NZ PM wants NZ team in AFL

[saintspremiers]

http://m.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/we- ... 2ihk7.html

And Demtriou was sitting next to him.

How much will the AFL try and bribe us to relocate? Or will it be the NZ govt this time??

At least given they just expanded, we should be safe as an 18 team comp for 10 years at least.

Bring on 4 games a year for $2M. Great whilst we rebuild!

[meher baba]

Of course the AFL has a strategy to move us to NZ.

We are now firmly back on the AFL's list of "problem clubs", along with the Roos, Dogs, Demons and Hawks. In the AFL administration's long-term thinking, us and the Dogs should relocate somewhere and the Demons and Hawks should merge. This would open up the way for teams in Townsvilke , Singapore and Timbuktu or god knows where.

Sustained on-field success and/or membership growth gets teams off that list for a while: as it did for the Roos and Demons in the 1980s and 1990s, us and thr Dogs in the 2000s and the Hawks ATM.

This was the strength of thr original Butterss/Waldron/GT strategy of building for the long-term. This was the tragedy of what happened in 2006 when Butterss and GT fell out and the Board consciously abandoned that strategy and brought in a coach whose philosophy was unquestionably one of coaching for te here and now and who cares about the longer term.

It was an understandable direction in which to go for a club that has only secured one premiership out of more than one hundred attempts. But the club is now paying the price for this decision. Can we bounce back? I don't know.

If we had stuck to the philosophy of 2001-04 of recruiting the best available talent and developing it and seeing how far it took us, we might have ended up where Geelong is now: a team that was long considered a bit of a joke but is now seems to be a permanent threat. But we had our shot at the top and came away with nothing and are now seemingly back where we were in 2001.

Some on here seem to think we will inevitably climb back up. But there are no guarantees about this. Richmond haven't done so for the best part of three decades. But they have an enormous supporter base and aren't in the AFL's sights in the way we were.

Thankfully, the AFL - up to now - hasn't been managed in the ruthless way that some other codes in other places have been. So we probably won't be forced to relocate to NZ. After all, the Roos were not forced to move to the Gold Coast, as they probably should have been. And the Hawks and the Demons have staved off a threatened merger (but I reckon that idea will be back once the AFL ensures Buddy moves to an expansion club and the Hawks begin to slide back down the ladder again).

The Dogs and the Saints have some protection in that they notionally represent large, growing and geographically distinct parts of Melbourne. But, truth to tell, these regions are awash with supporters of the glamour clubs and the regional significance of Melbourne clubs has massively declined.

So we are vulnerable again. For a while there, we looked like being masters of our own destiny. But no longer.

But please god, don't let us be located to the land of the sheep shaggers to become known forever as the "Sunters". Noooooooooooooooooooo!

[Uncle Barrels]

The Wellington Saints. You heard it here first; extraordinarily strong rumour

[saintspremiers]

The Wellington Saints. You heard it here first; extraordinarily strong rumour

sauce???

[Dr Spaceman]

TAS Premier wants a team down there also. How's that going?

[dcstkfc]

The Wellington Saints. You heard it here first; extraordinarily strong rumour

sauce???

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellington_Saints

[Sainternist]

The Wellington Saints. You heard it here first; extraordinarily strong rumour

sauce???

Heinz Big Red

[bigred]

If NZ get a team before Tassie......that would suck.

I fear the writing is on the wall in regards to NZ and our club.

[StNoodles]

Not sure I'd stick around if we were to relocate to NZ.

[Bernard Shakey]

Mr Key has a sense of humour and Caro doesn't understand a joke when she hears one.

[SaintTom]

If NZ get a team before Tassie......that would suck.

I fear the writing is on the wall in regards to NZ and our club.

...why? We might be playing games there, but I still think we're less likely to move than quite a few other clubs. We still have more members than WB, Kangaroos and Melbourne. We plan on playing two games a year there and people are panicking that it means we'll relocate there?! Does anyone actually think this is the case? Way to be paranoid... I'm happy for Wellington to become a Saints town where we play two games a season indefinitely, that's a smart way to get more members, more money, and reduce any financial strain we have being a smaller club. With more money, it's less likely we'll need to do anything desperate like move. NZ won't be able to support a club on its own, and both the club and the AFL aren't stupid enough not to realise that the Saints will lose a huge and irreparable number of Melbourne Saints members if they were to move. Saints want a bigger market share (which I absolutely applaud) and the AFL also want to introduce the game to NZ. Longer term, the Saints will want to try and get a substantial number of Wellington based members to try and move us up a bracket toward some of the larger clubs in terms of membership base, and the AFL will want to increase AFL in the minds of the Kiwis to potentially one day introduce a brand new NZ club - maybe at a similar time to a Tassie club (in a similar way in which GWS and GC were introduced at similar times).

If anything, I truly believe that the money made (and potentially the members gained) from playing in Wellington will actually solidify our position in Melbourne, if we don't have financial troubles, why would we need to relocate?

[SaintPav]

GWS could always go there.

[avid]

If NZ get a team before Tassie......that would suck.

I fear the writing is on the wall in regards to NZ and our club.

...why? We might be playing games there, but I still think we're less likely to move than quite a few other clubs. We still have more members than WB, Kangaroos and Melbourne. We plan on playing two games a year there and people are panicking that it means we'll relocate there?! Does anyone actually think this is the case? Way to be paranoid... I'm happy for Wellington to become a Saints town where we play two games a season indefinitely, that's a smart way to get more members, more money, and reduce any financial strain we have being a smaller club. With more money, it's less likely we'll need to do anything desperate like move. NZ won't be able to support a club on its own, and both the club and the AFL aren't stupid enough not to realise that the Saints will lose a huge and irreparable number of Melbourne Saints members if they were to move. Saints want a bigger market share (which I absolutely applaud) and the AFL also want to introduce the game to NZ. Longer term, the Saints will want to try and get a substantial number of Wellington based members to try and move us up a bracket toward some of the larger clubs in terms of membership base, and the AFL will want to increase AFL in the minds of the Kiwis to potentially one day introduce a brand new NZ club - maybe at a similar time to a Tassie club (in a similar way in which GWS and GC were introduced at similar times).

If anything, I truly believe that the money made (and potentially the members gained) from playing in Wellington will actually solidify our position in Melbourne, if we don't have financial troubles, why would we need to relocate?

We could inculcate a hell of a lot of new Saints supporters in New Zealand before they drift over here to Australia.
This is a brilliant strategy for increasing market share.

[linz]

If NZ get a team before Tassie......that would suck.

I fear the writing is on the wall in regards to NZ and our club.

...why? We might be playing games there, but I still think we're less likely to move than quite a few other clubs. We still have more members than WB, Kangaroos and Melbourne. We plan on playing two games a year there and people are panicking that it means we'll relocate there?! Does anyone actually think this is the case? Way to be paranoid... I'm happy for Wellington to become a Saints town where we play two games a season indefinitely, that's a smart way to get more members, more money, and reduce any financial strain we have being a smaller club. With more money, it's less likely we'll need to do anything desperate like move. NZ won't be able to support a club on its own, and both the club and the AFL aren't stupid enough not to realise that the Saints will lose a huge and irreparable number of Melbourne Saints members if they were to move. Saints want a bigger market share (which I absolutely applaud) and the AFL also want to introduce the game to NZ. Longer term, the Saints will want to try and get a substantial number of Wellington based members to try and move us up a bracket toward some of the larger clubs in terms of membership base, and the AFL will want to increase AFL in the minds of the Kiwis to potentially one day introduce a brand new NZ club - maybe at a similar time to a Tassie club (in a similar way in which GWS and GC were introduced at similar times).

If anything, I truly believe that the money made (and potentially the members gained) from playing in Wellington will actually solidify our position in Melbourne, if we don't have financial troubles, why would we need to relocate?

Good Post. Agree totally.

We blew our chance when we planted the seeds in Tassie where we had a huge potential following. The Hawks are now reaping the results.

Lut's nut muk thu sum mustuke agun und muk Nu Zulund ours.