Super League just ended up being the boring League. The ARL comp was so much better and the players played with passion and interest every single week. The Grand Finals were miles apart from eachother too.
The Super League was an attempt to get rugby league behind the Barassi Line. There was no money and too many useless teams. The only team that exists to day behind this line is the Storm.
I remember that people thought Super League wouldn’t go ahead at all after this judgement in early 1996. However in October SL won on appeal and it went ahead in 1997. I didn’t like the split in the game and I’m glad there was only 1 year with 2 comps but from a Penrith fan point of view, we arguably owe our current stand alone status to choosing Super League over the ARL. We weren’t going that well back in the late 90’s compared to now on and off the field and if we had stayed with the ARL we may well have been merged..
I have a simple answer it’s called Western Suburbs Magpies. 1908 foundation club has automatic immunity as this club created the game. In addition if they have an issue all boundaries revert to pre 1947. That means Manly Warringah Sea Eagles revert to their original feeder club to North Sydney Bears. Parramatta Eels & Penrith Panthers revert as Feeder clubs to Western Suburbs Magpies. Cronulla Sutherland Sharks revert to Feeder club to St George Dragons. The teams outside of Sydney like Illawarra Steelers, Canberra Raiders & Newcastle Knights remain. The Glebe Reds than revert to Country Reds.
The real verdict was the appeal. I remember seeing it and the court ruling was in Superleague's favor. I think it may have been Ken Arthurson said that Superleague may have won this round but the ARL had an appeal. But Graham Richardson commentating for Nine said the opposite. That the judgement in Superleague's favor was likely going to be the final verdict. Richardson also said a contract meant nothing in the modern days after the verdict. Arthurson would later describe the appeal in Superleague's favor as winning the first half of Football 100 - 0. And then other team coming back and scoring 100 - 0 in the secound half.
This war really did hurt the game. What was interesting was that super had the stronger teams superior players overall but ARL probably had the better quality competition in the end. I also look back and think that it was a pity that super league didn't go that next step because super league had a vision for the game that ARL never had.
the game would of been in better shape if superleague had of won, the ARL have mismanaged the comp for years and now we are seeing the result of there incompetence with the game almost going bankrupt superleagues vision was to go nation wide and get teams in WA, SA as well as building up more teams in QLD they were smarter, but this court case fucked it up I hate Murdoch but this game would of been in better hands with him incharge
Rugby League going global via Super League was nothing more than a pipe dream. A lot of foolish people got swept up in this hysteria back in the mid 90's. Rugby League can barley sustain a national Australian audience, let alone a global one.
As a U.K. lover of rugby league and nrl, was this not a lot to do with murdoch trying to recreate the footy premier league in Australia and sell a lot of tv subscriptions? I pay £100 a month for SKY largely for sport
Pretty much. He was hell bent on getting pay tv up and running and felt he needed a major sport to help get people into it. He tried for afl and quickly found it wasn’t going to happen. Unfortunately there were players that were only interested in the money and not the game itself and it nearly destroyed the game. Rupert Murdock did not understand anything about the game and actually believed that throwing money at people will fix everything. Super league is a scar that the game has never fully recovered from. Real fans of the game don’t acknowledge the 1997 super league comp as a real competition.
i cnt understand why kerry packer didnt want to play ball and not let fox to show any games while ch9 on had friday night full replay and sunday replay and one live abc tv game the rest of the games could went to fox and everybody would be happy and SL wouldnt of started
@@12from121 and after the 2000's i remeber they'd just be called The Bulldogs. yeh I remember when I was 8, all the teams were adding Sydney to their name. was thinking "are going to have 9 teams with the name "Sydney in it". I'd call them by their mascot names then anyway, being confused when my parents would call Sydney City Easts, etc.
i wonder if super league had won and took control of all teams til this day 2020 does anyone think that wests , balmain ,illawarra, st george and norths would of been on there own teams no merger and how super league would look today???
The competition would look almost identical to how it is today . People seem to forget that the ARL in the early 90's publicly announced their intention to create a national competition. They planned to increase the competition up to 24 teams. Then allow the new clubs in QLD, Victoria, SA & WA a few years to get themselves properly established and settled in. Then the ARL was going to cut the competition down to a more sustainable and competitive level of about 14 teams. What clubs do you think were on the chopping block? The new teams that were created to form a national competition, or the cluster of Sydney teams?
Same thing going on today with streaming wars. Its all about content to gain subscribers. Almost no one on the super league side cared about the game at all and to many on the ARL side were also greedy. Players did deserve more and the game was worth more than what it was getting. So many showed how their loyalty was always for sale it was just how much. Took the game a good 8 to 12 years to get back to anywhere near how popular it was in the 93 94 95 seasons. Even me a kid who played and went to every game at brookie for 3 years stopped going and even paying attention till 2003. The teams that the nswrl let in immediately went to SL the western red the warriors the cowboys. Should have just gone back to nswrl and played our comp again
They should have left the Super League to England. Had that have happened then some of these clubs would have still been around. Even if it still meant that some did a merger with one another. You still may have seen North Sydney Bears and South Queensland Crushers competing in the NRL and have prevented South Sydney Rabbitohs from missing out on a season or two of rugby league.
The problem with Rugby League clubs, supporters & players they’d been interested in self preservation and not about unity of the game. If that sought of rubbish was going on in AFL, you’d see all clubs band together in unity & diversity. Murdoch knew how fragmented the culture was and that’s what he did what he did with Super League but not with ARL.
This video is early evidence of the beginning of the trend of journalists talking to other journalists masquerading as 'news'
I remembered this ARL Super League war in 1995,1996 & 1997 but it ended in 1998 when the NRL was formed
"Bear" Ian Maurice and Kenny. A golden era in sport coverage on Channel 9
We Love You Kenny Suttcliffe
I'm a relatively new American NRL fan and from the outside looking in the Super League war reminds me of the Cart/IRL split
Very similar.
Ironically the coverage on fox is so much better than Nine today. Hard to believe it's nearly 30 years ago.
Chris and Andrew.. Matty always the forgotten one lol
Even with this mistake Matty Johns has a sense of humour
I chuckled at this
The music surrounding the news back then made one feel there about to watch a Hollywood blockbuster!
8:46 ... Matty should rename his Fox League show.. The Late Shows with Chrissy Johns to spite Ken Sutcliffe 😂
19:08 “Paul Harrogan” Top quality work Channel 9! 🙄
Super League just ended up being the boring League. The ARL comp was so much better and the players played with passion and interest every single week. The Grand Finals were miles apart from eachother too.
1 comp was played for money, the other not so much, that was the difference.
well you woulnt have known unless you had pay tv in 1996
@@XDB888why? the super league comp was in 1997
The Super League was an attempt to get rugby league behind the Barassi Line. There was no money and too many useless teams. The only team that exists to day behind this line is the Storm.
I want to go back in time now
Well said Chris. 9:26
I remember that people thought Super League wouldn’t go ahead at all after this judgement in early 1996. However in October SL won on appeal and it went ahead in 1997. I didn’t like the split in the game and I’m glad there was only 1 year with 2 comps but from a Penrith fan point of view, we arguably owe our current stand alone status to choosing Super League over the ARL. We weren’t going that well back in the late 90’s compared to now on and off the field and if we had stayed with the ARL we may well have been merged..
I have a simple answer it’s called Western Suburbs Magpies. 1908 foundation club has automatic immunity as this club created the game. In addition if they have an issue all boundaries revert to pre 1947. That means Manly Warringah Sea Eagles revert to their original feeder club to North Sydney Bears.
Parramatta Eels & Penrith Panthers revert as Feeder clubs to Western Suburbs Magpies. Cronulla Sutherland Sharks revert to Feeder club to St George Dragons. The teams outside of Sydney like Illawarra Steelers, Canberra Raiders & Newcastle Knights remain. The Glebe Reds than revert to Country Reds.
The real verdict was the appeal. I remember seeing it and the court ruling was in Superleague's favor. I think it may have been Ken Arthurson said that Superleague may have won this round but the ARL had an appeal. But Graham Richardson commentating for Nine said the opposite. That the judgement in Superleague's favor was likely going to be the final verdict. Richardson also said a contract meant nothing in the modern days after the verdict. Arthurson would later describe the appeal in Superleague's favor as winning the first half of Football 100 - 0. And then other team coming back and scoring 100 - 0 in the secound half.
Where’s The Full Version?
This war really did hurt the game. What was interesting was that super had the stronger teams superior players overall but ARL probably had the better quality competition in the end. I also look back and think that it was a pity that super league didn't go that next step because super league had a vision for the game that ARL never had.
yeh buddy without the war the game wouldn’t of become what it is today
Newcastle won the reserve grade comp that year
the game would of been in better shape if superleague had of won, the ARL have mismanaged the comp for years and now we are seeing the result of there incompetence with the game almost going bankrupt
superleagues vision was to go nation wide and get teams in WA, SA as well as building up more teams in QLD they were smarter, but this court case fucked it up
I hate Murdoch but this game would of been in better hands with him incharge
Plus when you mention the only SL GF you will always hear crickets. The corresponding GF is one of the 5 best ever with a finish unmatched until 2015.
Rugby League going global via Super League was nothing more than a pipe dream. A lot of foolish people got swept up in this hysteria back in the mid 90's.
Rugby League can barley sustain a national Australian audience, let alone a global one.
As a U.K. lover of rugby league and nrl, was this not a lot to do with murdoch trying to recreate the footy premier league in Australia and sell a lot of tv subscriptions? I pay £100 a month for SKY largely for sport
Pretty much. He was hell bent on getting pay tv up and running and felt he needed a major sport to help get people into it. He tried for afl and quickly found it wasn’t going to happen. Unfortunately there were players that were only interested in the money and not the game itself and it nearly destroyed the game. Rupert Murdock did not understand anything about the game and actually believed that throwing money at people will fix everything. Super league is a scar that the game has never fully recovered from. Real fans of the game don’t acknowledge the 1997 super league comp as a real competition.
Another Murdoch v Packer episode...'It's our game'...hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
i cnt understand why kerry packer didnt want to play ball and not let fox to show any games while ch9 on had friday night full replay and sunday replay and one live abc tv game the rest of the games could went to fox and everybody would be happy and SL wouldnt of started
I wish Ian Maurice would come back into commentary.
He retired from commentary once Channel Ten lost the rights.
isn't he dead ?
@@scottallan7931 No
In the end Super league won the war! Norths, Illawarra no longer exist but Cronulla, Canterbury still do.
huh? Canterbury would have survived regardless, Norths?? bunch a rugby wankers up there
@@XDB888 Sydney bulldogs??? remember
@@12from121 re-branding? So what, 4 clubs were called Sydney including the tigers..it was 90’s marketing lack of vision
@@XDB888 My point is that all the super league clubs were given news corp money at the time the arl clubs were folding or merging.
@@12from121 and after the 2000's i remeber they'd just be called The Bulldogs. yeh I remember when I was 8, all the teams were adding Sydney to their name. was thinking "are going to have 9 teams with the name "Sydney in it". I'd call them by their mascot names then anyway, being confused when my parents would call Sydney City Easts, etc.
How young was Peter Overton here.
😮😮
He was 31 years of age here.
Chris Johns Bahahahaha
i wonder if super league had won and took control of all teams til this day 2020 does anyone think that wests , balmain ,illawarra, st george and norths would of been on there own teams no merger and how super league would look today???
The competition would look almost identical to how it is today .
People seem to forget that the ARL in the early 90's publicly announced their intention to create a national competition. They planned to increase the competition up to 24 teams. Then allow the new clubs in QLD, Victoria, SA & WA a few years to get themselves properly established and settled in.
Then the ARL was going to cut the competition down to a more sustainable and competitive level of about 14 teams.
What clubs do you think were on the chopping block? The new teams that were created to form a national competition, or the cluster of Sydney teams?
Chris hahahahahah
Chris and Andrew lol
When did Ian Maurice return to Channel 9
He was there for most of the 1990s.
Same thing going on today with streaming wars. Its all about content to gain subscribers. Almost no one on the super league side cared about the game at all and to many on the ARL side were also greedy. Players did deserve more and the game was worth more than what it was getting. So many showed how their loyalty was always for sale it was just how much. Took the game a good 8 to 12 years to get back to anywhere near how popular it was in the 93 94 95 seasons. Even me a kid who played and went to every game at brookie for 3 years stopped going and even paying attention till 2003. The teams that the nswrl let in immediately went to SL the western red the warriors the cowboys. Should have just gone back to nswrl and played our comp again
end if the day rugby league is on fox
They should have left the Super League to England. Had that have happened then some of these clubs would have still been around. Even if it still meant that some did a merger with one another. You still may have seen North Sydney Bears and South Queensland Crushers competing in the NRL and have prevented South Sydney Rabbitohs from missing out on a season or two of rugby league.
the players would of been on NFL levels of money if superleague had won
i understand players that signed for money it was bug money
The problem with Rugby League clubs, supporters & players they’d been interested in self preservation and not about unity of the game. If that sought of rubbish was going on in AFL, you’d see all clubs band together in unity & diversity. Murdoch knew how fragmented the culture was and that’s what he did what he did with Super League but not with ARL.
The 3 or 4 Hager’s was not the judgment it was a simple explanation of the case. Super league won on appeal. But the players lost.
NRL should be called eastern states rugby league lol
There is a New Zealand team too.
@stupendous1068
NZ is Still East of Australia.
good old days before multiculturalism
Karma has come back to haunt the Broncos with their super wank competition, wooden spoon and no grand final win since 2006