Very relevant. Believe me, as a lad who moved south at 13 and experienced the institutionalised League hatred in even state Union-playing schools (honestly, you couldn't make some of the crap I saw up) let alone the private ones, this stuff sticks and will take at least another generation to wash out amongst southern-educated professionals, be they journalists, sponsors or whoever of influence.

Outside of the Warriors, RL in New Zealand isn't within touching distance of Union. It gets less fans and less viewers than Netball...the Auckland 9's will be a big fancy dress party (jafas always wanted the 7's from Wellington) and it will boost participation numbers in touch, but the reality is that more people got up at 2am to watch the Union friendlies than bothered with the RLWC final......this is a Union country. As starbug will tell you, RL has a bad reputation in NZ with gangs settling scores both on and off the pitch.....it will take generations to sort that out.

The NRL and RLIF would be better placed strengthening the islands. Tonga, Samoa and Fiji, together with PNG would be where I'd concentrate.........get these countries competitive and capable of beating Australia and New Zealand and THEN you'll get the same level of support that Union does.

Clearly, you've never been to NZ.

RU in NZ is the dominant religion.

RL in NZ is an afterthought which registers a mere 0.0000001 on the richter scale of interest.

Actually RU is in all sorts of trouble in NZ. Sadly I don't see anything so far from the NRL to suggest they will use their squillions and self determination to make a big push into NZ. At least not for a decade or so. The next expansion will be Perth and Brisbane, after that we may see another NZ club admitted but that will be a lot of years away.

In the ideal world the nzrl would have got a place at the arlc table when it took over the game in Australia and the $20mill+ the NRL gets from sky NZ (minus the Warriors $7mill grant) would be given to the nzrl to have a real crack at growing the game over there.

Quote: William Eve " RL in NZ is an afterthought which registers a mere 0.0000001 on the richter scale of interest.'" 2012: 35,721 registered players 1,869 teams 159 clubs Considering the nzrl is run on an oily rag I'd say it's not doing badly, it's only a slightly fewer player number than NSWRL rugbyleague2013.nrl.com/PDF/NRL- ... e-2013.pdf

Quote: William Eve " RL in NZ is an afterthought which registers a mere 0.0000001 on the richter scale of interest.'" 2012: 35,721 registered players 1,869 teams 159 clubs Considering the nzrl is run on an oily rag I'd say it's not doing badly, it's only a slightly fewer player number than NSWRL rugbyleague2013.nrl.com/PDF/NRL- ... e-2013.pdf

Somewhat akin to your ramblings on this forum then.