The Dolphins dropping Redcliffe from their name might have dismayed plenty of NRL fans, but former code-hopping star Lote Tuqiri has identified an opportunity to change the way teams are named.

The decision to drop Redcliffe from the name of the team who won expansion to the NRL, beating out the Brisbane Jets and Brisbane Firehawks was done in an apparent attempt to appeal to a wider audience stretching from the northern suburbs of Brisbane, right up to the Sunshine Coast.

While the Dolphins will be based out of Redcliffe from an operational and training perspective, the club are set to play a vast majority of their home games at Suncorp Stadium, which also doubles as the Broncos' home ground.

Tuqiri, speaking on SEN Radio said he'd like to see the Dolphins adopt the name of the Indigenous owners and traditional custodians of the land in Redcliffe.

The naming concept Tuqiri is pushing for would then be the Gubbi Gubbi Dolphins.

It would be the first team name to recognise Indigenous owners of the land in what they are called, and SEN's Joel Caine agreed with Tuqiri's push.

“The Indigenous name for the area is Gubbi Gubbi - the Gubbi Gubbi Dolphins - I think that would be massive for rugby league and massive for Australian sport," Caine said.

“You adopt an Indigenous name to be the moniker for a team … and it can only happen once to be the first team with a name such as that.

“I think the Gubbi Gubbi Dolphins as put forward to us by Lote Tuqiri, I think it’s an absolute beauty.”

The lack of location in the name is believed to be a push from NRL head office, who want the Dolphins to create an authentic rivalry with the Broncos based on the fact both teams are based in the Brisbane region.

The play to name the team after the Indigenous people of Redcliffe though could receive a groundswell of support in the coming months as the Dolphins count down to their first game.

2 COMMENTS

  1. Somebody should explain to Lote that supporters of a club want a club name with which they can identify. That means including the geographical location as part of the name. eg Brisbane Broncos.

    Gubbi-Gubbi is not going to identify a location to anyone apart from a fraction of a percentage of the population. Some Aboriginal names – like Ngunawal (Canberra) – seem impossible to pronounce.

    The whole idea is likely to be a turn-off for sponsors, who are more interested in getting people to buy their product than they are in demonstrating their wokeness and political correctness. I suspect there aren’t many hipsters in Redcliffe.

    And if we do end up with the Gubbi-Gubbi Dolphins, how long will it take before they are nicknamed the Gubbi-Gubbi Guppies ?

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