do you live in the country somewhere dark at MR? would be the first question, but I am assuming that you are of course.
southern showers are a mysterious area, due to as you said lack of dedicated observers/small pop.
But there were era's such as the 60's, were visual meteor observation was a much more popular pursuit in oz/world, than it is now, and some serious study was done in SH by some individuals. I think in the 30's was another era? like this. possibly always co-inciding with great leonids returns mebbe lol. possibly all the dark skies back then, with street lights going off at 11pm at one stage ect.
A lot of stuff has been/is studied via sensitive video/all sky cams, and radar/radio also, and vid is very accurate at associating/aligning radiants of course.
there was some ozzie meteor video stations at times, including a calibrating/telemetry network I think - with some minor showers found possibly.
There is a network of fireball meteor cameras in WA, wheat belt I think, they are fairly mysterious tho. Dont hear much from them.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/s...sh_1222754.htm
http://www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/nwh_gfx_en/ART40995.html
also it is possible to find yet undiscovered comets/asteroids by extropolating back to an orbit in some cases. so you can actually, in theory, find a comet via discovering a new radiant/shower, and at least one or two have been identified that way.
off the top of my head, the best truely southern showers imo would be the sagattarids/ophiuicids, they seem to have a few names? some confusion on them, but its just the anthelion radiant of course, appearing to come out of sag overhead in early may, then the puppid complex, and alpha centaurids.
But new ones or long period returns can come out of nowhere, I think there has been short lived era's of amazing southern showers in the past, and can be again!
there is also a small australian yahoo group of meteor observers online
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/EAMN/
anyway the constellation this shower appears to come from/ or compass directions would help a lot!
and you dont find radiants in the west so much coz its the morning sky in the east you want, the old bugs splattering on the front windscreen, not the backwindow
as thats the direction the earth moves through space relative to sun, at that time of the day, first half of the night to 12 pm we are still in the leeward side, so to speak, same as the afternoon, and of course morning would be the best time to see a daylight fireball of course. doesnt matter about the east so much as the radiant being in the post 12 pm into am sky roughly, but west is least likely direction to come from most of the time.