No sooner has the ink dried on plans to introduce an NRL team to Perth than discussion has sparked up over where the 20th NRL team might be located.
Various possibilities have been suggested: Ipswich, somewhere else in Queensland, Hawaii, Adelaide, the South Island of New Zealand (which has submitted three different bids), Newtown (I’m not sure how serious that was), etc.
I would like to put in a word for an idea that has been mooted but isn’t getting a lot of traction in the Australian media, at least not so far as I can see: a confederation team that represents all the Pacific Islands like the West Indies does in cricket and Moana Pasifika does in Super Rugby.
There is a Māori-Pacific expansion bid in play: it’s called Mana Pasifika and would be based out of Auckland.
I think it’s a splendid idea. The Pacific Islands is a powerful rugby league region, perhaps the greatest one of all today, with players of Pasifika heritage comprising 52 per cent of all NRL talent. The islands should have their own NRL team.
Yes, Papua New Guinea are going to have a team but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have a Pasifika one as well.
A Pasifika confederation team built on the West Indies cricket model would be able to draw on the strength of an incredible reservoir of talent. Yes, West Indian cricket has been poor in recent years, but that’s not because it’s comprised of different nations.
The Moana Pasifika rugby side has had a lot of teething troubles, but couldn’t this be turned into an advantage, where lessons can be learned from their mistakes? I recognise the difficulties of getting sponsorship but surely there’s some greedy multi-national company in the region who could kick in needed funds?
There also might be federal government money as well – rugby league would be a far more effective way to shore up Australia’s position in the Pacific than $368 billion in submarines.
It’s a good idea to base the team out of Auckland, so it can be located in a big city with all the necessary infrastructure. There is already a strong island presence in Auckland, and it is not too far from Australia.
The team could still regularly play home games on islands such as Fiji and Samoa but the families could live in the one city. This would also increase the game’s visibility in New Zealand and stop the talent drain to Australia, which I recognise Aussies don’t care about but New Zealanders do.
I understand the desire for the South Island to have its own league team, but simply think an island-based operation run out of Auckland would have more supporters and resources and better access to Pasifika players.
At the very least I would like there to be more discussion about this idea in the Australian rugby league media. Maybe it’s the media I consume but Mana Pasifika barely seems to get a mention compared to bids from, say, Ipswich and the South Island. I think a great deal of this is due to the lack of Pasifika in the mainstream Australian rugby league media.
(Side note: is this not something that could be changed? Couldn’t the ABC, Fox Sports and Channel Nine have a training program for Pasifika presenters? In fact, shouldn’t the NRL insist on it as part of the new rights deal?)
I understand the excitement of going to Las Vegas, and the novelty of the NRL buying clubs in Super League. We should still do all that, absolutely, but we should be discussing Pasifika issues more as well.
