internatonal RL was developing along nicely in the early 90s

at that time for example mal menginga and the kangaroos were far bigger stars in england than the wallabies

then along came the SL war and set the cause of international RL back to scratch.

the thing that ive noticed is that from apathy, many aussie RL fans now want the international game to kick on

theyve had a union WC shoved down their throats and wondered why their football code cant offer something better.

all we need is for england to do what nz did a few times in finals and the international game will get a good kick on

Course you were.

and

righty ho, what can you show us to prove your 80,000 theory? Afterall, that's all it is.

I've taught you well...

mate, ask Enlgish people from around the country and see if they'd heard of Mal Meninga or say David Campese from the early 90s?

Everything else you've said seems reasonable Dally me old mucker.

Mal Meninga won the BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year in 1990.





He was fairly well known in order to receive said award...

This list of no names preceded him... (only ten years or so listed for ease)

lol

1978 Muhammad Ali
1979 Björn Borg
1980 Jack Nicklaus
1981 Chris Evert
1982 Jimmy Connors
1983 Carl Lewis
1984 Severiano Ballesteros
1985 Boris Becker
1986 Greg Norman
1987 Martina Navratilova
1988 Steffi Graf
1989 Mike Tyson

1990 MAL MENINGA

he was, now see my post and ask the English people as was suggested and see what happens.

You want to conduct a sample, get to it.

I'll let the list speak for itself.

lol

Cos, being Australian and thousands of miles away from it, that's all you have. An opinion. Set a task. You choose not to do it. For fear of embarrassment, I understand. You're wrong. Sorry.

Please explain how anyone is going to conduct your proposed sample in the early 1990s...

Now that it is 2010...

FMD. Desperate for a comeback or what???

typical aussie. Got nothing.

Let it be.

Nah. I am interested.

You want to determine if David Campese or Mal Meninga was the most well known sports personality in 1990 or so. I provide some evidence from that year indicating one was very well known.

You, without evidence, suggest otherwise.

Then you want to "let it be" because neither of us can get in a time machine and go back to 1990 to find out...you quibbled with the issue originally as the thread will show.

I've officially heard it all now.

lol

I am from England. I was there in the early 90s. More people in England would have known Campese better than Meninga. You ignore the truth and keep arguing. It's the Australian in you

Who said I was in Australia in 1990 or thereabouts?





Don't worry. You stick with your opinion (garnered from standing on street corners for the entire duration of 1990 proferring strangers with the peculiar question: "Campese or Meninga? What's your preference, luddie?" and kicking cans) and I'll stick with the evidence you can't refute.

You've always got your broad national stereotypes to fall back on though...that will get you through. That and your battered survey from 1990 clutched in your hand.

Yep, nothing.

Keep chirping with your wit geezer.

Got a bit cranky in a short period there, did we?

From "here here OD" to "geezer" in a couple of threads.

Shame...

Because when you talk sense I agree with you, when you don't...

Don't worry the survery still has merit. Even if it is a little tattered...

ark at her. Atleast you ain't called me an BLT.

Did anyone read the first few paragraphs and think; I could walk straight off the plane in Australia and walk into a job at the Daily Telegraph. I reckon pretty much everyone here could do a better journalists job then Dean Ritchie. Still you've gotta look at the readership, and you wouldn't see that many paragraphs on any two pages of our broadsheet, let alone one 'article'

In the 1958 Ashes series 2 tests were played at the SCG. The opening game of the series attracted a crowd of 68,777 and the 3rd match of the series got a crowd of 68,720 despite it being a dead rubber with GB being 2-0 up.

If International RL needed a History lesson then I'd know where to send them....what internationa RL needs is not a history lesson....it needs to sort itself out. 11,000 attended a game which the so called best team in the world were playing in...in an area which is a RL heartland......who gives a toss what happened in 19__whenever and how many turned up....fact remains that League doesn't register on the radar globally....and regardless of one teams dominance it needs to be packaged correctly......I repeat, RL is the better of the 2 rugby codes, but internationally/globally is well behind the other.

If you want to carry on with this I will continue to show you up as a small minded localised bigot with no knowledge of anything you haven't read in a RL history book.......I really don't give a toss about the fact that on a game per game basis, the SANZAR contract for the super 14/15 comp is more than the NRL is worth without SOO. I don't give a flying toss that more people will watch the AB'S V Australia on TV this wekend than will watch BOTH 4 nations games...I even don't care that the RUWC, regardless of what you say were false figures (with no proof of such falseness) is the 4th, 10th or 25th biggest event globally, it is still on the Radar.....League isn't.........but you seem to


Prove to me, in links and published articles that the RLWC is even 1/10th of the size of the RUWC.........good luck googling that for a response.
As for ARLT......and being a nutter.......I would suggest that idiots like you do far more damage to the game than realists like me who are (and have for a few years now) trying to make a difference by actually DOING SOMETHING.

Carry on quoting Vichy France stories.....remind us how many went to the SCG in 1914......tell us that the IRB are a badly run business because in your opinion they are liers...carry on....don't bother with facts...they just get in the way.

As for Fiji......it was great. Australian Fijians, New Zealand Fijians and Resident Fijiand played a tri-nations League comp when I was there......shame that the local Union Derby got a crowd of 12,000 whilst 300 was the average attendance for the league games..........but hey....Union lie.....there weren't 12,000 there and League got 3,000,000 at their games

I think your signature says it all when it comes to getting into an argument with Old Dally Darling Messenger Gutters

You should put the old troll on ignore.

Works for me anyway.


You can only see what he types if someone is foolish enough to quote him then

I don't see the point on harping on about the past - 1990 or 1960. The fact is that if we want internationals to become bigger, they need to be REGULARLY competitive, and ideally with more than 2 teams competing. NZ finally appear to be putting out a competitive side on a regular basis - but it wasn't that long ago that they were frequently getting blown apart by Australia (particularly the ANZAC Day Tests). You'd also argue that they still need more strength in key positions to keep it up - take Marshall out of the side and they haven't got a halfback within light years of Australia (as it was previously with Stacey Jones).

Once fans start to realise there's a real chance of Australia being beaten - and this being backed up by results - then more would go to watch. Success breeds success, and if people start to see internationals as bigger events (evidenced by packed stadia) then they'll want to get involved.

The other thing that we need to somehow copy from RU is the whole attitude of fans towards internationals. RU gets loads turning out to watch one-sided contests against minnows. RL fans seem to just complain about them 'not being good enough'. We need to treat these games not as sport but as events. That's what RU does very well - including the big internationals.

One difficulty our sport does suffer from in terms of competitiveness is that its very difficult for a poorer side to beat a better one. Union has an enormous advantage in that sense in that the rules enable teams to compete in very different ways. The Wallabies have vastly superior handling than any Northern Hemisphere team, but get murdered in the scrums etc by the likes of England who are able to keep it tight, and the frequent penalties and turnover of possession make routs more diffcult. In league there's nothing comparable that an England can do - we're exposed to sets of 6 tackles throughout the game and can't keep Australia off the ball for long periods. That's just the nature of the sport.

In any event, I wouldn't argue at all with the article in the sense that its up to England to step up. We can bleat about NRL refs, Aussies being apathetic etc, but the only way to change that is to actually win. I'd like to see it happen but I really can't see it.

I said "comfortable capacity" was 50,000.

Hence the fact union never attained it once between 1908-1987 (when the rugby codes ceased using the SCG after the SFS was completed for the start of the NSWRL season of 198icon_cool.gif.

You have to remember the bulk of the SCG was the Hill, which you could sit comfortably on or be crushed on like a sardine in a can.

Rugby league has had many crowds of over 50,000 between the start of the game (1907-0icon_cool.gif and 1987. From the massive crowd at the England/Metropolis game in 1920 (close to 70,000) to the 1987 NSWRL GF which was over 50,000 (by which time the Hill was effectively gone with changes to seating).

Rugby league also saw consistent all-ticket crowds from the start of the 1951 series against the French onwards.

To give you an idea of the elastic nature of the top crowd mark (basically the police would deem the ground full and shut the gates at their whim), the 1st Test of the 1951 French v Australia series was an all-ticket 60,160, whereas the 3rd Test (2nd was played in Brisbane) was a sell-out 67,009.

The top crowd of 78,056 for the 1965 NSWRL GF between South v St George saw probably closer to 90,000 in the ground with people on the rooves of stands, watching in their thousands from a nearby stadium grandstand at the Sports Ground and gaining illegal entry because of the weight of numbers forcing the gates at points...

Every attendance record of note at the SCG is held by rugby league. Club, State, International, Mid-week, Holiday etc. etc.