Souths fans don't travel.

[globaleagle]

Souths fans don’t travel.

By GE:
Multiple award winning writer from unbiased (or only slightly so) reporter land.


It was touted as the game with green and red wrapping.

“Manly fans don’t travel” screamed the predictable but factually incorrect anti-Manly media as they consistently do around finals time.

“It’s going to be a sellout,” claimed ticket sellers far and wide.

“Souths fans buying tickets 5 to 1 over Manly fans,” reported these ‘honest men’ of sports reporting.

In fact, Souths had been given every possible advantage in ensuring their fans turned out in droves.

The NRL, the organisation ‘bought’ by channel 9 whose CEO is an unabashed souths fan had delivered the following scenario for souths:

1)Despite finishing second Manly are stripped of a home final and instead have to choose between either Souths home ground, or a ground in Souths’ fans backyard;

2)Despite being the second qualifying final, for the first time in over 100 years this game was played first, due to a perception in ‘ratings for Friday night’ but also making travel harder for Manly fans most of who actually work; and

3) The earlier game handed souths a much longer recovery time for their players over those of Manly.

So, in essence Souths fans were given a finals game in their own backyard against a weakened opposition.

In addition to this disgraceful programming, Manly captain Jamie Lyon was still expected by the media to dance around like a puppet asking for Manly fans to travel to the game.

Then what transpired Friday night?
80,000 fans? Nope.
60,000 fans? Not on your life.
Surely…….. 40,000 “pride of the league” fans of Souths would turn out to support their club in what was obviously going to be a one way contest? - You must be kidding yourself.
30,000? I mean the broncos get almost that every Friday in the regular season? Now you’re just trying to make me laugh.

No, no, no, no, no.
In fact only 25,000 fans in total turned out for the game of which 10,000 were estimated to be Manly fans!

Incredible!

Incredibly disappointing more like it!

Manly fans are lambasted every finals for seemingly not willing to travel, are denied of home finals because of an inadequate stadium (attn. NRL, you can always chip in to improve the stadium, you do have a billion dollars which presumably can’t all be used for SBW, other roosters players, or anyone called Burgess) and are forced to endure seeing their opposition handed every advantage.

Yet where were the Souths human wave of support? 15,000 for a finals game just down the road in an ultra-modern stadium?

Hang your head in shame so called Souths fans for not turning out, hang your head in shame NRL management for your super stadium policy, hang your head in shame channel 9 for your blatant bias in assisting one team to the Grand Final, and finally…..

Hang your collective heads in shame sports ‘journalists’ of the NRL for once again not reporting the facts of this attendance debacle or having the intestinal fortitude to follow through on your ‘Manly fans don’t travel’ rhetoric.

May Manly prove you all wrong…..yet again.

 

[Lord Eagleton]

Nice mate. Photocopy this and gaffer tape it to Todd Fartbergs forehead. See if he then gets the memo

 

[Clint]

Yeah. You go GE. Tell 'em how it is mate. Good work.

 

[Brissie Kid]

Did Toddy sell out all the corporate boxes? That's the bottom line for the NRL. Like the horse races, fans are just wallpapering.

 

[sheridanstand78]

This article is spot on about how the majority of Manly fans feel this weekend.

The NRL is supposed to support all clubs. Instead a few are backed and the rest get the crumbs.

We need an administration at NRL HQ that has the bollocks to actually run the game and get away from guys who have agendas linked to media organisations rather than the folks who support the game.

I repeat. If we are force to play our 'Home' finals away from the fortress then every other final must be on neutural territory too!!

 

[Brissie Kid]

The NRL force all Sydney teams to play semis at centralised stadiums SFS or ANZ. But then what do they do to get fans to these venues? Nothing. No Olympic rail and buses network activated.

At grand finals there are 50K Manly fans from all across Sydney. They aren't going to magically appear at the SFS on a Friday night without the NRL getting serious about free transport from all parts of Sydney.

All the NRL effectively did was make the 20K fans who would have gone to Brookie have to travel further. Surprise surprise at 8pm kickoff on a Friday night at the SFS didn't draw more than 5K Manly fans.

Surely the purpose of a centralised semis in Sydney is get more Sydney people there. But the NRL just moved the game to the far side of the city and expected the people from the northern beaches to come in even greater numbers than they would to a Brookie game!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[fLIP]

Fan-fn-tastic ge.

Spot on.

 

[globaleagle]

I don't think we'll see any items correcting this tomorrow.

In fact some 'adrian prezenko' (spelling) has already printed something like....

"the roosters players failed to turn up for this match just like manly fans at allianz"

So....he makes the list.


(and thanks everyone....I am but a river to my people!)

 

[SwornEagle]

Even souths fans dont like souths fans.

http://www.zerotackle.com/nrl/russell-crowe-gets-shut-down-by-10-year-old-14930/

 

[rickerbound]

Manly vs South - 25,733

Penrith vs Roosters - 23,449

No better proof that journalism takes the adage - never let the facts get in the way of a good story - quite literally.

 

[MadMarcus]

Most Souths fans were still out on their fortnightly 48 hour bender after pension day, so to be honest the timeslot was a little unfair on them too.

 

[StuBoot]

Manly vs South - 25,733

Penrith vs Roosters - 23,449

No better proof that journalism takes the adage - never let the facts get in the way of a good story - quite literally.

Yep, I was going to bring this up too.

For days we've been copping it that we don't travel blah, blah, blah.

The game last night was the perfect time for fans and families to get out there. It was is in the Roosters backyard, Panthers fans had all day to get to the game, a train to Central and a daylight walk to the SFS and finished by 8 o'clock and home by 10.

Yet they got less fans than we did at "our" game and not one mention in media regarding this.
It's only for the fact that Souths are chasing their Holy Grail that they get decent numbers to games.
I think it was Riccio in this morning's Tele that had another shot saying that the NRL want the Dogs to win today as Manly and Melbourne fans don't go past their front door so it will look rather empty at Allianz next week.

We all know the NRL has lost the plot by this centralized Stadium garbage they trot out so more people can get to the game.

Really, does anyone on here know of anyone going to the semis if their team isn't playing?
How many neutrals will turn up next week to watch two of the most hated teams in the comp go at it?

Footnote: I live in Epping so getting to Allianz is easy for me by public transport but I always drive to Brookie and would have done so on Friday night but couldn't be stuffed running the public transport gauntlet with the kids but yesterday would've been no excuses.

 

[Shoe1]

I doubt any neutral fans attend games these days, if ever. I have been to just 2 in my 40 years of attending games, norths v saints in the early 90s with a poor deluded mate who went for norths, and free tix to the easts v broncos GF in 2000 or 2001. That's when the stadium still had an extra 20k Olympic seats and the nrl was aost bribing people to attend.

 

[Brissie Kid]

We all know the NRL has lost the plot by this centralized Stadium garbage they trot out so more people can get to the game.

Yep. It was a relocated Manly home game. So how did that work out for everyone?

Relocation to SFS only makes sense if you are going to get the 20K that would have gone to Brookie plus another 15-20K of Souths fans for a total near 40K.

Instead the NRL moved the game to end up getting an extra 5K people in ticket sales.

To do that about 13K Manly fans who would have gone to Brookie missed out & were replaced by 20K Souths fans at the SFS who got to go instead. Yet Manly had home field for coming equal 1st.

Moving a Manly home game so more Souths fans can attend. Free buses from Manly Leagues won't help get manly fans there. No free buses and trains from across Sydney won't get neutrals there. So why play in a central venue? It makes sense for a game involving two of the Dogs, Tigers, Dragons, Wabbits & Eels but no one else in Sydney.

We all know Manly at Brookie were a 50/50 chance of winning last Friday night.

If anyone needed proof that a fulltime moving of Manly to the SFS or SCG will fail that was it. If we can't play out of Brookie then just kill the club. A relocated Manly at the SFS or SCG or ANZ will die anyway - unless selling corporate boxes are all that a club needs to make a profit and getting fans there is just a bonus wallpaper. But how you sell boxes to watch a game in an empty stadium long term is beyond me.

 

[mickqld]

Great post BK. Does anyone think any of these FACTS would sink in to that fkhead Greenturd.

 

[Brissie Kid]

No Mick. No.

 

[globaleagle]

Manly vs South - 25,733

Penrith vs Roosters - 23,449

No better proof that journalism takes the adage - never let the facts get in the way of a good story - quite literally.

Any media reports about this as yet????

 

[Shoe1]

Manly vs South - 25,733

Penrith vs Roosters - 23,449

No better proof that journalism takes the adage - never let the facts get in the way of a good story - quite literally.

Any media reports about this as yet????

Usually Phil would have found this info by now. You may have to send it to him direct. He's slipping, if that's even possible.

 

[Ramrod]

It was embarrassing.

Had they allowed that game to be played at Brookie, it would have been packed and looked awesome on TV.

Instead, the NRL embarrassed the game by playing it at Allianz where there were soooo many empty seats. Nice look on TV, doesn't it?

Every other sport would have been laughing at us. It's ruining our game's image.
That was supposed to be a major game and Souths couldn't fill the stadium.

It's not neuro science. If the stadium won't be packed, move it to the smaller ground.
If the team that won the right to play at their home ground, let them do so. It's only fair!

The NRL should be banned on making these decisions because they SUCK at it.