More than 10,000 people cast their vote and there are surprising results .
Who is the best player, who is the toughest, how many live games have you seen this year.
Those are just some of the issues covered in the annual NRL fan’s survey with more than 10,000 people letting the game’s powerbrokers how they feel about rugby league in Australia.
Parramatta Eels fullback Jarryd Hayne was crowned the best player in the NRL by the fans with 32 per cent of the vote ahead of Greg Inglis (21 per cent), Johnathan Thurston (15 per cent) and Cameron Smith and Sam Burgess on eight per cent each.
Worryingly for the NRL the majority of fans said they were only going to go to 1-2 live games a a season, with 33 per cent of fans saying they barely support their team in person.
Eighteen per cent said they do no go to games while just eight percent said they attend between 5-6 games in what is a concerning trend for the NRL.
Unsurprisingly food and drink is still seen as the biggest cost when attending the footy, with 54 per cent of people saying the costs are too high.
Tickets were also targeted for a price reduction along with access to the ground and club merchandise.
Two issues dominated voting when it came to answering the biggest issue facing the game is, with 28 per cent fans believing the image of the game is a worry while 25 per cent feel the impact of State of Origin on clubs is too great.
Paul Gallen was voted the toughest player in the NRL with 27 per cent of the vote, however, in the wake of the ASADA drugs scandal, second-placed Sam Burgess could be bumped up from his 22 per cent.
Two-thirds of parents say they would let their child player rugby league in the face of safety concerns while only 14 per cent believe the NRL is doing the better jobs to attract fans to their game when compared to the other major football codes in Australia.
Melbourne Storm coach Craig Bellamy was rated the best in the game with more than a quarter of the vote and Gallen was given the award for most hated in the NRL, with fanatix betting most of those votes coming from Queensland.
Only 1 per cent of fans think the NRL match review committee gets it right all of the time, with the rest voting ‘never’ and ‘sometimes’ while refs boss Tony Archer also copped it with a massive 81 per cent of fans saying the standard of refereeing has deteriorated.
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