Wayne renews calls for NRL to make radical NFL-style move
Wayne Bennett was pressed for his thoughts on the NRL’s interest in adopting an AFL-style wildcard round.
He took it as a chance to renew calls for an NFL-style conference system.
Wayne Bennett and Latrell Mitchell. Getty Images
The Sydney Morning Herald reported on Wednesday that the NRL was considering introducing a wildcard round to boost fan interest and stop teams from resting star players in the final round of the regular season.
The Roosters, who Bennett’s Rabbitohs will face in the last round of the home-and-away season on Friday night, have put on ice a huge number of stars to freshen up for the finals, including James Tedesco, Mark Nawaqanitawase, Daly Cherry-Evans and Robert Toia.
The AFL solved that problem in 2016 through the introduction of a pre-finals bye.
This year, the AFL has scrapped the pre-finals bye in the form it was and brought in a wildcard round.
The top-six sides had a week off as the teams who finished seventh to 10th played sudden-death matches, with the traditional eight-team finals series beginning a week later.
“I don’t really have a point of view on the wildcard so much,” Bennett said in his captain’s run press conference on Thursday.
“What I do know is if I’m in the top three or four teams and I need to rest my players, I’ll do that, and I’ll get the opportunity to do that. It’s a long season, it’s a tough season. But we do get three byes through the year, so that’s a huge help.
“The wildcard – I think we’d have to wait til we get the next team in the competition.”
Cue some words about a conference system.
“Maybe we’ll look at the conferences; that might be better than the wildcard,” the legendary coach said.
“You can have a city conference and a country conference, as an example.
“But all the Sydney clubs would play each other at least twice a year and there’d be conferences.
“The best crowds in the playoffs in Sydney are when [the Sydney teams are playing] – they’ll get 60-70,000 people. But you bring the Cowboys down, you bring the Broncos down or whatever, you’re probably half that crowd.
“[You would do] similar to what they do in the gridiron and have a prelim final between two Sydney clubs. I mean, they’d be packed out.
“They call it the Super Bowl in America; we can come up with another name for it.
“But you have the two conferences and then have the grand final together.”
Two of the sharpest minds in rugby league, Bennett and Phil Gould, have long been campaigning for a conference system.
With the NRL expanding to 18 teams in 2027 and 19 teams in 2028, through the additions of the Perth Bears and PNG Chiefs, the league is gradually moving into territory that makes it more compatible with a prospective conference format.
Needless to say, taking on a conference system would be a massive move.
“Well, Peter [V’landys] is brave enough to do all that stuff,” Bennett said of the NRL executive chairman.
“So I’m just hopeful down the track that he’ll do that, and create a lot more interest and gain more revenue.”
