GWS begins to fade way out west in the land of the NRL giants

While the junior rugby league numbers have dipped in other regions western Sydney is an area where the game’s grip has only solidified.

Penrith fans show their support for their team at Accor Stadim during the NRL finals series. Picture: Getty Images,

Sydney is in the box seat to host the proposed AFL Magic Round next year which will feature nine matches on the same weekend in one city next April.

The AFL is yet to decide if it will stage it next season and where it will be located. However, should the proposal get the green light, western Sydney venues are understood to feature prominently in the bid for the Harbour City to secure the inaugural event.

It cannot come soon enough for the ailing AFL market in western Sydney, with the Giants struggling against the four powerhouse NRL clubs in Parramatta, Penrith, Bulldogs and Wests Tigers.

While Giants membership sits at a “record” 32,614 fans, the club’s crowds for home matches average just a tick over 6000. Auskick has a strong junior engagement in parts of Sydney, but in the west, NRL nurseries are thriving.

At the foot of the Blue Mountains rugby league is “booming” with the game running out of footy grounds to play on.

In Parramatta, the geographic heart of Sydney, they too are short of green space and the Eels club have 10 applications across the western Sydney catchment for new or upgraded facilities.

While the junior rugby league numbers have dipped in other regions, and despite the AFL dropping over $200m on the Giants franchise, western Sydney is an area where the game’s grip has only solidified.

“For us that western Sydney market represents our past and our future,” NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo told The Weekend Australian.

“It’s a heartland, western Sydney is the geographical centre of Sydney, those communities are vibrant and diverse, and rugby league is a part of that.

“I think about myself as an immigrant to this country, and how rugby league gave me a sense of belonging, that’s the difference we can make.

“We have 13,000 registered participants, it’s an area which has produced a lot of talent, there’s homegrown heroes in both Parramatta and Penrith teams.”

Sydney and GWS square off in their Round 1 match at Accor Stadium this season in Sydney’s west. Picture: Phil Hillyard.

With the Eels and the Panthers going head to head at Accor Stadium on Sunday, it is the first time two western rugby league teams have faced off in a grand final since the 1980s.

As the Panthers go for back-to-back premierships, with a team which is packed with men who played their junior footy in the area – players such as Mount Druitt locals Jarome Luai, Brian To’o, Stephen Crichton and Spencer Leniu – their hold on the local community is strong.

“The game is booming,” Nathan Mairleitner, who runs the Panthers’ junior leagues, which averages over 8000 juniors playing each season.

“When I say we don’t want numbers here in Penrith to grow. It’s not that we don’t, it’s that we don’t have the green space, that is we don’t have the grounds, we don’t have the volunteers and the club management to be able to actually manufacture another four clubs, to keep producing what we’re doing within our district.”

Crowds for the Eels and Panthers have grown steadily. The two western Sydney franchises have strong attendances with the Eels crowd average at CommBank Stadium 20,160 while Penrith’s Bluebet has averaged 17,500.

In comparison the AFL’ GWS Giants are currently doing an off-field review into their poor attendances in Sydney.

While 25,572 fans turned up to the round one local derby against the Swans at Accor Stadium, outside that on average only 6102 fans turned up to a Giants match.

Their home has crept closer to Sydney’s CBD from their original Blacktown base after the club moved their headquarters in 2014 to Homebush – closer to the beaches than the Blue Mountains.

Meanwhile, AFL grand finalists Sydney Swans have an enormous fan engagement with recent research showing they are the most supported club in Australia and this season had an average crowd of nearly 30,000.

In the Swans strongholds of the eastern suburbs, pockets of Sydney’s north and inner west, junior Australian rules football (such as Auskick) continues to thrive. Grassroots clubs are having the same troubles as Penrith and Parramatta; lack of grounds. The rising number of women and girls playing has contributed to the squeeze on facilities.

Meanwhile, the Giants struggle. There was a rumour this week that Greater Western Sydney was considering dropping the “western” part of its moniker and would become the Sydney Giants

Parramatta halback Mitchell Moses is an NRL fan favourite. Picture: Getty Images.

Then there was the murmur – again – that the Giants could play games at the SCG particularly during the Easter period when the Sydney Show runs.

It was all dismissed by Giants chairman Tony Shepherd who says he’s not concerned by the powerhouse western Sydney rugby league teams Parramatta and Penrith taking their place in the NRL grand final on Sunday and said there’s room for everyone.

“I’ll go back to my great friend and mentor, (foundation Giants coach) Kevin Sheedy has said; there’s over seven million people in Sydney and there’s over three million of them in western Sydney,” said Shepherd, who is also the Venues NSW chairman. “There’s plenty of people to go around. Plenty of kids, right?”

“I don’t actually subscribe to this; that this is a fight to the death with the rugby league, rugby union or soccer for that matter.”

It was a view not shared by the tribal rugby league types. Former Panthers great, now board member and commentator Greg ‘Brandy’ Alexander, said he was worried when it was announced that the AFL was launching the Greater Western Sydney Giants.

But not so much any more.

“The fact is that they haven’t made that impact they thought that they were going to have and many league people thought they were going to have … but yeah, I don’t really think about the GWS Giants,” Alexander said.

However, Alexander says the Panthers are not complacent, and neither are the Eels, Bulldogs or Tigers when it comes to holding onto their league fan base.

“It’s not as if the war is over,” Alexander said. “I don’t think the AFL has plans to pull up stumps.” He says while there have always been “threats” from “other sports” like soccer and rugby union at times. “Those sports don’t have the money to just keep chipping away like the AFL,” Alexander said.

Alexander says the Giants franchise doesn’t figure in their day to day thinking but there is no complacency in tightening rugby league’s grip on the area.

“You can’t be complacent and you’ve got to keep looking after your juniors and developing your juniors and making sure you got the right pathway systems in place,” Alexander said.

“So that young kids in western Sydney know that there’s a, you know, a distinct and very clear line to them in their dreams by playing in the NRL.”

A City of Parramatta report from March handed to The Weekend Australian earlier this year showed the AFL is the least popular of the 11 sports listed on a pie chart.

It shows AFL’s formal participation in the City of Parramatta — a home local government area of the Giants — is at 1 per cent of nearly 20,000 participants (senior and junior).

Despite the AFL not yet cutting into that LGA’s junior numbers, Parramatta Eels chief executive Jim Sarantinos said the club did a review earlier this year to identify how to grow the game of rugby league.

With both their women’s and men’s teams in the NRL grand final, Sarantinos said they will look to capitalise on this opportunity but are already exploring how to engage more junior players — and to do that will look to establish more “non contact’’ versions of the game.

“One of the key drivers in this review is to look at the impact of the changing participation model, especially the positive influence non-contact versions of the game can have in growing the game,” Sarantinos said.

“Touch and tag are growing significantly both in our catchment and across the country. Research is showing that these versions of the game have some of the highest participation rates of any sport in key areas across western Sydney. This represents a significant opportunity for the Eels and our Junior League Clubs in the coming years.”

Penrith’s Mairleitner points out they too are teaching the non-contact version of rugby league

Recently when Blacktown Council put two grounds out to tender at the new Schofields development, a junior rugby league club won the bid over Australian rules football and soccer – and they will teach a modified game there.

“We only put a club there last week; the Schofields Crusaders which will neighbour three other historical clubs which helps protect the foundation of what our district is all about,” Mairletner said. “We put a junior club, a six to 12 (age group) club in there …. that’s our way of trying to get into that new community, and rather than teach the international game of football, let’s teach the modified tag way.”

Meanwhile, the Giants have been doing some planning in the off-season on how to make inroads on that western Sydney fan base. They believe there is space for those fans to support both the Giants and their favoured rugby league team, that it doesn’t have to be a choice.

The franchise will also be looking to solidify their Canberra stronghold.

Currently they have around 6000 members in Canberra.

Next season they will host three games in Canberra (two of four games were sold out in the nation’s capital last season) and eight games at Giants Stadium. But as a Giants insider told The Weekend Australian they “won’t ever go away from western Sydney” and that area remained their focus.

All the while, rugby league keeps chipping away.

And going by Mairleitner junior’s participation statistics provided to The Weekend Australian the AFL has never threatened there.

“So the last 10 years where we’ve been over 8000 (junior participants) you can’t literally say that the AFL’s taken them because we’d be under 8000 for sure,” he said.