Can I just say first and foremost that I think Beattie is a fucking clown and I don't know how he is in the job but I found some of his recent comments interesting.
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On Expansion:
“It’s a lot harder than I first thought,” Beattie said. “It’s one of the reasons why I’m pushing so hard in other areas. We can’t be landlocked in two states."
“I’ve said to the clubs and CEOs, if anyone falls over we won’t fund them. We will have to look at where they are."
So his first point is a fairly popular opinion, the NRL can't just be a 2 state comp (close to a 2 state comp), there needs to be a team in Perth and Adelaide and tbh I'd like them to replace 2 Sydney teams, the NRL has to start being a national sport.
His second point is really interesting, over the past few years the NRL has helped the Titans, Dragons and Newcastle stay afloat but from now on it seems like if a club takes a fall then the NRL will just let them die, it's probably a reason to reduce the amount of Sydney teams, I'd be worried if I was a Tigers or Manly fan, to be honest.
Player Behaviour
“If you have a rough criteria then no one will be surprised and, more to the point, no one will have excuses.
“If we can’t have consistency and regulation of these sorts of behaviour, we won’t have a game.”
At least he is acknowledging that the NRL is inconsistent when it comes down to handing punishments, it was a disgrace when you compare the treatment our club received compared to the treatment the Rabbitohs received.
Participation Strategy
“One of the keys to this is women. If they can see women play this game and can be trained to be tackle properly and build their physical capacity, women are more likely to say to their kids, ‘you can play rugby league’.
“At the end of it all — I’m not trying to be sexist — mums will make the decision. It happened in my family.
“Expanding the women’s game is not just about expanding it for all the right reasons, it’s about building the men’s game.”
This is actually a really good point, I know way too many families in which the mother denies her sons the chance to play footy, and encouraging females to start to learn the game by actually playing it and understanding that these guys are trained and safety is a priority then maybe we will see fewer mums restrict their sons and we'll see higher participation numbers.