I’m just of the belief that playing at the one ground 12 times a years gives the players familiarity and a real home ground advantage. What’s the advantage of three home grounds?
It's an interesting question. If you have 3 home grounds, why can't they be all as "home groundy" as each other? Is there any particular reason why you cannot develop more than one "fortress"?
And on the other hand, if you end up choosing just 1 home ground that is shared by other clubs, e.g. ANZ or BankWest, can you truly make it a fortress? There will be other clubs that might play there, be just as "familiar" with it as you are.
How could anything feel familiar if you only play there 3 times a year?
I only visit my in-laws once every 2 or 3 years, because they live overseas, but very familiar when I do, because they haven't moved.
But I'm not saying it's definitive, I just asked the question, is there such a difference between 3 matches or 4 matches or 12 matches? Why can't you feel advantaged at more than 1 location? The Origin teams only play at home twice max per year, and for many of those players it's not their club home ground, yet there's a real advantage when you can max out the crowd and get as one-sided as possible, with real passionate fan noise.
I would probably argue that a fortress is a location you don't share with any other clubs and which has special characteristics that make it difficult or uncomfortable for visiting teams. Not just the fact you can win games, but a very definite advantage of the location where you are.
For example Leichhardt, at one point we had quite a good win rate there (which I think, without checking the stats, has been evaporated in recent years). And theoretically you could make Leichhardt a "fortress" because it does have some characteristics that could un-nerve visiting teams, e.g. antiquated facilities, very close parochial crowd etc. But Balmain played at LO every 2nd week during the 90s and it meant diddly-squat when our roster was so below average. Manly had Brookie as a fortress when they were a good side, but the past couple of years, not so much.
The alternative for WT specifically is a shared centralised ground, which I argue would probably never be able to be made a fortress, simply because it's shared.
The likely common denominator on home-ground advantage for Sydney teams is probably the crowd. Especially as we've already seen home-ground advantages disappear during COVID, with minimal crowds. So as long as you can get your crowd large and local, that might be the major consideration, not which suburb you are in.
Or to put it another way - are Tigers unsuccessful because of multiple home grounds? It's a fair argument to say a single home ground wouldn't hurt, yet in 2005, 2010, 2011 the multiple home grounds didn't matter at all. Why is that? Broncos have had a poor past decade of results, by their own standards, and they have one of the few clear "fortresses" in the league.
So it makes me think we probably need to focus more on the roster itself and our weekly on-field output, stability in the coaching and management, before we worry so much about the grounds.
Not that I'm against a single home ground, I'll still sign up if that's the decision we make in 2 years. Probable main issue there is the unknown landscape post-COVID of the stadia plan, with only the SFS guaranteed now.
