THE Wests Tigers’ boss has thrown down the challenge to all National Rugby League (NRL) clubs to take more games into the bush.
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The Tigers’ Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Justin Pascoe, was in Tamworth ahead of Saturday’s historic premiership clash with the Newcastle Knights and challenged his rivals to duly take elite footy into regional towns.
“My personal view is it should be a responsibility of all NRL clubs to go regional,” Pascoe said.
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“I think it’s going to allow country rugby league to grow through NSW.”
While he urged other clubs to follow the Tigers’ lead, Pascoe heaped praise on Wests Entertainment Group for proactively reaching-out and making the Tamworth game a reality.
“We were approached by Rod Laing and his team so that’s firstly where it started,” he said.
“We can’t give them enough credit in regards to how proactive they’ve been in this initiative.”
The CEO said the Wests Tigers would further investigate the possibility of returning to Tamworth on a regular basis.
About 200 “Tamworth Tigers” memberships had been sold in the lead-up to the game.
“I think the fact that we really want to make sure [Saturday] is an absolute success and, it’s tracking that way, certainly the continual engagement in the community and the surrounding areas is something we really want to do,” he said.
He wouldn’t comment on whether the NRL could offer more incentives for clubs to take games to the bush and said there wasn’t any correlation between the traditional City-Country being scrapped and the slew of premiership games taken to regional areas this year.
“I don’t think there’s a correlation from our perspective, this is ... a Wests Tigers initiative with the support of the NRL and the guys at the Wests Entertainment Group,” Pascoe said.