Only Gold Coast could give you a massive football story in their bye round. Although the 'cap' is back I have decided against telling you about why it happened and who is to blame ad-nauseam. As like you I have read the many, many, many stories and opinions on it in these hallowed forums. Instead I would like to air my opinions on your opinions.

As a member of the Gold Coast United Supporters Club, I support their stance of tolerance and moving forward to increase the crowd support. I believe boycotting the team would only be driving a deeper wedge between the public and the team and in the end punishing the players for backroom decisions.

As a member of these forums I am disappointed at the calls from some quarters to expel the club. The situation is hardly ideal and far from a good image for the league, but it is also not the worst thing our league would have to suffer through. This is not a string of sexual assault charges against multiple players and teams. This is not a major salary fraud containing a multiple championship winning team, nor is it our game's biggest stars drunk and disorderly or caught in drug stings and rehab.

We like to think our sport can be bigger, but at the first hurdles we want to run away. Gold Coast is too much of an NRL town so why bother, but in the same breath we can be bigger than Rugby League? This is when we need to dig deep and all pull for a positive result. We need to prove we are bigger.

A financially stable team with an unstable owner has less right to be here then teams with no owners? Therefore the inability to market the team to the locals AT this stage is evidence enough to hand the licence back but supported clubs that drain money from the governing body are A-O-K.

None of these realities are Ideal but we all have one thing in common, we all love football and while there is a fighting chance for Adelaide, North Qld and Gold Coast I will support any initiative that keeps them in the game and gives their supporters a team to support no matter what their size is.

Now I want to leave you with some talking points on the crowd cap.

  • 1. What blame if any can be levied at Stadium Queensland's strangle hold on pricing?
  • 2. How can offers of $1 million plus a year for international marquees be thrown around yet advertising of the team remains almost invisible.
  • 3. Will some of the proposed savings of $60,000 per game be used to "re-connect" with the public?
  • 4. If say next year, hypothetically a team falls under GCU's average crowd number, will this mean calls for automatic disqualification of licence?
  • 5. (for the haters)What is the next thing you will find about the club to hate, when the crowd numbers are finally adequate?

It is a real shame this cap is needed but it can be turned around. Also a shame it took up this whole blog as originally I would have been writing about how pleased I am that the teams from Queensland all look strong so far. So congratulations to Roar and Fury, and may all three of us be in the hunt at season's end.