Wrong.



Not only has rugby league competed with union internationally, it is extremely easy to argue that (for example) rugby league's international scene during the 1950s was equivalent to union in the same period.



Rugby league teams from Australia, Wales, England, France and New Zealand were all very capable in that period.



With proper support, there is no reason why that can't occur again.

You can't compare aplles and oranges though, if there were 3 Union teams in Sydney they may all be drawing 20,000+, or may not, who knows.



Are you suggesting that if there was one RL team in Sydney it would draw crowds of 70K+?



I hate RU as much as the next RL fan and am smuggly watching as it struggles along in oz but Sydney crowds are pathetic generally with most clubs only having approx 10,000 paying fans. Compared to the other major code, AFL, its very poor.

I would agree the difference is RL is a minority sport in the UK - soccer is the dominant game - in Australia RL is the equivelent of soccer here so you would expect in a city the size of Sydney to attract sizeable crowds - maybe I am being nieve but the championship sides in London would attract crowds of that size never mind the Arsenal's of this world.



The Rhinos attendances would put them half way up the championship ladder for average attendances - they will never surpass Leeds Utd that is the pull of soccer here.

minority sport or not, some SL clubs get a very healthy percentage of their local popualation attending games.



and others get less than 3rd division soccer teams.

Of all clubs London and Melbourne get the worse % per population

Prob Cas and NQ get the best



Some are RL mad places like Hull and Newcastle whilst others have healthy crowds due to the size of the city such as Leeds and Brisbane

10,000 huh

The only time I WATCHED A UNION GAME WAS AT nORTH sYDNEY OVAL ,before the manly and norths game,they had a exhibition game showing RL fans THE SKILLS INVOLVED IN ONION .i'LL TELL YU THE 24,000 CROWD BACK THEN COULDNT WAIT TILL IT WAS FOOKIN OVER.







iN oThEr WoRdS BoRiNg ............

shute sheild is on tv now

yep, usually Sydney clubs crowds range from 10-20,000 depending on which teams are playing and how they are fairing (and if its raining!). I was at SFS for a Roosters home game a couple of weeks ago, crowd was 24,000 but there was probably 11,000 Roosters fans and 13,000 Sth's fans. At last nights game there was about 9,000 Roosters fans and 2,000 Parra fans. Only Wests, Bulldogs and probably Sth's have more than an average of 10-12,000 home paying fans in Sydney.

I see the SL games being shown in some parts of Australia are also drawing bigger TV audiences that S14!

The has fallen out of Super 14 crowds.



Union is on a downward spiral.

good to see