Paul Malone: Qld NRL clubs show AFL and rugby union how sweet success can be

QUEENSLAND’S football clubs are at different ends of the success scale with rugby league the big winner, writes PAUL MALONE.

Anthony Milford is swamped by team mates after his try. Brisbane Broncos play the Parramatta Eels at Suncorp Stadium. Pic Jono Searle.

FOOTBALL in Queensland is split starkly today among the haves and the have-nots.

Think of the state’s rugby league clubs as the haves, certainly in terms of results.

They have risen to occupy positions one, four and seven on the NRL table while the past two premiers, the Rabbitohs and Roosters, abseil down it.

Everyone else among the state’s football clubs are the have-nots.

Broncos, Cowboys, Titans our triple treats

Desperation derby looms for Lions, Suns

Cowboys captain Johnathan Thurston is tackled by Tariq Sims of the Knights at Hunter Stadium.

The Roar have two recent championships in the A-League and will be in the finals this year, which is more than can be said for the Lions, Suns and Reds.

Four teams won over the weekend and three lost, but it goes deeper than that in some ways.

The state’s A-League club has had a total of 43,878 in through the gates in their past five games. It’s not just the old bank commercial which makes me wonder, “where did they get the money for that?’’.

But they’re going better than the Reds and the two AFL teams, none of which has given supporters reason to hope or believe in better times in the short and midterm.

Losing sequences and uninspiring play on the field are turning virtual fire hoses on casual watchers with half an idea to go to their games.

The Reds have won two of their 10 Super Rugby games and will play next year without hundreds of games of experience.

The Suns and Lions are second last and last in the AFL, with the dampest squib of all their QClash rivalry matches set down for Saturday at Metricon Stadium. The timing only serves to emphasise that the clubs haven’t got better since the 2013 match, epoch-defining in its awfulness, at the same venue.

The Lions are 0-4 and seem destined to lose another first-round draft pick, James Aish … not that he’s much good at the moment anyway.

James Aish of the Lions in action against the West Coast Eagles. Picture: Darren England

Some Gold Coast players stand accused of not trying their best in a 66-point loss to Great Western Sydney, the younger “cousin’’ of the AFL’s expansion largesse. If the heat is not on the Suns recruiting department, who could pick and choose as assiduously as their GWS opposites could, it should be.

Rugby league is winning the battlefield for eyeballs on Queensland free-to-air television, which rugby union vacates each year until the Test program kicks in the winter.

In 2012, the Reds claimed victory over the Broncos at the gates to Suncorp Stadium, pointing to an average of 34,217 spectators that season, compared to the NRL club’s 33,377.

Adam Thomson reacts to the Reds’ loss to the Hurricanes at Suncorp Stadium. Picture: Jono Searle

This year, the Broncos’ average is 36,531 and the Reds’ is 24,245, according to the auststadiums.com website. It records that three times this year the last three figures in a Reds’ attendance has been 199, which must be a coincidence.

The Lions are averaging 23,501 this year, the Cowboys a worrying 14,444 and the Titans a dire 11,489.

When Fox Sports telecast four matches on Anzac Day, the Broncos-Parramatta game drew an average of 259,000 watchers nationally, with the other three taking in by between 135,000 and 193,000.

The Lions have now lost three games at home in four rounds, and their 53-point loss to West Coast at the Gabba yesterday is their average losing margin in 2015.

Almost as bad, the results and numerous bloopers in possession have given Collingwood fans ample opportunity to poke fun at Dayne Beams and the club on social media.

Originally published as Paul Malone: Qld NRL clubs show AFL and rugby union how sweet success can be