Expansion and Competition Re-vamp

So with all the innuendo surrounding the Gold Coast Titans' long term future in the game, is the NRL ready to expand into new areas?

Not at this stage in my opinion. By 2015 the League should be looking to have teams based in Perth, another Brisbane side or another side across the Tasman. A second side in Brisbane will be a sure thing one day. The Bronco's currently get about 35, 000 to a home game each week, have a monopoly on talent in South East Queensland. You only need to look at how many Queenslanders are playing in other sides not based in the sunshine state and the dominance at State of Origin level to see that Queensland Rugby League is in a golden period much like that of the late 1980's.

Perth has a big chance to become and NRL entity once more. Games taken over to Perth have been well attended and they have a good junior system in place through the Western Reds academy who play at Harold Matthews and SG Ball level. If the new Commission decides to take a team to Perth it must be done right. Rather than try to take the focus away with outlandish player signings e.g. Israel Folau to GWS, they must continue to produce local Perth based juniors who in 5 or 6 years could be running around for a Perth based franchise. The revenue TV would make with another time zone would be outstanding and is hard to ignore.

Another team in New Zealand also seems a logical fit. You just have to watch their Toyota Cup side play each week to realise that they have a production line of players that the Warriors can't keep under their salary cap.  They have a chief financial backer if plans go ahead for this second team and again its a great place TV rights wise.

Greg Florimo and David Fairleigh are busting their boilers to get the Bears back into the competition playing from the Central Coast. David Gallop keeps his cards close to his chest on the subject and I think Central Coast league fans would rather have their own team with its own identity rather than a re-branded North Sydney Bears. It amazes me that a team from the Central Coast hasn't been in the competition for several years.

So with an 18 team competition you split your Sydney based teams with teams from interstate and have to leagues of 9 teams. You play home and away against all those teams in your conference bringing you 16 games plus another 4 games against teams from the opposite conference with home and away games alternating in the following years.

Have a top 4 semi finals series in both conferences. Use the system of a 'major' and 'minor' semi final used in country football. Teams one and two play in the major, winner goes to the conference final while the loser gets a second chance the next week when they play the winner of team three and four in the minor. Week 3 would see the conference final and week 4 would be your so called 'Super Bowl' with both conference winners playing in the Grand Final.

So there is my thoughts on where the competition could be headed and the way I would like to see it done. Let us know what you think.