Credit / Sky Sports
A full house for the Bledisloe Cup test match between the All Blacks and Wallabies on Saturday has the NRL investigating staging the grand final in New Zealand, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.
NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo said the near-capacity crowd of 45000 at Eden Park in Auckland has given them “food for thought”.
The NRL is investigating the idea because of the Covid-19 situation in Australia and the potential of playing the competition's biggest game of the season in front of a sell-out crowd in New Zealand.
The government granted the Wallabies a travel exemption so that they did not need to quarantine for 14 days, which the NRL would also require if the grand final was to be played here.
“An opportunity to play under an exemption in New Zealand, in front of a full house, is an option if we can’t play elsewhere in Australia," Abdo told the Sydney paper.
“Saturday night’s match means we have a precedent in terms of getting an exemption from the New Zealand government. Those exemptions are based on economic impact and the grand final would qualify for that.”