Queensland Rugby League Chair Peter Betros believes that Sydney should "lose its right to automatically host a State of Origin game every season if ANZ Stadium is not a sell-out for the opening game of this year’s series on May 27," according to Stuart Honeysett of THE AUSTRALIAN. Betros "fired" the "first broadside for the annual bitter interstate contest" as NSW coach Laurie Daley and his Queensland counterpart Mal Meninga prepared to "name their teams for game one." There are "genuine concerns that there will be a poor turnout at ANZ Stadium as there are well over 20,000 tickets still available for the 80,000-seat stadium." By comparison, game two at the MCG and game three at Suncorp Stadium are both "tracking well." Betros said that it would be "disappointing if Blues fans did not turn out to support their team after they ended an eight-year losing streak last season, and there were plenty of other options to host a game, including Melbourne, Newcastle, Brisbane and even New Zealand." Betros: "If the Sydney rugby league fraternity don't want to go and watch Origin in Sydney then I think the game should be taken somewhere where people do want to watch it. If you can’t make it pay and the people aren't interested why would you keep playing it there?" (THE AUSTRALIAN, 5/29). In Sydney, Phil Rothfield wrote Sydney is "not just struggling to sell State of Origin tickets." For the first time in the code's history, two interstate National Rugby League games received "bigger attendances than all Sydney matches last weekend." Both Townsville (24,531) and Melbourne (18,067) "beat Sydney’s biggest crowd (17,009) at ANZ Stadium for the Bulldogs v Roosters" on Friday. There are a number of reasons why Sydney has "become such a tough sell this year." For starters, it has only one side -- St. George Illawarra -- "in the top four after 10 rounds." But it is also the "strong rivalry from other sporting codes that is being felt like never before" (DAILY TELEGRAPH, 5/19).
