I doubt it. With all due respect to them, they're pretty ordinary and I couldn't see them beating Bahrain at all, and would lose to Saudi Arabia and Iran away. And both those teams would probably get the required point away as well. It's a rivalry to those who care about rugby. Contrary to belief outside the country, Australia is not a rugby country, moreso AFL. It's really only NSW and Queenslanders that care about it.
Re: Qatar V Australia WCQ, June 6 [R] How does that change what I said? And in the AFL, Sydney and Brisbane are averaging, what, 30-40,000 to a game? The NRL teams would be lucky to get 10,000 to a match. Sounds to me like the people are speaking with their feet, and asses on seats. Anyway, this is another discussion, let's not get into it here. We've just qualified for the World Cup.
Re: Qatar V Australia WCQ, June 6 [R] It tells us that Australia isn't an AFL nation. Only half of it is. Your numbers aren't accurate. If you want to assess how popular AFL is in Sydney go there and try to start a conversation about AFL. You will get a lot of puzzled looks. Sydney is still a Rugby League town, although the support for any sport there is nothing like the support AFL receives in Melbourne.
Re: Qatar V Australia WCQ, June 6 [R] 2 out of 7 states care about rugby. Melbourne has an NRL team but it is mostly supported by ex pat NZ's and Pacific Islanders. I never provided any numbers specifically, only estimates, however, those estimates don't lie. The Swans have received what, x amount of 40+,000 crowds? Good luck getting the NRL to do that. Fact is, it's a shit sport played by people of low intelligence.
Re: Qatar V Australia WCQ, June 6 [R] Then your estimates are inaccurate. Its pretty obvious you've never been out of Melbourne.
Re: Qatar V Australia WCQ, June 6 [R] Both sports have their place in the Australian sporting landscape- I wouldn't say either is bigger than the other. AFL might average bigger crowds at the games but that's because Melbourne sucks and there's nothing else to do there! The tv ratings are similar though, which means that just as many people are watching each game in total.
Re: Qatar V Australia WCQ, June 6 [R] I think AFL is marginally bigger as it dominates more in the major market than NRL does in its, but I don't believe there is any such thing as a "national football code" in Australia as none of them are big enough in enough areas. The closest thing we have to a national sport is cricket. NRL makes Fox Sports more money than AFL, but thats mainly due to News being a 50% owner of the NRL so they took the cheaper bid last time the rights came up.
Re: Qatar V Australia WCQ, June 6 [R] Both are limited in their expansionary capacity. NRL's chance at going nationwide was blown away in the 90s with the Superleague Wars while AFL's West Sydney bid is looking sicker by the day and I don't like their chances in the Gold Coast either. I actually suspect that there's going to be a fair amount of rationalisation of our bloated sporting market in the coming years and football will do fairly well out of it. Unlike the other codes it is the only one that is both a) nationwide and b) has a credible international fixture list.
Re: Qatar V Australia WCQ, June 6 [R] only bogans and old people like rugby league..... At least AFL seems to have covered a larger demographic...
Re: Qatar V Australia WCQ, June 6 [R] Heh, go down to a game in Melbourne - Bogan City, population 40-60k. It's something of an anomaly that the Swans are championed by the Eastern Suburbs / North Shore prawn sandwich brigade.
Re: Qatar V Australia WCQ, June 6 [R] bogans arent restricted to one sport. they exist everywhere even in football. i used to work at homebush and there were plenty of bogans at swans games. probably more than the nrl teams that would play there which were more or less mostly lebs anyway
Re: Qatar V Australia WCQ, June 6 [R] Yeah in Europe, south America their forms of bogans support Football as its the no.1 traditional sport.... In Australia and the USA (not sure about Asia) Bogans support our "traditional" games....
