Can’t wait for PUNGAZS Super Saturday! 
Wouldn’t it be PNGNZECA League (PNG, NZ, East Coast of Australia)
But seriously though, what about WA, SA, NT & TAS. So much for national league.
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ARL
Australasian Rahbee League
WA is likely to be coming, as is a 2nd NZ side.
I’d like to see an Adelaide team again one day (bring back the Rams!).
But stretching it beyond 20 teams is a bit much, I wouldn’t like to see a team be forced to relocate or be cut to make that happen.
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Well we all remember when Arko & Quayle took it to 20 teams and it was an absolute disaster. No player depth. Lopsided games left right and centre. Split the game in two.
Is this really going to happen though? And even if it does wouldn’t this be along way long way off happening?
It didn’t have a chance, Super League killed it.
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I don’t think it’ll be too far behind Perth… so 2030 I think is what they are aiming for in terms of having a 20 team comp… I don’t think they’ll stop at 19, that’s an awkward number.
And there is no other logical choice for a 20th team, I don’t think Melbourne is ready for a 2nd team for instance.
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The 20 team comp was launched with much fanfare and fireworks in 1995 with the expansion clubs - Auckland, NQ and SQ. Within weeks it became clear it was a complete failure. Crowds were down, fans were disappointed and the media was outraged.
News Ltd quickly realised there were too many teams. They identified that fewer teams = better quality football. Super League promised ‘state of origin quality football every weekend’.
The game split and in 96 we had two comps - a 12 team ARL and a 10 team Super League.
When the merger came about no one wanted to go back to a 20 team comp, hence the reduction to a 14 club comp in 1997.
So no, Super League didn’t kill the ARL, the ARL killed itself with too many teams.
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Which didn’t happen either. The ARL 12 team comp was generally seen as the better of the two.
And it’s a bit hard to expect new teams to be competitive every week from Day 1. Look at the AFL when the Suns and GWS started, their results were way worse than what any of the 1995 ARL expansion teams had.
And you are 1 year out… Super League was 1997, and the NRL began in 98. Super League was meant to start in 1996, but the courts ruled in favour of the ARL initially, but that was overturned on appeal.
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Oh yes, thank you for that. I stand corrected. I remember going to the grand final. Berlinda Carlisle at QEII and yep 97.
Up here we all tended to think the SL comp was a better comp. Course the Sharks were onboard with us as well 
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The first season of the present-day National Rugby League (1998) consisted of 20 teams, but just two seasons later the line-up would be reduced to 14.
From the original 20-team line-up:
- the Adelaide Rams and Gold Coast Chargers were cut at the end of 1998; though the Gold Coast Titans would enter the competition in 2007 and play out of Carrara (now known as People First Stadium) in its first season before moving to Robina in 2008;
- St George and Illawarra merged to become St George Illawarra, also at the end of 1998;
- Balmain and Wests became the Wests Tigers at the end of 1999;
- North Sydney and Manly formed the short-lived Northern Eagles, which also had a Central Coast component (there was no separate Central Coast team); they played only three seasons before the joint venture was abandoned and Manly officially returned to the competition as a standalone club in 2003.
- South Sydney were excluded from the competition, but would be invited back in 2002 (by which point 15 teams would form the line-up).
The Titans’ and Dolphins’ entries into the competition in 2007 and last year respectively brought the current line-up to 17 teams.
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Also FOX talent
Ok so this is a false rewrite of history.
Reports of News Ltd’s super league first emerged in mid 1994, with their super league proposal presented to the 20 clubs in February 1995 which was rejected (under duress by some parties) - before the premiership even started.
News then started signing players and clubs late March/early April 1995 for a rival “super league” just a couple of rounds into the premiership - way too early for the 20 team format to be even judged “a complete failure”.
The ARL’s 20 team premiership never had a chance. Of course improvements to the competition’s governance and rules should’ve been made - including re central funding, salary cap and travel costs.
News wanted rugby league pay television rights so people would sign up to Foxtel. It’s as simple as that.
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Brisbane 3 is still a possibility.
I would like to see Adelaide return but it would take a lot of grass roots investment.
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I kind of wanted to believe the News Ltd spin, about Origin quality matches every weekend, and that it would be a world famous competition. They said Wendell Sailor would be famous in America, Andrew Ettingshausen would be famous in China. Yes of course (not) 
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The biggest takeaway from the Super League split is that it forced the game to move to being professional - although it was done at a time when it may have happened naturally (although given some of the people involved in the administration of the game it may have taken a bit longer).
If you look at the history of Rugby League, its bumbled and stumbled its way to where it is today.
Yes indeed. And I guess that’s what you get when you have boofheads running the game. But it is a great history and the game is in good shape these days.
Certainly in better shape in this country than the 15-a-side game.
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For mine the biggest takeaway is that the NRL’s television rights were undersold as News controlled half the NRL board from 1998 until 2012 and tried to claw back the losses they incurred during super league.
In Sydney it also saw the AFL through the Swans and union through the Waratahs take market share from rugby league.
Yes professionalism came due to the influx of money but as you say that would’ve happened anyway - maybe it happened a couple of years earlier.
The biggest change in rugby league in recent years has been the huge influx of Tongans and Samoans now playing the game at top level.
In the same way that African-Americans dominate football in the US, pacific islanders will soon be the majority in the NRL.
And I guess, to a large extent we have the late great Olsen Filipano to thank for that for being such a trailblazer and paving the way.
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On the flip side also means fewer non Polynesians/Maoris playing the game into adulthood… I think they find it hard to compete with their size and power.