Rugby league shoots itself in foot via own PR

RUGBY league used to fume over how rival sports would try and spoil their big events. Now the code does it itself.

Kangaroos forward Aaron Woods is wrapped up by the Fiji defence.

FIFTEEN years or so ago league used to fume over how rugby union bosses would explode a publicity bomb a day or two out from its biggest events.

The John O’Neill-led ARU would upset the NRL by releasing news, often revolving around code-hoppers Wendell Sailor and Lote Tuqiri, in the countdown to an Origin game.

Now league needs no help.

The code does it itself.

The World Cup semi-final, which drew only 22,073 people to Suncorp Stadium on Friday, lost publicity attention to the NRL’s own Thursday morning announcement that the next 25 grand finals would be held in Sydney and the long-running Mitchell Pearce walkout from the Roosters.

Kangaroos forward Aaron Woods is wrapped up by the Fiji defence.

Rather than wait the NRL decided to confirm it had signed over the grand finals for 25 years to the NSW Government because there had been a media leak on Wednesday night.

You can add to the mixture of reasons for Brisbane’s small semi crowd the facts that so many people bought Ashes cricket tickets, that money is tight before Christmas and that there was a scent of mismatch about the semi.

A 1.4 million television viewing average for the Australia-England opening game was the biggest for a league telecast in Australia this year other than those for the Origin series and the NRL grand final.

Players grapple during World Cup semi-final match between Australian and Fiji.

Nationally, the Australia-Fiji landslide averaged 1.13 million free-to-air viewers for the Seven Network.

Australian interest in a Tonga-England semi-final on Saturday was enough to attract a 278,000 average on 7mate, compared with 319,000 for Ten’s V8 telecast and 119,000 for Seven’s Australian Open golf.

Originally published as Rugby league shoots itself in foot via own PR