Justin Rodsky

It's about the occasion and obviously transcends the sport in every sense, particularly obviously in the pre-match.

But no, the Rabideaus have been a great opponent for us and will continue to be hopefully for many years to come.

Yeah, I mean, it's not usual that certainly in my five years that there's a coach or even a number of coaches that have been moved on this early in the season.

But yeah, I don't know, you know, specifically around those two clubs, obviously they felt that the person that was in charge wasn't the right coach to take that group forward and they weren't getting the results that they needed.

And they moved swiftly to make changes.

I mean, if you look at Manly and, you know, they haven't lost a game since they moved their coach on.

So,

You could argue very easily there that, you know, that's been the right decision for Manly for whatever reasons that they made it.

So I don't think that it's necessarily an NRL versus AFL thing.

But this year, circumstantially, both St.

George and Manly have exited their coach very early in the season, which is unusual.

But, yeah, I don't think it's necessarily a difference between the codes.

Well, it's important for us in terms of the game and our continual growth in Victoria.

The match will no doubt be a sellout at the MCG.

I think this is the last of the Visit Victoria NRL contracted games for this coming period, so a great opportunity for anyone in Melbourne to

that wants to come along and see probably the biggest showpiece of the sport outside of the finals and the grand final is State of Origin.

It is a very unique event and obviously New South Wales and Queensland fans also come down in their thousands to watch their states play.

So it's a big occasion, a big event and it's a great thing for our code in Melbourne to continue to build

what I think has been an unbelievable foundation over the last couple of years of growth of the sport.

Right from participation, Gerard, as we've spoken about on many occasions, through the pathways, right through to the elite now, the game's growing in every metric.