Round 17: NRL Teams Explained to the International Football (Soccer) Supporter

The Australian professional sporting landscape has changed markedly over the last decade. After years of lying dormant with massive participation at the recreational level but little interest for the local elite competition, association football – better known as soccer to most Australians – came to life after a major remodelling and infusion of funds and corporate support.

The Australian men’s team’s qualification for the 2006 World Cup Finals – and their somewhat unexpected journey beyond the first round – saw public interest swell even further. This interest has been sustained by a much greater number of national team games (brought on by the shift to the Asian Confederation) and an unlucky, but still quite spirited, effort at the 2010 World Cup Finals.

Not surprisingly, given out penchant for hosting major events and desire to be noticed on the world stage, Australia has signalled its intention to bid for the right to host the 2018 or 2022 Football World Cup Finals. Our chances for 2018 seem doomed as all-powerful Europe is overdue for its turn to host again, but 2022 could be our time.

Unlike the xenophobic AFL, Rugby League is not openly hostile towards the possibility of Australia hosting a World Cup Football Finals tournament and could benefit considerably, with the construction and upgrade of a number of NRL-capable stadia. However, another benefit of the potential hosting of the World Cup Finals for the NRL would be to expose our great game to a huge new market. Let’s face it: if Rugby League can dominate a city as fickle as Sydney then surely anything is possible.

However, the football supporters of the world will have to come up to speed with over 100 years of Rugby League history and culture. In this week’s Roast, the first steps along this road are taken, with each NRL team’s history, accomplishments and qualities explained in terms of a similar international football team.

Brisbane is a lot like Brazil: Brisbane is the dominant team in the NRL’s second state. For long parts of its history, it had access to many of the best players in that state. Brisbane has a brilliant record in tournament finals and a long history of success, although many feel they should have done even better.

Wests Tigers > Spain: The Wests Tigers are often expected to be a great chance of success but usually fail miserably. Apart from a recent surprise triumph, their last success came many decades ago. Despite enjoying great support, they enjoy two distinct groups of followers, between whom there is much dislike and tension.

Friday night’s match featured these two teams, where an Origin-weakened Brisbane played well above themselves but failed – barely – to push home this advantage on the scoreboard. The Tigers hung on bravely to a chance of victory and somehow won in the dying minutes.

Cronulla > Scotland: Cronulla is the poor neighbour of their region’s dominant team and has never won anything of note. In fact, they rarely even qualify to play in the big matches. Some of their few devoted fans remember back to a few tournaments in the 1970s when they….weren’t quite so bad, but really, they are the laughingstock of the competition.

Canterbury > Italy: They are known as the “family club”. Hence, there is usually much tension and drama around the club, which manifests itself in the boom-bust cycle of ultimate success (or something very close to that) and crashing back to Earth with a thud. Their success is often associated with cheating or (at the very least) ‘gamesmanship’ and stretching the rules as far as they’ll go.

The lone Saturday night match saw these two clubs battle at the unfamiliar venue of Gosford, but it was Cronulla’s unfamiliar team which suffered. The Bulldogs continued their strong form from Monday night with an easy win. Ben Barba enjoyed another impressive game for the Bulldogs as a starting minute player.

Canberra > Denmark: Canberra burst on to the scene in the mid 1980s and revolutionised the way the game was played. However, by the time this once-in-a-lifetime generation of star players had aged or moved on, this small-town club fell back in the pack and now struggles for the most part. They will occasionally produce a special effort and threaten some of the very best, but for the most part, they have disappointed since the mid 1990s.

Sydney Roosters > France: This team with red, white and blue colours and a rooster as their emblem have a long, but not always distinguished history in the game. A roll call of their stars over the last 100 years is impressive, but periods of success for them have been interspersed with lengthy dry spells. Disliked almost universally by supporters of other teams and their supporters are notoriously quick to drop off when times are tough.

If Rugby League was scored on field position only, Canberra would be near the top of the competition, but sadly for them, rugby league requires some sort of proficiency at putting points on the board. Without anyone of note to organise their attack, Canberra have squandered record amounts of attacking field position over the last two games. It was a second straight shocker for Terry Campese, possibly the worst half in the game at the moment. The Roosters were solid in defence, absorbing Canberra’s ‘best’, and put enough points on for a comfortable win.

New Zealand > Portugal: The Warriors are always an entertaining team, even if frustrating to their own supporters or just plain bad. Their moment in the sun came in the early 2000s when they had several chances for ultimate success but their big-game confidence and charisma was not quite there as it was in less meaningful contests.

Parramatta > Argentina: Parramatta has one of the more unique cultures in the game today. Despite a fairly high turnover of players, their relatively fragile, potentially brilliant, often lazy style of play remains a constant. Their golden period was from the late 1970s to 1986, although their genius at the time hung around for a few more years, but with his body rapidly failing him. Their large supporter base remembers the halcyon days well and turns on their current stars and coach if the team is struggling….but will be right behind the team if they turn it around. Bookmakers always expected this team to have a great chance of success.

Parramatta’s task last weekend was very tough: travelling to Auckland in the wet minus four of their biggest stars. They probably did fairly well to stay close with the Warriors for an hour, but the Warriors ultimately thrashed Parramatta after running in four late tries.

St George (Illawarra) > England (Wales): This team which wears white and red is perhaps the most famous in the game…or at least that’s what their supporters think. Their supporters also have an amazing ability to remember rare events from decades past as if they were yesterday…but they conveniently forget about their (very) junior partner which graciously provides a nice stadium for them to play in from time to time and also a number of their players. But St George Illawarra’s most famous trait is failing to live up (usually severely over-hyped) expectations, often placed on them by the media and their prominent supporters.

Penrith > Netherlands: Penrith’s initial claim to fame was one of rugby league’s more bizarre uniform designs, but after a long time in the wilderness, they rose to prominence in the late 1980s and early 1990s with a wonderful generation of players. Brief success was experienced, but so much more was lost in a quite sad manner. A major nursery of rugby league talent, Penrith usually finds its way near success once a decade or so – but struggles somewhat in intervening years.

Both teams were considerably weakened for this game by State of Origin, but even with inclement weather, this was quite an intriguing contest. On another night, the Dragons would have found an early lead and made life difficult for the Panthers to come back, but some uncharacteristically poor Dragons attack and a Penrith try meant Penrith played from in front. With some strong defence, greasy conditions and the Dragons looking a bit out of sync missing so many players and welcoming back one former star from a two-year break, one more try for Penrith was enough for an important, but probably not ultimately significant win.

In case you were wondering, here’s the remaining NRL teams and their international football counterparts. See you next week.

Manly – (West) Germany
Melbourne – (East) Germany (or maybe Juventus)
Gold Coast – Ivory Coast
North Queensland – Turkey
Souths – Uruguay
Newcastle – Colombia