English prop James Graham has thrown his support behind a Perth club joining Super League.
Graham played in the 2017 World Cup double-header on Sunday, held in Western Australia, where England defeated France and Ireland beat Scotland. Nearly 15,000 fans came out to NIB Stadium for the event. The NRL once had a club in Perth – the Western Reds – between 1995 and 1997 but the franchise was culled as a casualty of the ARL/Super League war.
There have been attempts to bring a new NRL club to Western Australia and occasional NRL matches have been held in Perth in the past few years. The NRL plans to launch its 2018 season at the new Perth Stadium with a double-header between Canterbury against Melbourne and South Sydney against New Zealand Warriors.
But with the NRL seemingly shutting its doors to expansion at the moment, Graham believes UK’s Super League should look at Perth. The English tier of competitions already includes clubs from France, Toronto and Wales.
“I think there should be an NRL team [in Perth]. If not an NRL team then the way the Super League competition is expanding to America, then why not,” the front-rower told The Sportsman.
“If that non-stop flight gets put in then I’m sure they’re would be people looking at putting a team in the Super League. It’s interesting. Obviously the situation in Perth at the moment with sport, losing the rugby union team, new stadium coming in. I think there’s an appetite for it. I’ve played here before with Canterbury and that was well-supported. I know round one’s here for four teams next season, so I imagine it would be on the agenda for the top dogs at the NRL.”
Perth has a vacancy in professional sport with rugby union’s Western Force axed from Super Rugby next year. Perth has a massive British expat population as around 230,000 West Australians were born in the UK. Graham was pleased to see the World Cup come to Perth and raved about the support he witnessed there.
“I think the World Cup has been organised fantastically,” he said.
“Our game is a growing game, it needs to be spread around. In Perth you could see the amount of English that have come our, or are either living here, the ones that have come from England, it’s just been outstanding. It’s been a pleasure to be a part of it.
“[The fans in Perth] it was a particular highlight. It felt like it we were in a World Cup, it really did. The flags, the singing, the people around town. We’ve been in Fremantle a lot and you’re constantly getting stopped. It feels like we’re in a World Cup and hopefully the fans can flood to Melbourne and keep that support going for us. It’s massive.”
England face Papua New Guinea next in Melbourne in a quarter-final match-up and Graham knows what the Kumuls will bring.
“I’ve seen a couple of their games, obviously the one against Ireland was a really good game,” the 32-year-old said.
“It’s going to be a tough game for us. Every time we’ve played against them we know exactly what they bring, how they’re going to conduct themselves and what they’re all about. They’re on a decent run coming up against us. Hopefully as many fans can turn out in Melbourne as they did in Perth.”
