The problem with the NRL is that 10/12 teams would be the ideal for a 6 month season with each team playing each other twice. Once at home and once away. There is no way they can contemplate getting rid of more teams without a big backlash and probably protracted legalities. The current 16 teams is too many to play each other twice so they have the unfair situation of only playing some teams once. Penrith made it to second this year with a run of easy games facilitated by this system. Their subsequent finals performance showed that they didnt deserve to be there.

I have always favored a two division solution. With relegation and promotion and new teams to initially take the competition to 1st and 2nd division with ten teams each.
Unmerge Wests and Balmain. Bring in the Central Coast Bears. A new Brisbane team. And either a new New Zealand team (for nth and sth island teams) or maybe Perth. Later on they could expand to twelve teams each with additions like Papua New Guinea, Nthn NSW, Central QLD, Adelaide, Pacific islands/Fiji, the sunshine coast, NSW Country or many other possibilities.

There would be more games, and so more tv revenue. More local teams to follow. Maybe a few more midweek games. They could all play each other twice without dragging the season into the heat of summer and it would all be much fairer and logical.

Diver Dan,

Yes I am all for a fairer scoring system.

I do not take the NAB system seriously and do not believe that there should be different systems for scoring goals because of distance.

In fact, I also share your disdain for points, but not sure what do about it as game is vastly different from rugby and soccer which clearly penalises team for being cuaght in defensive zone or provides corners for soccer.

Maybe in case of 10.10.70 v 9.16.70, team with most goals should win.

However, at least in terms of scoring, the rules are consistent for both sides throughout the competition.

mikk,

Yes, it would be great if we had two divisions.

That is what I admire about English soccer with its four divisions.

There 2nd division still averages 18,000 attendance and all their clubs stick to their home grounds.

As our population gets bigger, there is no reason why our two most popular sports could not have two viable divisions of 12 teams.

Chris, As an AFL fanatic and former player, I admire your article in an attempt to overcome the current weaknesses in how matches are rostered each year. Given the fact that a number of the Melbourne clubs are on a "drip feed" from the AFL, the richer clubs such as Collingwood, Carlton and Essendon are always going to be favoured by the draw. The introduction of two new clubs by 2012 will ease the situation as will the cessation of the pre-season NAB Cup which has become a bit of a farce with only a few clubs serious about chasing the $100,000 to the winner. There is little doubt that without a salary cap and National draft in place the competition would be dominated each year by the top 4-5 wealthier clubs something that the Players Association is fighting against, which will ultimately lead to an uneven competition, which should be resisted.