“Christchurch will help the NRL”: South Island Kea bid chief opens up on NRL’s rejection

South Island Kea bid Chief David Moffett has confirmed his team will submit another bid to the NRL after it was confirmed that all expansion proposals aside from PNG were not successful.

South Island Kea, along with two other bids from the same location within New Zealand were all seemingly rejected due to the NRL wanting a licensing fee worth around $40 million.

With rugby league booming in New Zealand, adding a second team in that region seems like a no brainer but Moffett understands why the NRL rejected his side’s bid.

“We have a pretty good idea of those areas that the NRL felt we weren’t strong enough on,” Moffett told SEN 1170 Afternoons.

“We’ll be addressing those as we get to a point where we will consider putting in another bid.

“We’ve obviously got a lot of work to do in relation to that but I think what makes us absolutely certain that Christchurch is a good place for a NRL team is that reaction on the weekend.”

Australia travelled to Christchurch for their second Pacific Championships clash on Sunday afternoon in front of a bumper crowd of 17,000 people.

“That game against Australia, the atmosphere that was created by that rugby league crowd was phenomenal, there was 17,000 (fans), nearly double that when its in a fully enclosed stadium and you can see what sort of support we would get here,” Moffett added.

“That gives us a great deal of hope, we know that there is a huge amount of support for rugby league in this part of the world.

“I think that was referred to by Harry Grant after the game when he was asked what he thought of Christchurh and he said he thought it would be a great place to have an NRL team.

“Whether he was just being polite because he was here, I don’t think so, Harry has always struck me as a guy who is prepared to speak his mind, we took great hope from those comments.”

Moffett confirmed that the South Island Kea would be submitting a second bid to attempt to persuade the NRL to grant his side the 18th licence.

“At this stage we are going to do that (submit another bid),” Moffett said.

“We have a great belief that Christchurch will help the NRL in its efforts to actually increase not only participation but fan engagement and bring new money into the game, we think we’ve got a compelling story to do that but we have to address their concerns.”