate

he was about the stories and stuff there, and if you had yourself being unable to pull

yourself away from him, you're like, I can sit here and listen to this bloke talk for

hours.

He's just phenomenal.

He also produced a phenomenal documentary for the NRW website, which was out on Fox Sports

in 2018 on Anzac Day, called From Headgetta Helmets, and it looked at Rocket League players,

not just prominent ones, but all of the ones from, oh, not all of them, a lot of the better

no ones, I guess, from around the country who went and served in World War I, and a few

stories of others that didn't even play in the big time, but had prominent military careers

as well.

It's like 40 minutes, it's still on the NRW website.

I did tweet it on Friday last week, so absolutely if you haven't said it, you need to, it's

phenomenal.

Yeah.

And he also had a podcast, which was only in its early days.

I think you might have done about eight or nine episodes, and again, it's just absolutely

passionate about the stuff that happened in the game in the past.

It's called Rocket League Rookwood, go listen to it, yeah, just phenomenal bloke.

Absolutely sad to hear the fear of his passing.

Apparently, he was the MC for the New Town Jets season opener, just a few hours before

he passed away, so yeah, very, very sad, unbelievable human, between him and Ian.

Ian had those, we've lost a lot of Rocket League history and knowledge in a very short

period of time, so pretty sad that.

So Violet Terry Williams and condolences to his family, his friends, everybody else, because

we haven't just lost this story, and we've lost a great human as well, so a bit of sad news

there.

Yeah, and I know you had quite a bit to do with him, and you know, I know he was very

pivotal in regards to keeping all of the history at Rugby League headquarters there in Sydney.

I only was in touch with him once, was about 20 years ago, and I was trying to track down

the Rugby League World Cup for the story that had been added, gone missing, and I got

in contact with him.

I think I might have rang him up, and he offered for me to come down to, I believe, what

was then the New South Wales Rugby League headquarters, because that's correct, yeah.

The trophy's there, and he's like, oh, come on down, and you know, you can check it out

and stuff like that.

There was a vault that they had it in apparently, and I didn't end up doing it, there's a regret,

you know.

But he was just so open to it, and that was a long time ago, like, you know, and you've

talked about him to me in the past, and just always had really good things to say about

him, and you know, you and me have talked about like the collection that he brought together

and kept very safe at Rugby League headquarters there, and I really do think that it would

be smart of all of the Rugby League historians, and you included Andrew to get together and

as a group approach the National Rugby League, and say, hey, we need somebody to take over

that role.

It needs to be someone doing that role, because it's very important, because some of the

things that you've told me about that, I know you've been down there and checked it out,

some of that stuff is, should be in a museum of some sort, it is very important, a lot

of it's over a century old, and he looked after it, and somebody needs to do that job.

Oh, you also sourced a lot of it.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, just, he just, he dedicated his life to that crap, that's how passiony it was about

it, and you could tell anyone, you had to spoke to him or tell the same thing, like he was just so

generous with his time, with his knowledge, very kind, I'm using him with him, and it was also

very passionately behind the Tom Brock lectures, just anything to do with helping anybody

get an understanding or further their knowledge of the history of the game. He was 100% behind

it and really passionate about it. So yeah, I've been to the Rogue League Museum a ton of times,

just to catch up with him, and always got dragged out the back, and I say dragged, but I was

very willingly dragged out the back to the stuff he had back to check out what he had out there,

and it was phenomenal. You just look at it and go, how much of this stuff can I take home?

Yeah. But yeah, it's a, it's a big loss. Yeah, you won't, you don't replace people like

Terry. No, you just don't. But Sally, we do need to move on because that's what Rogue

League does. The Real One game started this week. We had two games kick off in Vegas.

I know that they played because I made a comment online about a ball being raised.

Yeah, it's starting to cause trouble on Twitter again.

I tried to stop you, but you just keep doing it. I'm both a dickhead, and I'm right.

Yeah. So, you know, social media is still on fire.

It's fantastic, isn't it? It's so good to be back.

It's back, it's back. I wouldn't say good.

It's just looking at it going, you know what, there was a time when I used to go through it

and just going, yeah, this is conversation. I don't care what happens.

And I still have that mentality, but I'm looking at it and just going, can I be fucked with doing

with this shit anymore? Look, I would like to say the same thing, but to be honest, I'm like

Alexander the great. I'm down there in the middle of it, slaying dragons and shit.

I can't pretend that I don't have anything to do with it.

Like, so, you know, there's two trenches, right?

Yeah. And there's, you know, the team on this side and the team on that side.

And you've decided to put yourself a little parapet right in the middle.

Yeah, yeah. I'm like looking at one side going, fuck you and turn around saying,

but especially fuck you. Yeah, I can't pretend that I'm not involved in the scraps.

That's where you ply your trade. Yeah. Yeah. I'm good at it.

What can I say? Look, there are two games this that started the NRL season.

We had the cowboys taken on the nights. The nights looked pretty good, but the

cowboys looked pretty average. Todd Payton, I thought they should have sacked him

at the end of last year. This team that he has, it's got a lot of rep quality plays in

it, but they just keep degrading slowly under his coaching.

And I tweeted actually before this game kicked off there, I think he's probably got about

six weeks to get it under control and make them look better.

And this was a really bad start to that six weeks.

So the nights looked pretty good. They looked up for it.

So that was the two interesting points out of that game for the second game.

Well, actually, I was just going to say the one thing that Todd Payton has done,

which is a feather in his camp, is that John Bateman didn't play.

Yeah, that's true. So he moved in the right direction.

Yeah, that's true. But they still looked like shit and they made, I mean,

Newcastle's good 28 points. Well, that's right. And look,

it's, I've said it in a bunch of articles and we might have said in the season preview episode

that the cowboys are a team which on paper looked like they should be doing

reasonably well. It's like great. But you're watching playing football and just look at it and

even as someone who's not a cowboys fan, you just look at it and the whole time you just

feel angry like, what the fuck are they doing? Yeah, yeah, it's great to let the

they worst nights team. And possibly there was second or third worst nights attacking you in

it in history in their history. You put 28 points on you. That's not good.

Yeah. Um, the second game we saw the Bulldogs take on dragons, the dragon, the thing that got

me for this game is two things stood out for me. First of all, the dragons, their attack is so

simplistic. It's not going to last the whole season. They're going to wear down because it's

basically just get the ball run up the middle of the field with it with their forwards. Their forwards

are going to wear down over the course of the season. They get, they get zero, zero out of their

halves. Atkinson was trying his best. But next to him, he's got the coaches son who did nothing

in this game. Absolutely nothing. Might as well have not turned up. I will say that. It's a good

thing. I don't know if Lenny can did it by mistake, but he put Atkinson at seven, which I

suggested at the start of the year needed to happen. I think if you're going to get anything,

anything at all out of Lenny, and you cannot have him at halfback because he

to coin a phrase, he shits the bed every time he touches the ball as a halfback. At least what

is at five, eight, he doesn't get it as often. So there's less shit in the bed. He was just so

terrible in this game. And then that is the most optimistic thing I could ever say about Kof

atkinson moments. And then on the other side of the field, the bulldogs looked pretty clunky.

And they looked like a team that had two, five, eights out there. Lucky Galvin was probably the

more dominant player maker of the two, but he's a ball runner. And the problem that I see them

having this year is that they're going to have a pretty solid year. They just are. But I think

that they're going to get to the finals against the elite teams in the finals. And they're going

to be able to shut them down because they don't have a designated halfback. You got two running

five, eights. And when something goes wrong, their instinct is to run the ball. And I think that

that's going to be a problem for the bulldogs. This game shouldn't have been as close as it was.

The bulldogs are much better team on paper. But we got into the, I was going to say that, but

since the middle of last season, the bulldogs attack has not been that great. I know. And the

drivers attack has been pedestrian and one damage, not the whole of last year. So it's a shame

running and try it. He only knows one type of football and that's groaning football. And if you've

got a really strong forward pack and good defensive centers, you can make the groaning football work.

If you don't have that, it's boring and pedestrian and you end up losing more games in your win,

which is what he's stuck with at the moment. And this is a squad that he built near. So you know,

it's his team. Yeah. The dragon should have won this game many times over. They had

filled position. The game started going there way late. They had a lot of good chances in

golden point to win it. And because they don't have a half pack, they didn't win it. And that's what

I come down to. And, you know, what can you say? It's just that this is the same thing that's

going to happen at the dragons. Until such time as they get rid of Flanagan. And look, the coach,

Shane Flanagan as a coach, he's probably thinking, oh, do the same thing. I did it,

Cronulla, but he's missing one real big key element that made that shark's game, that shark's

team really good. I don't know the chemical name of it, but he hasn't got that he. And so I think

it's I think it's X. Who knows? It's an X factor. Yeah, the X factor. It's so crazy when you look

back near it's like how it was just so obvious. But anyway, interesting thing about this game,

three, five, eight to no half back in it. It's a very good point. It's a very good point.

They kind of look like it too. And you could probably almost argue that had four, five, eights

if you throw in Gotham. I tell you what, Gotham's defense in this game. Like you know what he

looked like? He looked like an old footballer who had retired for two years and then come back

and played a full back. He defensively was as bad as I've ever seen him. Those shocking. Like

players just just waltzing past him. Terrible. Well, this is the thing I think it would be

I still think he actually has some value in attack, right? Defensively, he's never been good,

like positionally or technique wise. And you can't have something like that at full back because

it means that you're not there when a kick comes in. That sort of thing. I think you would fix a lot

of the dragons attack, not all of it. And you can't make, you can't make this one look that much

better. But I think their attack would look so much better if you put Gotham in at six next to

Ackinson and you put homes at full back. Yeah, I'm going to do it. Look, you could put,

you could get like a border collie and put a jersey on it and replace and put them in the side

instead of cold Flanagan, you know, and you would improve that team.

But you could just take cold Flanagan out, let them play with 12 on the field and you'd improve the

team. Yeah, there's just one less set of hands that does nothing. So yeah, terrible. I also

watched Super League game. I was a walk over, but I'll have a lot more to say about that bullshit.

Well, I mean, we can jump into it now. That's a good segue.

Well, look, we want to sell this to the United States. And the first show that we put on

are these terrible contests between Super League clubs. You know, this game was over after 20

minutes. And the funny thing was that I was like, well, next year we need to just send three,

we need to have three NRL games, you know, that seems to be the obvious thing to do. And I had all

of these people saying, well, the English clubs bring all the fans. And I'm thinking to myself,

what fucking bizarro world do we live in? Where we're talking about English rugby league fans turn

up to games over NRL? Like, can you imagine saying, no, we don't need the storm. We don't

need the eels. We don't need the broncos. Like, we need to send some little team from Northern

England, because they're the big key for this all event. So can I ask? Yeah. As you are the

resident expert on English rugby league most, because that's just fact. Yeah, look, my track record

speaks for itself. 100%. If they believe that the English game brings the banding, are these

the same fans that were complaining about having to travel to a different part of England,

like the southern part of England, to watch games. That's so much you don't like traveling to

France to watch games over there. And didn't like going over to Toronto. Yes, Toronto is remarkably

close to Las Vegas when you consider where England is in comparison. Yeah, well, look,

you're bringing logic into it. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I like what? No, I like what you're doing,

because I try to bring logic into these situations a lot. And they don't like it, you know.

Another thing I heard, the English crowd, they sing. They sing. Don't you love it when

a bunch of drunken, grown men sing in unison, Andrew? Isn't that wonderful? I know why go to games for

that. Leads such a weird thing. Don't say acquire dickheads. Yeah. But yeah, so I don't go to a

quarry, just get it out of the pub. I know, right? And like, it gets me about this, okay? Is it

leads me at Hulk AR 586? Yes.

Well, what's happened to Hulk AR? Well, look, far be it from me to say it's only like, you know,

fucking with the games in February, I think the games are still in February. It's early in the

season. No, like no one's form really matters at this point of the year. That's why we don't

hand out trophies this time of the year, you know. I wish they would. Tigers were second in the

preseason challenge. I mean, that should just be in order to entry into the grand final. I know,

right? Yeah. But yeah. So I think next year for last Vegas, we need to have three in our

real games. We need to put the games best forward. Have the biggest clubs in the world playing in

these games. And, you know, I went, I know Peter Valindes has tried his best to throw a bone,

but it doesn't work. They don't appreciate it. They're actually starting a winch and say they

want more money to turn up these English clubs. Yeah. I will go half and half for you. Okay.

Why don't we have two on our real games? Yeah. And the other game is the world club challenge.

Because that's the only game where an English side tends to be competitive.

I mean, can if you want, I know, I know you have zero care for the world club challenge. But

if the English one are being involved, yeah, then that should be the only way they're involved.

Because if that, if what we saw 58 to 6 between two, what should be heavyweight sides,

if something looks like that is what they're going to throw up, then that's just not good enough.

We can't have that. We can't have it. We're trying to put on a quality event here.

And we keep getting let down. And, you know, we don't have to be. We've got heaps of quality we

can put on show there. And we're not getting anything out of it, having them over. You know,

we replace them with much bigger clubs with much bigger supporter bases of fan bases that are in

our higher socio-economic situation that can, you know, they've got more disposable income. It

just makes sense that we'll just replace them with that. So you suggested we could even have

like a Queensland Cup game played there. Would it be any worse? No. Yeah, exactly. Oh, that's

that sort of thing. Yeah, there's some other, there's some other tight games in the English

League over the week. Oh, really? I didn't follow any of it. I didn't hear. Oh, I mean,

those, those types of crackers that will play. I saw that the London, London beat North Wales

168. Yeah, that'll bring that, that'll bring the crowds back. Don't cast a bit south at 78 to 8.

Nice. Wouldn't this be ghoul 5424?

Batley beat Sweden 54 to 6. Yeah, there's some good quality contests there. That's all in the

championship. The second division. Yeah, and then look at the funny thing is that you, I still see

tweets come up in my timeline from what the mix of English rugby league journals that go from like

whimsically not understanding the sport to just fall on grifters, just talent fans,

what they want to hear. And they're all like, I don't understand what the national media doesn't

really look at super league. And it's like, look at where the teams are. That's not a national

competition of any relevance. And, you know, I just don't understand it. When you point it out,

they get angry at you. It's like, you least when you shoot in the message, you hear dickhead.

And then you get to a point where you're just like, oh, fuck you, it's just enjoy what you've

gotten. So I just want to stop it. Just stop annoying us while you do it. That's true.

I was going to point out the top team in championship at the moment is the London Broncos.

Do you know what the average score is for the London Broncos game so far this year in championship?

Like they're foreign against in on average games. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to say an average 42.4.

And against I'm going to say eight. Okay, against is 11. See, not far off there. Okay.

Point score per game is currently sitting at 64.74. No, it's not. Is it really? Yeah, there's

259.4 in four games. That's outrageous. Hey, we got a we actually have an email from an English

Shrugby League fan. You know what? I really want to get into emails right here right now. Yeah,

he says, hi fellas. It's from Steven. Hi, fellas. I hate palms and want them to.

Hi, he's an Australian. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, Steven. I thought you were a palm.

So we can like him. Hi, fellas. I hate palms and want them to lose everything. And

as a background on the Broncos fan and the Queensland, I know how much he's not 100% good then.

It's getting worse and worse, isn't it? I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. You should have

just stopped that I don't like palms. I hate palms. Well, that's a good email. Hey,

he says, I know, I know how much you guys rightfully despise palm. He's that's funny how I've dragged

you into this. Yeah, I don't think I've ever despised him. I I liked it when we beat them.

But I think I've always been a pretty entry. That's not what you tell me when the podcast stops.

I've always been the one that sort of, you know, talks about how can we fix it? How can we do this?

How can you're like, oh, fuck up. Yeah, yeah. Look, I used to be like that. I used to be like,

you know, what you need to do, you know, the things you need to do. And you do that and then they

just get to a point where it's like, fuck him. You know, in retrospect, I think what it is,

it's the dad in me. And when it gets getting to their mid 40s, yeah, they like having fixer

wrappers. Okay. And that's English rugby league for me. That's my little fixer wrapper. I'm just

out in the shade with a hammer and a box of nails and stuff. I'm just tinkering away. Yeah,

maybe if we just do this, you know, fuck around with the finals like this. Yeah, let's see.

And I'm the person that comes out and says, listen, I know you're trying. Okay.

You just rock over, go that all of that there. You've got your shed there. That's all hard rubber.

It's just the fucking thing. Like, listen, if we take this, we'll put it on the back of a

fucking hauler and we'll get scrap metal out of it or you've got to just leave the keys in it.

The car will disappear. It'll be found burnt out down at Robes Creek. And you'll get the insurance

money. That's what you need to do. You can buy whatever you want with the insurance money.

But this thing here, it's not happening. I think that's the most perfect way to describe how we

approach English rugby league. Yeah. I think it is. Anyway, so back to Steven Zayman. He says,

I know how much you guys rightfully despise Palmies and all they stand for, but they do keep beating

our best club sides. Be honest now. You guys place high emphasis on players and teams quality

based on winning. Sure. And our real players and teams have clearly more class. But they keep

beating us in the all important world club challenge. They seem to beat us with spirit.

So they have to ruin like qualities. Sorry. Just spirit. You despise the Palmies. I can't believe

I want to interrupt just quickly. Okay. I've heard this argument a lot.

The spirit one. That threw me. But, you know, our best club team beat your club team all the time.

I said, yeah, you know what? It's after the super league season has begun. It's usually like two or

three weeks in. So the players have had a bit of time under their belt. They've started playing.

That makes a huge difference. Plus, they're playing it on their own home soil in their own weather

conditions. Our players usually get there on a few days before we play the game and then come back

home. And they honestly, they don't, the Australian players do not take it seriously. And that is

part of the problem. And so this is why the English teams are always dominant at it. They do take

it seriously. It's played on their home turf. It's played in their conditions. And it's played

after they've started their season. Whereas the Australians are, it's like February when we play it

or March. And we haven't started the season yet. We've played two trials or maybe one trial game.

And in the one first trial game every year, as we know, barely any like regular first graders are

playing. And if they do, they play for 20 minutes and then they're off. So there's a reason we play

trials. Yeah. There's no mileage. There's no actual game time in their legs over the last five

months. That makes a difference. That makes a significant difference. And that shows how little

regard the Australian teams have for this game. And that's part of the problem. If you want to

consider Australia constantly losing the World Cup challenge games, a problem. That's the reason

for it. It's not, it's not passion or anything like that. It's just England. They found something

where they could say, yeah, we were better at Australia or something. And so they just,

that's what makes them passionate about it. Because we don't give a shit and they do.

And that's simple as that. You know, if we start, want to start taking it seriously,

like both countries, then we will start playing this game in June.

Yeah. Let's see who wins it then. Yeah. And the thing is, like just say you were the Broncos

and you decided to take this game seriously. So you start playing trial games and I don't know who

you'd play trial games against, but you'd start playing them in early January. You'd gear up for it.

You'd be putting it through there. Yeah, yeah. But then you now you've turned your, your NRL season

into a 10 month like smog. And good luck being there at the end of that 10 months

slog because you've just extended your season a month and a half longer than every other NRL club

has. Like it's just for a trophy that's given it out in February. Yeah. I mean, would you take

the world club challenge trophy over two competition points? I don't think you would.

No. And that's the thing. And at the end of the day two, it's, you know, if they play as their

first trial in January and that had over to in February for the World Club challenge, they've gone

from playing in 35, 40 degree heat to going over there in the snow. But you can't just, you can't

just assume that that doesn't take an impact on players. Well, you just, you got to watch the

like I watch the Trog, I watch NRL Trogens, right? And these these world club challenge games are

trial games for the NRL teams. They early on, there's a heap of mistakes, you know, their

combinations are not going great. And that's what you see in Trogens. It just is. Yeah. But I

don't, I don't, I've never cared about the world club challenge. Like it just, the world club

challenge went off my radar in 1997. Like I, I enjoyed it when I was younger because

the, the best teams in England in the 90s, early 90s, mid 90s, they were legitimately good teams.

And it was basically Wigan most of the time in like 92, 93 Wigan sides. Yeah. Yeah. They were,

they would go toe to toe with the best teams in Australia. Yeah. No, no doubt about it. So I was

good to see them go up against that Bronco style, which is basically the Marone's origin side.

You know, they were good contests. But after that, do you remember who the West Tigers played in 2006?

2006, what did it mean? I know Bradford. It was Bradford. Yeah. Would you have called either of

those two sides the best of both comps? Bradford probably was the best in Super League. But

West Tigers weren't the best team in the NRL in 2005. I mean, look, they you win the

comp. You're the best. You did. They did win the comp. But I think if you were to look on paper,

you would say that the West Tigers were a good side. But I don't think anybody would have had the

West Tigers pegged to make it to a grand final in 2005 at the start of that year. Look,

because on paper, they weren't that strong aside. The rules favoured them. And no one thought

about that. But they went on a massive run at the end of the season. That's how they got in. And,

I bet a luck in the finals as well, kind of against a few weak or injury riddled sides.

And I know it says I can take a something away from it, but I'm not because you've got to win the

games to get the get the job done. But I still don't see how that West Tigers could ever be considered

as the best NRL side that year, because how did they do the following year? I mean, I didn't follow

wilderness for five years after. I saw some English players, some former English players on a

podcast clip that was posted on Twitter. And they were saying how the top, probably four or five

supleg teams could go toe-to-toe with their best in the NRL. And, okay, I was halfbacked.

Okay, okay, hang on, hang on. Yeah, yeah, yeah, in the whole season, if you put them in together.

Okay, I was halfbacked to Iron May.

You know, leads as Brody Croft. Yeah, well, what are we talking about here?

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know how they

how they get there. I think it just comes about because they're so, you know,

dated with their own game. That's fine. Yeah, look at it's a it is there's definitely a case of

like this. It's such a small little competition in such a small geographic area. They're getting

all of their news and information from, as I said, people that are either extremely optimistic

or flat-out grifters who tell them what they want to hear. And anytime somebody comes in from

the outside of that, they they hate them and don't like anything they have to do or say.

And that's fine. That's why it's like let them go and do that. But that they don't have to inflict

at all. Well, it dumps shit on the rest of us, you know, Iron Man. Dude, let's keep going with

his email. Yeah. I mean, like, what do you say? What do you really have to say for yourself?

For yourselves? Yeah. And then PS, does this mean you're the best team in the world? Like

to go by their own logic? Yeah, that's what it would mean. And then he sent another email

after the game between Hawkeye and the Rhino's. And he wrote, Rhino's are the best team in the

world. You have all people I had, no, I had to. PS, Savo, PPS, Brody, BrodyCrop, because BrodyCrop

tore them up. We've got another email here from Allen. It's actually a quite a long email.

Now, this is NRL Issues Resolve. He says, comment. Please see the issues. NRL off to the USA.

For the NRL to be successful in the USA, a number of improvements as to how the games televised

need to happen. Having watched a few games with my work friends from the USA, a comment comment

was that they enjoyed watching it, but simply did not understand one minute of it. In the USA,

game, a flag system is used. They also use inches. Yeah, yeah. And they do the days backwards,

but they do the money backwards. Oh, I think I could go on. He's talking about gridline.

Okay, so it says in the USA game, flag system is used and an explanation given over the loud

speaker as to the decisions given by the referee. Gridline has numerous stopgages with explanations.

And the crucial point is how the US audience has grown up, which are football, a game of fewer

stopgages and almost nil explanation from the officials that would be understood in the states.

The viewing audience in the USA have not seen the game on a regular basis. And in general

terms, do not understand the rules. Our broadcasters would not have the time during the match to

point out the finer and not so fine at points of the game. Let me be clear that it is a game

just like any other game which requires a thorough understanding before it can be enjoyed by a US

audience. So what can be done about the presentation of our game in order to be more successful in

having our game watch to perhaps and perhaps play the USA. And then he says, let's start something

simple and he says something I was just thinking about. A caption at the bottom of the screen

can we have this shown aligned with the teams as they line up in the field. Let's not have the

caption the wrong way around for one half the game as we do in Australia. A parallel TV channel

selected by viewers choice. The purpose being that the rules and technical description of the

game as it progresses can be shown on screen in order to free up the commentators from having to

describe it one hundred percent of the game. It could work by having the commentators select from

say a range of buttons that have technical descriptions already prepared for them to choose from.

I have seen something similar to this in union game a word come up on screen.

Ruck and one word was all that was there for the viewers to sort out what was the infringement

absolutely not good enough. Another suggestion as the girls game has played a lot slower,

more time would be available for explanation and clarification. Not sure if the girls would

be playing but it would help set up the system. Please contact me via email for the details

and be welcome. So yeah, there's some interesting ideas there. I think that you know maybe

having captions or a scrolling thing under the screen would be good.

Under the you know the time and the score and everything that says what a penalty was for.

But I mean I think what it comes down to is it's just generally giving them more exposure to the

game and you know allowing them to pick up on different things and I mean I think the way to get

rugby league into the USA is to pick a pick medium sized colleges and start trying to get the

game into colleges over there even if it's in a small geographic area to start with and build

upon that. I think that's the way to do it because then you're starting then you're teaching

like young athletes the game. Maybe they're the people that are on the fringes of their

gridiron teams that you know are looking to earn a scholarship or they're looking to represent the

school in some other sport and you know that's that's the way I would personally get the game

more into their sport psyche over there. There's everything that you suggested and that was put

forward in the email. All good ideas. But at the end of the day everyone who watches rugby league

didn't learn it from being told the rules. We watched it being played at a footy and we started

to figure it out that way. So all I'm hearing is the American sporting public are lazy and they

don't want to learn about another sport. That's basically what it is. Like the end of the day

you know do they tell you the rules have had darts as play while they're throwing darts at a board?

I mean even even people who from America watch cricket and they don't understand it

and we don't tell them how crickets played and I'm pretty sure there's plenty of time to explain

every fucking rule and sub rule in the history of every fucking rule that's ever played in a game

or cricket and we don't do it there. So I would say what needs to be done the best way to do it is

not do a jury game. You just have a video comes out from the NREL that very briefly goes through

the key rules and things that happen in the game. So that you've got enough knowledge to understand

basically 90% of what goes on in the game. What's a forward pass? What's a knock on you know what

happens if you kick the ball into touch if it goes out on the full points for a try. Hey squirrel

try that sort of stuff dude. Basic stuff so you get a bit of a rough grasp of what's going on.

It's only got to be like five minutes. Perfect and that would be all you need. I think if you went and

tried to explain in detail during a game every rule you would confuse everybody because

not one knock on is the same as another you know. Yeah true. And you just you'd have too much gray

area and I think it would just you'd end up confusing people and they're like well hang on

did not see something like that last week and it got called something different and now is that

a knock on or is it something else? I don't I don't know anymore and you just

yeah I don't know I think you want to try and keep it as simple as possible in the shortest possible

if it's a five minute video they can pause the broadcast and watch the five minute video and figure

out what it was again. Oh yeah okay figure it out and then press play again or if you go you know

I think that would probably be better than having rules and stuff all over the screen. I remember when

the the rugby union tried that thing with the you know explaining what it was with one word in

the bottom there and I was looking to go and that's just stupid. Because now I'm looking at it

with someone who actually understands most of the rules of rugby union going why they're putting

the word rock on the screen. Yeah look I I mean I um like I watch a lot of basketball and I used

to watch a lot of NFL and so I know the rules for both those sports inside out and it was just

through exposure to both sports you know I had to shoot years of exposure to both sports so

I just think exposure is the way to go and no that's right that's what I was saying like what

what you suggested was a far more better idea and that is you've got to get the American

what it's exposed to it and you've got to get it not just take one game over there just okay yeah

that'll do it is but they need to have a broadcast over there regularly and at a decent time not

up 2 a.m. I know it's going to watch it have it on some channel who cares what it is having a

strange channel with regularly games on there let people watch it during normal times when normal

humans are normally awake not like me I think look I think that there's the keys are like you you

want it you want it to be live right if it's and I think that the problem that we have is that

most of our in our old games are on very late for for the US audience so that's one problem we have

in terms of them seeing it regularly but you could still get to see it I mean we we have

you know there's a lot of NBA games are on too early in the morning for us and obviously

you know anything in Europe is on too late for us there's plenty of Formula 1 fans in Australia

and the entire season is basically on that the wrong time for us so yeah all those bastards overseas

fucking winch about that one race over here and who is that that's doing the engine yeah you know

like it really does just come down to exposure and even enough exposure they'll pick up on it

I think that's why it's important that you have to show them games that are good quality games

games that are actual contest so that they you know if you sit down and there's a you know a

socket like if somebody says to you hey that this World Cup final in soccer it's they're into extra

time even if you don't like soccer you're going to chuck that on because you want to see what happens

you know so you've got to have close quality contests and that's what we need to provide

that's why I think it's important that the NRR will just play three NRR games next year

and going forward for the Las Vegas games and there was also look there was also talk about

maybe playing I think Peter Valandes threw up the idea of maybe playing a similar sort of

Las Vegas style event in Miami possibly in the future I think that the NRR will needs to look

at playing these games somewhere where they would have an actual impact on the city I

I have very I'm very skeptical that the city of Las Vegas that gets bombarded every single day by

some event you know and that's not even including the fact that the strip is there

they would just be tone deaf the actual citizens of Las Vegas for the most part would be tone deaf

to events that turn up because they're just happening all the time um so I think we'd probably

get more out of playing the event somewhere where it is not just one of the million other things

that are going on that year you know I think playing it maybe somewhere like a like San Antonio

I think it'd be a pretty pretty good idea you know they've got an indoor stadium there that could

be used um a place is like that where I think it would actually make an impact more mid-sized

cities rather than big cities or tourist destinations you were played in LA and it just gets swamped by

you know everything that's going on in LA you could play it's same thing with New York um

you know team even the sporting teams in Miami find it hard to attract Miami residents to their

games you know you look at the baseball teams in particular they find it very difficult

and then you've also got to look at like you know there's certain areas of the United States where

you are not going to break into the communities NFL or not NFL gridline community based teams

yeah you know an impact in particularly Texas is one of those areas where good luck you know

you're not going to break through there um so I don't know what you do like I know that I said

San Antonio but like I just I think you've got to really pick the right place I heard some people

saying Utah would be a possible option because there's apparently a quite a big Polynesian

population there but I don't I don't know personally and look I know that

American sporting landscape pretty fucking well and it's it's very hard to pick somewhere where

I can think of where you'd be like the main event and it would be something sustainable that

you could go forward with in a city that was the sort of city you want to go forward with it in

like there are plenty of cities you could pick but the problem is the crime is a problem in those

cities and and like what is the future of the sport going to be investing in your first city where

it's they've got a major crime problem you know I think it's somewhere like St Lewis like that where

they don't have an NFL team anymore let me throw up one okay and this is not because of any ideas

I've got but Florida because yeah um when Rugby League started taking a bit of a you know

wouldn't say a hold but you know along those lines in England sorry in America it started in

Jacksonville so would there be somewhere in Florida that would be worthwhile is it going to be

knowing that Rugby League's got some sort of historical significance you know in America in that

I wonder if you could do like Jacksonville Orlando you know those sorts of parts of Florida I think

as you go south it would become a little bit more difficult um you know I think soccer is because

you're getting that influence from you know Latin America comes in through the south of Florida so

they're more towards soccer in terms of anything um you know you might get it around you might

get around Jacksonville and I guess into the Carolinas and stuff like that that might be an area

you could aim for but you know it now we really stands out for me that's the problem

I don't think I mean it's what we like you could maybe see Diego see Diego would be maybe

something you could look at in terms of they've only got the baseball team now yeah I don't know

but the you know I want to have someplace that you know an Australian can look at it and go oh yeah

I know where that is you know there was something that you know people know when they look at Sydney

and see the Sydney Aberbridge you go oh yeah that's Sydney Australia and say they want some sort of

iconic American thing like that yeah that's kind of what they want for marketing purposes yeah

that's a problem you're gonna get with Jacksonville yeah yeah if you put an event on in Jacksonville

and American he's not gonna say it is a big event no that's right so it's it's they've got to find

a way to tap into where they know they have some symbols of a fan base or some symbols of history

and work with that but not be too far removed from a key landmark or a key city or something like

that where they yeah they they are doing themselves a disservice by being too far away from a big

chunk of the public who might be interested yeah yeah that's what the title appears obviously

and look I look at it through the eyes of I want to build something for the future if this is

just a junket where everyone goes over has a good time and comes back fine right yeah that's not

the way that I look at it though I want something to be built and look we're playing in Las Vegas the

fucking places built in the middle of a desert it's not exactly rugby league you know environment

yeah it's the Alice Springs of America it literally is yeah like if you know it's not like it's

surrounded by green fields nice so if we're just going over for the event that's cool but let's not

pretend it's in it the more than that yeah and if you want more than that then you've got to start

looking at these other things I guess yeah not the moment to the the big problem that I guess

the general has is that I would say 90% of the crowds that attend have flown over from Australia so

they're not really drawing in that many locals do you even just add a curious to come and watch the

game yeah yeah and I I wonder that you know you would have to think about where you would get more

local sport for an event if you wanted it to be about the locals and that's the problem is it

about the locals or is it about getting a bunch of Aussies over out for a weekend yeah and if it's

just about the Aussies leave it in Las Vegas it works pretty good that way but if it's about

exposing the game to locals and making them want to follow the game and watch the sport and stuff

then that's a completely different thing and you know then you've got to do something else because

that what they're doing right now I don't think fits that sort of event so viable long term

no not if that's what yeah if you look if you took all of the if you took all of the Aussies

they went over away from that event we wouldn't be happening event no I think they need to find a

way to create some sort of partnership commercially with either the NBA or the NFL I could do some

sort of cross-promotion stuff over there with each other they won't do that they just won't do

that I know that way but that's if they want to get into American living rooms and houses we

can't have what we had was it last year Aaron Woods is passing a ball on the sideline who cares

but we need to get some of the elite household names who are playing sport in America

being seen alongside this sport that's come from some other country yeah don't get someone that

looks like fucking Peter Russell Clark yeah you get someone that looks like a fucking actual rugby

like it looks like an actual athlete who's a like thought that was a good idea and someone who

can talk with that saying um every second word yeah oh my god so yeah this I think there's a lot

of opportunities there for the IRL and they've they've got to try and work on a bigger scale not

just trying to think of what works here in Australia and that is just punk on a game in a city I

need something and how do we actually get into this market because it's a tough market to crack

yeah very tough yeah the game has been legitimately trying to get into the American market from

you know from Australian perspective since 1910 and still hasn't done it and now we've actually got

some you know enough financial cloud to give it a proper crack and we're over there and we're playing

games in one of the big cities we've got to find a way we can't we can't just be go okay we've

done it now that's enough we've got to find a way to go that next step further and I think what

you said before about you know getting into colleges and stuff over there is a key thing I don't

know how they do it but if they could do that that would be a great idea I think they need to start

somehow get the the rugby league competition in America bigger as well that way Americans have

got their own teams to support in the local comps they go oh we've got this version of the game

here already I tell you how I would do it I would start with women's game because they've got rules

in place over there in colleges where they've got to have the same number of scholarships for

women's supporters they do for men's sport so I would get it going by saying look we've got

women's rugby league that we can offer you and and I started in an area with local colleges playing

against each other they wouldn't give scholarships to begin with but you know get show them that

it's a viable thing that they could build upon there and you've got to have a long-term goal

with that and then on top of that you bring in you say well we can have men's teams too and

you know do different things to help them out there but I tend to think that's not what the NRL

is thinking of and that's fine but don't pretend that you that this Vegas venture is something more

than that then you know I'm happy with it just being an away trip I really am as an away trip

it works great but I just don't you know let's not pretend it's changing hearts and minds while

we're there yeah there's none of that's actually taking place it's it is it is 100% of marketing

exercise that it's a good marketing exercise yeah it's fine it's fine and I'm sure that there are

people that come across it on Teve and they're like what's this and look the NRL is a really nice

product to watch on TV it's at the presentation is good the teams look great the athletes look

fantastic it's a really you know you switch it on and you know you're watching a quality sporting

event straight away yeah so I'm certain that there will be people here and there that are like

come across this on Teve and it looks great and you know I started following up from a distance

and stuff in a similar way that people did the same thing with US sports in Australia but

if you're not following it up with something you're not following up with something and don't

pretend you are agree was there more to the email oh no no that was that that was the end of

his email we need more emails we need we need just sending emails because we love it look how long

we talked about them two emails for yeah that was a very thorough conversation yeah yeah no more emails

uh no no not lately uh spam I mean I'm trying the spam is ridiculous I've been getting lately it's

nonstop I must be getting 30 spam emails a day can we turn one of the spam emails into a

regularly conversation how good are we no they're just crap they're just garbage um let's talk about

Zach Lomax so today oh well yesterday if you listen into this uh Zach Lomax is court case again

with the Melbourne storm against paramedic eels to get him uh released from his deal that he

signed with the eels when he broke his original deal with the eels was dismissed basically so

Zach Lomax has to sit out for the next two years of the NRL um Zach Lomax was signed a contract

originally with the dragons he cut that deal short negotiated or released from the dragons to

get the paramedic eels on a long-term deal good amount of money for a winger he was only therefore

wow man six months or so before he started negotiating or released from that deal because he was

going to go to a very lucrative rugby union competition that didn't exist and he'll say look we'll

we'll sign this but you have to state that you will not play in the national rugby league for

the following two seasons and he said yeah of course I'm not going to be playing rugby league I'm

going to be playing in rugby union competition it has no teams no players no stadiums no TV deal no

employees no grounds uh nothing at all I'll be off the one that so I'll sign anything you want so

we signed it unfortunately there's a competition with no players no fans no coaches no administrators

anyway look so he wants in his defense no one told him

and look people have been bagging his manager and I don't know who his manager is and I don't

particularly care but the manager can't can't force a player to do something they don't want to do

a manager gets every all of the information all the office says now what what do you want to do

and the player picks what they want to do and I'm sure his manager said now you know that

we haven't got a contract and you leave in contract and he must said yeah I'm going for it

there's a bad choice you know he's basically broken a contract or negotiated or

released from the contract with the dragons to go and play one year for the eels negotiate or

release from them to sign a contract saying he can't play in the national rugby league for two years

that is what you don't do if you are a professional rugby league player Andrew

cannot just say too just add add to that yes not only did he sign a contract where he agreed

to a play for paramutta but also be not play against paramutta for two years yes he cancelled

that contract just to sign a contract that didn't exist for a competition that didn't exist

and then while he wasn't doing that he then tried to sign another contract with the Melbourne storm

yes by the way after he tried to sort out a contract with a Perth Rugby Union team he was there

for a little bit do you think yes but Zach Womax is a fucking idiot no no no no no I don't think

I don't think that I know that because the disregard this guy has for contracts

is on another level well it wasn't to this one this contract he signed to not play in the NR of

two years so the crazy thing about I saw in the ruling today well yeah was that

the Melbourne storm they have to pay 250 grand which is paramutta's legal cost yeah if I was

the Melbourne storm I'll be saying here you go Zach that's your bill now

well I believe that they said they would pay that when they started this deal when they started

trying to negotiate this release for Lomax if I was the storm I would be very angry at like if

I was one of the club's owners I'd be very angry at the people that just spent quarter of a million

dollars I'd just say I just thought to Zach you know we made that deal with you that we'd pay this

yeah just like you we're not going to honor it this is your bill because this is the thing he's

yeah he's he's managed to not have to pay a cent out of all this drama he's not playing

40 for two years but when he hasn't actually been genuinely punished that's the contract that he

signed so he knew that he knew that stipulation going into sign of that contract I don't think

he needs to be punished though it's just a case of life no I think he does I think when it comes to

being an idiot I think you need to be punished I tell you what he's lost a lot of money I

reckon that's punishment enough no no he needs to lose 250 grain more just look at least and

anybody out there that's a rugby league player do not sign a contract that says you cannot play

in the richest rugby league competition in the world for two years that's a bad idea yeah

and that that shows you a paramount of finally got smelt with a contract

because there have been addition that a lot of bad contracts a lot of players I shouldn't have

been getting them but they saw this bloke breaking a contract and you know what if you're going to

break another one then we're going to make sure that we don't get stung with it yeah pretty good

bit of business I think that there will be more teams that will approach them with a player swap

and and see what they want but that team will then have to also negotiate with Zach Lomax to see

if he wants to play with them and they obviously want to do it if he says no but you know the funnily

enough the best place for our my record by the dragons yeah I cut a lot well that's the thing

like he either has to go on he either has to go on play rugby union now or go over and play in

supleg which I mean that's fucking miserable so I guess he's he'll play rugby union somewhere

I think you'll go to supleg you reckon yeah yeah I wouldn't be surprised I think there'll be

supleg clubs long enough to sign him and he'll just take whichever one throws the most money I'm

money at him because what about the supleg salary cap Andrew

there's such a thing exist no not really do you know that they're talking about

go on this is a fucking stupid go on they're talking about

raising the salary cap for individual clubs I know I know none of them can afford it

but they're saying well if if a team owner wants to tip in then obviously they can afford it's

like that's not the team you know they're talking about doing that and we know we're that

fucking leads and any year where they've already had like four clubs go fucking bust in the last

few months they're gonna put in place fucking changes that make more clubs go bust I can't this is

why fuck them you know I think I think right now what needs to happen is supleg needs to just come

out so you know what this is all just been a front for our newest crypto coin I just just admit

that they're grifting just demise well I just come out with a pump and dump yeah this has been

the worst example of a Ponzi scheme I've ever seen looked at a couple of weeks ago I was doing

research in regards to the assets that are owned by different supleg clubs I remember you mentioning

the clubs valuation and it is shocking how most clubs there's nothing there like that we talk

about clubs in Australia and when you talk about it you understand there's a certain amount of

infrastructure there and there's a certain amount of assets there there's a certain amount of

your club generally owns a facility and facilities and super league teams and English rugby league

teams don't work that way there's very few of their teams actually own anything yeah and they

you know and you'll get super league fans it will say oh our owner is worth this much money and

so yeah but that's the owner your club doesn't generate enough money within itself to

fucking do anything and they don't understand that and then you look at this this week a lot of

I saw footy industry he was posting a lot of the NRL teams financial statements for last year

and you look at how much like that I think the Broncos had $98 million in turnover last year

and like I think you know the Panthers had a massive amount of turnovers over as well and

those two clubs have like ridiculous amounts of assets and they own land and facilities and all

sorts of businesses and like you know the Panthers last year were valued as like valued at

$141 million as like the highest valued sporting club being Australia in all sports and the Broncos

weren't very far behind I think that might have been second or something this super league clubs there's

literally like their literal franchises there's nothing underneath what you see run out you know

and it's shocking to me because they've had it 100 plus years to build stuff and they didn't build

some of these clubs didn't build one thing it's crazy because and they haven't got plans to

build anything and some of them do but it's most of them don't this is the problem though and we've

been through this tons of time this is the problem you get though with the promotion relegation

system is that every team is spending their money on surviving yeah and it's a horrible situation

that's what they've created and they've sold it to the fans that oh this means every team

got a chance of being promoted and blah blah blah blah no it's just it doesn't work that way

have a look at how many teams have been folding this in the last three months in England

it's just that's what it does and so their clubs don't have but don't have any interest in

focusing on long-term assets and you know wealth wealth growth and that sort of stuff because their

owners they see their the clubs that they that they own as a form of investment and not one where

they get a return on investment every year but they're hoping that with their little play thing

their football team they might win some money by winning competitions at the end of the year

and that will be enough for it to break even and then they don't lose money and for two or three

owners that works out all right and look at I honestly think most of them look at

these clubs as a tax write-off because they incur losses right well I was going to say something

along those lines but I don't know how the English tax system works in that regards but I

wouldn't be surprised if that is also 100% true look that's just a guess because if you because

they lose money right if it's losing money and you have to tip money into it to keep it alive

and that was your idea was that it's going to be some sort of tax write-off for you

then why would you invest in this entity that you want to have any assets because

it kind of works against that like if they start having assets and look there's some clubs where

that's not how they run but most of them are you know it's really weird it's really weird to me

and clubs that have been successful for a very long time and they have there's nothing there

I don't understand especially some like you know you look at panorath coming to their

New South Wales Rugby League competition in 1967 and there wasn't a huge amount

happening around panorath at that time but they had a vision to build and build and build and build

and build now you go out there and they've got you know they're giant facilities and entertainment

they're like an entertainment district you know they own it's it's it's been possible to make

that happen if you put the effort in and you know the English clubs just never had that mindset

and that's why now they're in these positions where they are reliant on charity from

local businessmen to keep them alive rather than being able to stand on their own two feet it's

really crazy yeah I don't know why anyone would own an English rugby league team super league or

whatever as I just don't see how there's any benefit anywhere other than you're doing it out of

the goodness of your heart or you because you know you grew up as a fan of the club well that's

little stuff and yeah a ton of fucking money and you don't really care what happens you you can

you can generate enough revenue and income from other streams to cover the losses you get there

than fair enough yeah and you're happy to do it yeah yeah but otherwise I can't see how it would be

it's definitely doesn't generate income no so I don't know why why the English rugby league is

allowed us off to get to that situation where they have to rely on random rich people to keep

their game and their clubs alive because that's a horrible fuck concept for a system

yeah it's it's terrifying that it had big terrifying I mean imagine yeah

yeah our club is owned by someone and and it's like a like you look at seats right they're owned

by Russell Crowe who's been a magnificent owner for them does exactly what you want an owner to do

loves the club let's everyone run it and when they say we need your star power to help bring

someone in he turns up he puts on the show for them and then he disappears again you know yeah

but if Russell Crowe decided to sell the club tomorrow or even sell the club back to

or turn the club into like it's own entity like it's it's not private ownership anymore

it says Sydney generates so much money that it would be completely fine like they don't need Russell

Crowe to keep them alive no that's right yeah it's I can't imagine I can't imagine

having an owner that like if the owner decides that he wants to do something else going forward

and sells the club it's like what happens now you know because we're we're in solvent immediately

yeah looking constantly just scrambling for you know begging yeah you're going to be begging for money

that's it might be that's bad yeah it is it might be wonder if all of these clubs that were

gone bust over in England what if in our rule just keep buying them every time a club goes bust they

just buy them and and mothball it out of five sale yeah just look they could have bought four clubs

in the last six months will only take you if we can get extra six business chairs as well

I would love to know how much southward were how much it cost the person that now owned

southward how much were how much they spent to do it because I would bet it's a shockingly low

amount of money it would not be much at all and so why couldn't the NRL say oh we're buying that club

we're buying that club we're buying that club I did I did see something recently suggesting that there's

talk again of land he's talking about you know a financial interest in Super League and telling clubs

that they need to they need to get ready to you know seed control of the game and stuff like that

if they want the NRL to get involved it was like yeah he's right but at the same time it's not going to

happen Super League clubs won't give up any control of that game it doesn't matter who's coming it doesn't

matter if it's going to save it they won't do it yeah they just they will not that it's just goes

against everything they're about they will not do it they will rather it all dies in a heap then do

that and you know that's why I think if the NRL wants to get a fool hold into the UK just do your

own thing start your own competition yeah and you could do it in you could make it a win the

competition you know whatever you want that's what I would do either that or you just go straight

to friends I think the French would love it yeah I think there would be yeah the French would

love have an A major is the Super League just become the French Super League and then it just

be full of French teams and just yeah the last three surviving English teams yeah that would be

fantastic look I've said before I think that the London Broncos should join the French competition

I think that would be great for the Broncos I think it'd be great for the French competition

and then all of a sudden you start looking at the French competition which is the largest

in terms of geographical spread it's the second largest competition in the world the French

competition um are you trying to say the French competition is is further further a spread apart

in the M62 yes yes wow so though I and I would have the two French teams come out of Super League

have London go into the French competition and then you know you bring the NRL in get them to invest

in the French competition and I think the French would embrace that and watch what happens I think

it would be fantastic you know you've already got the player base there that'd be open to it

I think it'd be really interesting if the NRL did that oh yeah because you know too the French

would be keen on spreading the game immediately into other parts of Europe 100% and they always been

about expansion yeah and you I think the other thing you too you'd find is that the French

would be really keen on spreading the game across France and I think that when you go if you go

into England you're going to run into a lot of people that just want the game to be strong in their

little town and they and you can tell them hey if all of your competitors are strong that makes you

stronger they won't like that like I think it took there were some people in an Australian rugby

leg that took a long time to work out that like if the worst team in your competition is really strong

financially and has really good players and gets good ratings that means everyone makes more money

that means everyone's gone great I think it took a long time for that sink in over here and I think

it would take way longer over in England oh yeah absolutely you know because there was a long time

where in Australian rugby league it was like I don't care what my competitors are doing I don't care

about their financial strength they don't care about their strength you know and I don't think

you see that anymore I think they all kind of know their everyone's strength is directly related

to everyone else's strength and it took a long time but they got there and that's why we're flying

now over here imagine if the you know I'll just put out the French rugby union

well the French rugby union is like they've got teams that are privately owned as well in a

similar setup where it's like they they tip money in it's very European sport thing

because I just I just ask chat GPT yeah which is financially stronger French rugby union or

the NREL it's said on here NREL's revenue is roughly four to six times larger than the French

rugby union's typical operating income yeah yeah and what about what you find over there and it's

kind of similar in English rugby union they'll get owners that will spend like

the 10 million pounds or 10 million euros or whatever to build out a squatter and that like that

squatter is not even close to being financially viable for that club but they'll tip money in yeah

and whereas the NREL everything's covered and then some like yeah like this out then amount

that every team spends what is it 12 minutes 12 and a half million bucks on players in the NREL

and that amount is covered many times over in terms of how much money the NREL makes overall

so yeah the NREL's in such a crazy financial position it's kind of extraordinary

well speaking of low we'll quickly touch on this too there's the broadcasting deals that to start

up again very soon yeah channel seven is just released or just an ass they're going to be having a

weekly I think weekly program rugby league program on there yep yep not watching it no I did you see

who's on oh fuck I just look at them yeah you turned them away before they even turned them

away show on yeah but they've shown that they're going to have an interest in broadcasting more

rugby league content yeah channel nine also come out and said we're not going to pay overs for

rugby league yep which is funny but that's hilarious they will they need rugby league so I wouldn't

be surprised if the NREL splits the broadcasting between the two channels as well as having Foxdale

and they will end up making a ton of money and there's suggestions that the next deal could be

worth four billion dollars over several years yeah which is amazing um be interested and see what

the salary cap goes up to and well it needs to go up because we've got two new teams coming in

and potentially a third because I don't know if the NREL will be going to be overly

cannot having an odd number of teams who knows but if they want to have a third team come in they're

going to need that extra cash anyway to accommodate that and the you know another team salary cap

so I wouldn't be surprised if the salary cap had me has very modest increases till they figure out

how many teams they're going to have and then the TV rights deal after the current one comes in I

think that's when we'll see big increases in salary caps and play awayges and stuff yeah it seems

that it seems that the I guess what we would traditionally have been called the pay TV side of it

I guess it's now called the digital streaming side of it talk about that is

down a little bit which suggests to me that it's going to stay with Fox Sports um and we talked

about how when they got bought by DeZone that Fox Sports basically had to have the rights because

otherwise that investment is immediately cut in half by DeZone if they lost their NREL rights

but the the free to air deal I know Valente has said that state of origin will be a separate

component so and that's going to be a bit of a duel in the crown for whoever gets that

and you know I mean the NREL is the most watched sport in Australia and you've you capture you

all those eyeballs from March until you know October 1st or October 3rd whenever they're

grand finals on yeah it's it's an incredible amount of live view as you get so you know anybody

that gets it is going to have to pay through the nose for it because it is very valuable and

anybody that loses it is going to be fucked and I also wouldn't rule out not there's been any talk

of it I wouldn't rule out um paramount getting involved as well the the owners of channel 10

well paramount just did a deal where the owners of paramount just did a deal where they are trying

to buy one of brothers I think that that deal is for a hundred billion dollars and their market

capitalisation is very close to that so I don't know how much more money they have to spend

but you know I guess if they're splashing out the money maybe it's the right time you know we'll see

yeah they might have bigger fish to fry overseas so at the moment I think that might be a problem

who knows who knows yeah yeah they've been trying to push for paramount to be

um be going in sport they they recently paid I believe it was a lot for the UFC yeah um

um so we'll see we'll see what happens it's going to be interesting the thing I did I just hope is

that the it sees the salary cap go up and you know is say with expansion the plays association

needs to remember that you know the salary cap in the individual team might go up by say five

million dollars but if another team is added then there's an overall salary pool that just went

up by like 15 million dollars say they've got to be pretty happy every time there's an expansion club

added so absolutely so there's a lot to look forward to it's really exciting it really is and uh

should we should we um put a bow in this one there at that stage yeah why not because how about we

get we talk it we let's say our tips for the upcoming round oh absolutely we're good to

do i've got to put that in i've got a few stats as well we can chuck in there okay yeah

so it's nice and cowboys already done nights one that 28 to 18 bulldogs one 15 14 and golden point

of the dragons eels versus storm uh melvin i don't think what was the start melvin hasn't lost a

ram on game in 23 years or something like that did you did you where's the stats here we go

melvin have won all their last 23 ram on games paramount of 123 of their last 41 ram on games

which is since 1984 melvin have won their last six games against paramount with an average

score of 36 to 14 and paramount i have never beaten melvin in melvin with a score less than 20

oh wow that's interesting um uh yeah melvin to do that one yeah so if you're going to bet on the

use you'd take them with the uh the the points over whatever the points yeah they need to score at

those 20 points if they're going to be storm uh warriors versus roosters yeah warriors have got four

injuries two of them halves so i don't i'm not saying i'm winning this i think the rooster going to win

this um the worries of one just nine of their 29 real one games um over the one 14 of their 23

games against the roosters when played in New Zealand on the flip side the roosters of one 14

of the last 21 games against the warriors i think roosters will do this one comfortable it's hard

to look past the roosters uh the this game is going to be so good broncos hosting the panthers

all right so penance of one just three of their last 17 round one games played away from the

panthers home ground that goes back to nine and eighty seven that's no good um Brisbane of one all

four of their realm one games against pennoroth which was in nine and eighty nine two thousand three

two thousand eight and twenty twenty three pennoroth of one nine of their last 11 games against the

broncos and there have been nine thousand nine hundred and ninety eight try scored in all

premiership games played in queensland oh yeah that's cool so the second try in this game will be

ten thousand in queensland so who do you think it's going to win who do you think it's going to score

the ten thousandth try in queensland i i think the panthers just because the broncos have had to deal

with a really disrupted preseason um i think this game is going to like immediately put the season on

like i think that there's going to be some carryover from that preliminary final in this i think

that the crowd is going to be huge they're going to be going off and i think this is going to be an

epic game i think the second try scorer is going to be uh i'm going to say Dylan Edwards

all right i'm going for pennoroth and i'm going for Nathan clear you to score the second try

okay be nice for him to finally achieve something

okay fucking plotter

did you put that feather in his cap yeah um so Saturday sharks hosting the Titans

Titans have won 11 of their last 41 games played in Sydney

granola have won 46 of their last 64 games at Shark Park

and they've won 11 of their last 12 games against the Titans i'm picking the sharks in this one by

plenty enough yeah you've got to go for the sharks in this one Titans still not total rebuild

we talked about it in the uh preseason or the the preview that it's going to be rough season for

the Titans but it's good they needed it and it's hopefully going to be the start of something good

for the club going forward yeah um Seagulls versus Raiders the Seagulls hosting the Raiders

mainly have won just five of their last 18 Rewind games however three of those were in the last

three years they've won 24 of their last 34 games against Canberra Canberra last one back to back

games against Manly in 2016 i'm going to go with

Manly i don't oh yeah i i don't i i don't see that Canberra's done much to improve their squad

yeah i mainly have either but i'd say Manly's probably got a better half's combination at this

stage because they've got a half back in Canberra does i am going to go for the Raiders there was

only really one team i watched in the trials where i was like oh that's bad and it was the Manly

Seagulls yeah yeah it's not good it was like and it wasn't like their reserve graders out there

it was like it's like they were missing a couple of players but

damn but it was just it was bad you know when you watch a pre-season game you're like oh this

is not good yeah that's basically been me watching all the first talk his pre-season game last year

you're not everyone of those years again isn't

and then the last game of the round is the dolphins hosting the sass your beloved sass in your

rabbit sass in your bunnies sass of one just four of the last 18 games played outside of Sydney

and they've conceded 31 points per game in those 18 games they've lost all of their last six

games in Brisbane considering at least 20 points every time and averaging 38.7 conceded

they're up against a attack and powerhouse in the dolphins too so i've tipped the dolphins but

i think the rabbit os are actually going to go pretty good in this game i think that i think

Wayne Bennett's going to get them i don't think they'll make fun of us but i think that Wayne

Bennett's going to have them playing some games where they're they're pretty tough to beat

i am legit torn on this one i don't know which way this is going to go i will

i will sow a dolphin just because they're so much stronger when they're playing in cuisine and when

they're not so i'll sow them there but i would not be surprised if sass won this

but uh my god they've got a lot of plays in there so this year you need to pull their

fucking arms out of their arse if they're going to do anything because they've got a great team on

paper it's they have to make the dolphins have to make the funnels this year

oh absolutely they have to because especially after the way they capitulated last year towards

getting that run into the funnels they just have to make it and if they don't make it this year

you gotta start looking at what's going wrong um it's not that they haven't got one of the best

halfbacks in the game they got a pretty good forward pack um their depth is still a problem but

they just have to they have to make the funnels and it has to start here they have to start winning

early get exactly good amount of points in the in the bank and you know finish it off

100% agree well there we go there's your 40 tips people

do we agree on everything no we didn't i could not really yeah yeah you pick me in like so

it's going to be interesting i will put the link for the footy tipping comp in the description

of this episode so just click that link everyone's welcome you can still join it um you know

you might have missed a couple of tips here and there but um you still beat me

yeah if you joined up to the tipping comp yet yeah i think uh yeah i did the other day

uh i put my tips in for round one so i haven't done the whole season yet okay i'm not sure if i should

look it doesn't matter Andrew

i've got a i've got a system that i've been working on in the off season and i'm going to try

this sheet i see how it goes okay yeah might as well yeah it'll still fail but you know

let's let's see what happens they're not at least i'm going to excuse i can blame the system not

maybe i wish it's a tipping i was testing the system yeah so working progress always through

yeah eventually create a system that beats the betting markets that would be handy that's the plan

yeah then you put it you then you start putting it on the betting markets and all of the betting

agencies start getting your face system that's right yeah it'd be great then i just sell the system

to everybody else yeah shut down gambling altogether you think gambling finishes yeah and it's over

i just i just be named the hero of save world sport from gambling um then i'll have to go back to

cigarette sponsorship yeah those those were the good old days hi absolutely no don't

never heard anyone didn't cause anyone any uh any addiction issues

helped your constitution that's right say i'm like gambling see yeah well i'll get rid of gambling

any gambling companies out there that want to be our sponsor getting touch

that's a spiel all right we'll wrap this baby up and we'll send uh send everyone off to bed

unless of course they've put up and they're going to work go to bed exactly i hope everyone enjoyed

listening um we'll be doing weekly episodes and then maybe even some in between we'll see yes and we

i get asked all the time we are working on history episodes there's a big one coming up another

one on english roguelig uh more recent history and we've got a guest line up for that one as well

so get us through that so we are working on that one in the background there's a few others i've got

you know i'm doing a bit of work on as well so um unlike in the past when we did history episodes

we just did like a small thing and just went from there i think i've started getting to this area

where i think i just want to go and look at something really in depth and really big and it takes a

little more time to do but we're all learning something at the same time instead of just

rehashing something somebody else was written so it's um a bit more unique and a bit more

exclusive for you guys listening and uh while he's been doing that i've just been thinking

of ways to bag the pumps yeah well you've also been doing podcasting

dog yeah yeah yeah when i haven't

just sends me a message every now and then are you still alive

yeah yeah yeah i'll get on there soon don't worry about it what time nine thirty and then at nine

forty five yeah could we do this some other day like i knew we'd do that

every weekend or every week

all right we get it done we get there eventually

all right well thanks for tuning in everyone make sure you check out all the socials

and we will catch us all next time