{"id":61336,"date":"2025-08-12T01:27:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T01:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/61336\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T01:27:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T01:27:13","slug":"oldest-rugby-league-rivalry-escalates-turf-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/61336\/","title":{"rendered":"Oldest rugby league rivalry escalates turf war"},"content":{"rendered":"

The fierce rivalry between the Sydney Roosters and South Sydney Rabbitohs is set for another heated chapter after a fresh dispute erupted between the two clubs.<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/a> revealed last week that the Rabbitohs had lodged a formal complaint with the NSW Rugby League, seeking to have the Roosters removed from Matraville Sports High School.<\/p>\n

The Rabbitohs argue the venue lies within the South Sydney Junior Rugby League district and should be exclusively theirs.<\/p>\n

Although the NSWRL initially rejected the request, the Rabbitohs are pushing for a review.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Can the Roosters get out of the Daly Cherry-Evans contract?<\/a><\/p>\n

The move comes amid growing tensions between the clubs, with Souths intent on making Allianz Stadium their permanent home, something the Roosters strongly oppose.<\/p>\n

Currently, Matraville Sports High serves as a training base for the Roosters\u2019 junior representative teams.<\/p>\n

Rabbitohs chairman Nick Pappas says the rules are clear and believes the Roosters have no right to use the ground.<\/p>\n

“I find it disappointing that the Roosters have effectively invaded our district to train their junior representative teams, knowing full well that [it] will cause significant disruption to our own juniors,” Pappas told The Daily Telegraph.<\/p>\n

“Either we have districts for our juniors or we don’t have districts.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the opposition the Roosters have openly expressed regarding our return to Allianz, to now come and train their juniors at Matraville, in the heart of our district, is brazen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pappas\u2019s long-standing friendship with Roosters chairman Nick Politis only adds sting to the dispute.<\/p>\n

“It’s the hypocrisy that I find most disappointing, and knowing Nick [Politis] as I do, I can’t imagine that he would ever condone it,\u201d Pappas said.<\/p>\n

Both clubs now await the NSWRL\u2019s final decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The fierce rivalry between the Sydney Roosters and South Sydney Rabbitohs is set for another heated chapter after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61337,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-61336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}