Central Coast and Newcastle are both within an easy drive of Sydney (and each other) which gives them 3 teams where they can expect home fixtures against them to have significantly boosted croud figures thanks to travelling fans. What about Perth, with a much bigger population than Wellington and only marginally bigger crouds (even when they were top of the league too)? Anyway, I know it wasn't your intention Peter but I think the issue is that the feeling from most fans is that the constant discussion of disappointing crouds is counterproductive - it changes the narrative from the club doing well because its top of the table to the club doing poorly because it can't attract crouds. And telling the public that not enough people are turning up isn't likely to make people want to come - they're more likely to think there must be a reason that people aren't going and then not go themselves.
And when you have a GM whom keeps threatening to push the nuclear button for the croud that do not turn up, it gets really fudgeing boring, really fudgeing quick. Domes' approach to this has been widely panned across this forum.
When you are dealing with a minority interest sport (in NZ) behind rugby, cricket and league (all of which are going on at the same time I might add) our crouds are bloody decent. How are the Lions and Hurricanes going historically in rugby mad NZ?? THERE is your context. Comparing it with what's going on in NZ not what's going on in Australia. I think you will find a graph that 2nd Best has done that will show you that and we measure up very very well in the Wellington market.
