Roger Ramjet

The cowboys are also under the impression that the U20 youth league will be good for the game. Most opinions ive heard on this issue have been against it.

A 3pm final would show game hasn't lost touch with its lifeblood

WHENEVER a corporate credit card-carrying, bejewelled marketeer justifies an NRL night grand final by quoting record TV ratings in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, I find myself saying: "Yes, but what about Tamworth, Townsville and Tenterfield?"

Rugby league is only 140,000 short of the AFL in bragging rights over who has the most-watched grand final, but Oztam figures count only five capital cities. Rugby league's most loyal audience - its "forgotten people" - live in rural and regional NSW and Queensland.

They are not counted in the very figures the NRL quotes as its only justification for maintaining a night grand final.

For 100 years, the non-metropolitan populations of these two states have carried the code.

Sydney may be the birthplace of the game in Australia but the bush is the nurturing parent.

If you count rural NSW and Queensland, the NRL beats the AFL. Last year, the AFL's day grand final was the most-watched program in Australia with an Oztam audience of 2.562 million, with the NRL decider third (2.421m), but the 1.326m watching the NRL big one in regional Australia weren't counted.

Why not reward this loyal audience with the day time grand final they crave - backyard barbecues and games of touch, the Esky on the back veranda and extra chairs in the lounge room for the 3pm kick-off?

This debate symbolises sport in the 21st century - using smoke and mirrors to create an artificial closeness with the AFL via a night grand final while shunning a loyal audience who delivers the numbers anyway.

The AFL cheer squad would counter by saying regional centres aren't counted in their grand final either, but a combined regional/metropolitan comparison puts the NRL 428,000 ahead. If the AFL argues a night grand final at the MCG would close this gap, they also diminish their own Melbourne constituency, which would watch at 3am.

New Zealand is not counted. Last season Kiwis had to wait until 10pm for kick-off, with no public holiday to follow.

So powerful is TV in modern sport, many NRL executives were surprised to learn it wasn't Channel Nine's call when the change to the NRL grand final kick-off time was mooted. Almost 10 years to the day the Super League war ended (December 19, 1997), rugby league still assumed it was owned by the paymasters.

However, NRL chief executive David Gallop, who negotiated the present TV contract with Nine last year, said: "I was always conscious we didn't want to commit to a night grand final. It was always in my head to have the flexibility to return to a day decider."
Asked how important TV figures are in the battle with AFL, Gallop said: "There's no doubt the 7pm kick off improves our national TV audience and the ground atmosphere is better at night. However, we are a 30-week sport and if our fans who follow us for the other 29 weeks don't like something, then we need to consider it carefully."

Asked how much the fans don't like the night game, Gallop said: "We get more feedback in favour of the 3pm kick-off than any other issue."

Some hard-nosed league officials file these complaints under the heading "Romanticising", sub-heading, "Summer holidays lasted longer then, ice-cream tasted better". It was the same reaction when the Herald ran a series this year about "league's lost heart", lamenting the NRL's beige age, a terra incognita where there were no effective cultural differences between the clubs.

When NRL officials speak fluent legalese and litter conversations with terms such as "creature comforts", "long-form contracts" and "Next G technology", you start thinking "yawn of a new era".

You can still have all these things and a day grand final as well. OK, you can't have crackers. However, the NSW Government's decision to put daylight saving back means the grand final will effectively kick off at 6pm, ruling out skyrockets and catherine-wheels anyway.

"Daylight saving means the pre-match entertainment and start of the game won't be in the dark," Gallop conceded, before quipping: "Crackers don't look much good in the daylight."

But the football does. Players are more relaxed, skill levels rise, the ball seems bigger and the sidelines clearer. The men who play the game will guarantee the fireworks on the field will compensate for those missing from the sky.

Storm v Warriors, Telstra Dome, Mon 7.00pm