A very unlike Alan, tame article.
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A very unlike Alan, tame article.
He had a lot of material to run with to have a pop at the RA this week. I decided not to post the article up as most people on here wouldn't be interested in the test match.
Not quite correct Bakkies, as this week
1) Foley is replaced by Beale (why not Toomua?)
2) Toomua comes in at 12
3) Pocock is out injured (saving Hooper?)
4) Powell comes in for Phipps
5) Arnold for Simmonds
So someone at corporate HQ has obviously knifed Clown, who won't be happy and also won't like the recent calls for his head. His usual reaction is to exclaim and lash out, but I suspect his other reaction could be to sulk and take his bat and ball home
We live in interesting times ;)
A much better article from Jones this week.
Get the grassroots right and the rest will follow
ALAN JONES
RADIO BROADCASTER
12:00AM SEPTEMBER 14, 2018
13 COMMENTS
I speak at a stack of functions around the country on a range of matters, not essentially rugby. But invariably, at question time, I am inundated with questions about rugby, about the performance of the national team, the failure of the rugby administration and, above all, the failure to acknowledge the remarkable rugby work done at a grassroots level.
I have coached at every level — at schoolboy level, at sub-district level, at grade level and at national level. I think I know the scene.
And what people point out is that in spite of the administration and in spite of the appalling levels of funding, rugby is alive and well at the grassroots level.
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COMMENT
A classical game of intrigue
DENNIS SHANAHAN
We often talk about the “rugby family”. Families live in homes. And in the house of rugby, if you don’t spend anything on the floor and spend it all on the roof, the house will collapse.
The grassroots of rugby is the floor and is massively important to the future of rugby in this country.
But just imagine, as one correspondent said to me: “What would happen to the growth of rugby in Australia if some valuable assistance was provided at the grassroots level?”
Grassroots rugby begins with the kids, under-6s right through to under-12s. Then there is schools rugby, at the big independent schools, but also at state schools and sports high schools.
And then senior club rugby, in which I would include the powerful and very rewarding sub-districts competition. These are the grassroots.
Kids’ club rugby is a pretty healthy area. There are a lot of great programs running throughout the country. There is a growth in numbers, thanks largely to more girls getting involved.
Registration for these kids clubs is around $250 per player and that includes the Rugby Australia insurance that all clubs and players must have. Uniforms are usually included, but the coaching is free. And because the clubs, by and large through volunteers, man the facilities, the costs are pretty low, which is a good thing.
How could Rugby Australia help these grassroots clubs and kids? Simple. Get all their contracted players to attend free rugby camps in the school holidays.
Most families have both parents working. Holiday camps are everywhere, but they are expensive — $130 a day.
If you wanted to win the hearts and minds of kids and their parents, give them the gift of time.
Camp Wallaby or Camp Waratah is a great idea, but they are currently used as revenue raisers.
The free camps should be run by the clubs with professional players at the heart of things.
Kids love their idols. Bring the idols to the kids and just watch the numbers grow.
Which leads us to grassroots schools rugby. Here there is a good story.
The big independent schools are spending a fortune on their rugby programs and from under-13s up to under-18s, most kids focus on school rugby.
Generally the coaching is excellent. Each school is investing about $1000 per player, mostly on training kits and external coaching done by old boys and professional sports coaches.
What could Rugby Australia do to help secondary schools rugby? Firstly, stop the drain to rugby league, Australian football and soccer.
We do have an Australian Schools Rugby Union. It has been run by teachers for almost 50 years, but they are completely out of touch.
Instead of playing a positive role in the development of our best young players, the ASRU have set themselves up as an Old Boys’ club, run by Bob Wallace and his band of merry men.
If Rugby Australia wanted to improve player development at this level, it should insist on running the show. In England, Rob Andrew got rid of England Schools and replaced them with England Under 18s. We should do the same.
The Australian Schools Rugby Union is a swamp that needs to be drained.
Rugby Australia should look at identifying fine young talent at the under-16 level and guide these players to sports high schools or big independent rugby schools.
There must be balance with their schooling. They must be encouraged, at school, to be good at scholarship as well as good at rugby. But we have to stop the drift of this talent into other codes.
We need to be smart about how we identify and develop our junior talent. The AFL spends more than $250 million a year on supporting grassroots football.
Much of this money they have raised in conjunction with the local and state governments in order to upgrade facilities and provide the best environment for players and supporters.
What does Rugby Australia do? Nothing.
They should be working with the clubs and government to build new astro-pitches with floodlights, so that more players can train in any conditions at all times of the day.
In addition to helping with *facilities, Rugby Australia should support the clubs by getting rid of the National Rugby Championship and fully backing the major club competitions. Nobody cares about the NRC, except those who designed it.
Club rugby is alive and kicking. Sydney, Brisbane and Perth are very strong.
When you can pack out North Sydney Oval two years in a row with sellout crowds for the Shute Shield grand final, there is a story to tell.
If Rugby Australia gave the clubs what they are giving the NRC teams, the clubs would flourish. Rugby Australia CEO Raelene Castle was whingeing this week that she doesn’t have the $10m required to help develop our grassroots. That is the usual rubbish.
She does have the money, but she chooses to spend it in other ways — if she even knows how the money is being spent.
If you look at the Rugby Australia annual report, it is clear they are happy to ignore the needs of the grassroots game.
At present, community rugby gets $3.7m. The AFL spends $253m on their community game. Instead of increasing the spend on their grassroots, Rugby Australia spends $4.4m on marketing and $17.1m on corporate and executive salaries. Last year, Rugby Australia revenue was $149m; staff 145.
You would think they could spend a few bob on the grassroots.
Grassroots rugby people are annoyed. They have stopped supporting the professional game, because Rugby Australia ignore them and are infatuated with the Wallabies and Super Rugby.
If Rugby Australia were to show our clubs and schools more love, they would be rewarded with better big-match attendances and more merchandise sales.
When grassroots supporters are engaged, they spend their hard-earned cash supporting their provincial and national teams.
If they are ignored, they vote with their feet and turn out for clubs and schools, but not for the professional teams. Get the grassroots right and the rest will follow.
Now, to tomorrow and Argentina will be a handful on the Gold Coast.
They have a new coach, who is clearly getting the best out of his team. They challenged the All Blacks last weekend and only fell away late in the game. They comfortably put the Springboks away.
We will need things to go our way or this could be a dogfight. And a dogfight is exactly what Mario Ledesma, their new coach, will want.
He has already had a crack at his forwards for not performing in the scrum against the All Blacks, so you can expect them to bounce back in this department this week. It is usually an Argentinian strength.
Kurtley Beale must be encouraged to run from first receiver. The All Blacks did well when their zippy runners took on the Argentinians about three defenders wide of the ruck.
The big Puma forwards struggled to contain the footwork of Ben Smith and Damian McKenzie when they decided to run.
Hopefully Beale saw all of this and will have a crack. The Wallabies were outstanding in the last 10 minutes, defensively, and they will need to be on Saturday.
Nicolas Sanchez is in sparkling form. He is an experienced world-class flyhalf and his compact build means he can manipulate the defence with his footwork and skills.
He is the master of running brilliant strike plays that provide room for his dazzling back three runners.
This Argentinian team is a real threat out wide and they are also very exciting. They have natural tryscorers everywhere, dangerous runners and they are in good form.
They will have seen the Springboks score a driving maul try, so they will be licking their lips at the prospect of driving the Wallabies too.
Our best bet is to open the game up. We must attack at the back end of each half, when the big Argentinian forwards are on their knees.
To do that, we need to shift the ball and play off Beale as much as possible. Look to run from the deep when the Pumas’ back three are themselves deep, expecting us to kick.
This is a game we must win, because we still have to play South Africa and Argentina in their countries and they are difficult places to play at the best of times.
Good luck to the Wallabies. It won’t be easy.
He is wrong about the NRC though. People in Sydney may not care about it but the rest of us do. And every year it showcases serious talent that would otherwise never get seen outside of clubland. The NRC is the only thing Pulver got right in his time as CEO.
Yeah one of the main reasons why it exists is that thanks to John O'Neill's mismanagement clubs almost sent themselves broke and created an arms race that has seen teams hoard players trying to get to that level. Clubs like Gordon and Randwick haven't recovered on the field and I say their finances still aren't great either. Penrith are gone and likely to go to Twiggy. I almost spat out my drink when the Norths president said that their Rugby program costs 500k. Why spend 500k when you don't have it.
The NSWRU were just too stupid not to take control like the QRU did so what occurred is that clubs spent more money on paying for tenders so they could take control and phase out the clubs that don't have the money so they have no input.
Rugby is still paying for the reckless decisions that stemmed from John O'Neill's woeful second tenure as CEO. The other costly mistake he made was bringing in the Rebels when we didn't have the players and the money to finance it. It led to a poor private ownership model which allowed the first owners to walk away with a pile of debt so the RA ended up paying for it anyway. All of that money thrown away to the detriment of grassroots, coach and player development.
The Rebels also took players out of the Shute Shield funnily enough due to them being part of the establishment the SRU doesn't kick up as much of a stink about that compared to when the Force and Brumbies signed players from there. I remember the Manly president and coach throwing his toys out of the cot due to Jake White taking Robbie Coleman and Anthony Hegarty off them so they had to play for ACT clubs. They screamed 'get your own players' despite the two boys being ACT juniors and going back to their rightful home. Australian Rugby needs more Twiggys and Jake Whites to stand up to these self interested parasites.
Agree. They are dellusional if they think the Shute Shield or the Brisbane and Perth leagues can act as genuine feeder teams for super rugby. The talent is no where near concentrated enough at these lower levels to be a genuine pathway into super rugby.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alison
The shute shield should just be the equivalent of Aucklands club competition with clubs such as Pakuranga. They still need a level below super rugby like the ITM cup teams which is NRC.
I am not sure what the obsession with the Shute shield is but Sydneys infactuation with it is killing the sport across the country. Who cares if 20k turn up to watch one game of shute shield every year, it hardly seems like a booming competition in a state of almost 7 million people. 20k turned out to a rugby match recently in a town of 66k people in NZL, that is impressive. If the shute shield grand final is popular let it be just that, it doesnt give it any justification to be the next tier below super rugby.
Ohh and the NRC was Gary flowers idea from when he created the ARC, Pulver like the sheep he is just adopted the idea he didnt create it.
Spot on with your comment about the Rebels, Bakkies.
All my research last year pointed to how calamitous that decision was. It was - in my opinion - born out of bruised egos who simply could not accept the fact that Perth’s bid beat Melbourne’s in 2004.
No-one will ever convince me that had the 2004 decision gone the other way, the ARU would have ‘persuaded’ its SANZAR partners to allow Australia to have a fifth team based in Perth as part of the 2011-15 broadcast deal. It would never have even entered their heads. From the day the 2004 decision was made, the ARU and VRU worked their socks off to overturn it. And the Senate Inquiry showed us very clearly just how far they were prepared to go to achieve that goal.
I cannot point to anything the ARU/RA has done to grow the game in Australia since having the world in their hands following the 2003 rugby World Cup. I can see egos, self interest, power politics and narcissism everywhere, but nothing that says to me that they have ever cared enough about the game to leave it in a better state than they found it. Quite the opposite, in fact.
And for those reading this in the shadows and reporting back to Moore Park, this represents my PERSONAL, UNOFFICIAL view as a lifelong fan of the game of rugby union.
I tend to agree with Jones' attitude re the ASRU. However they have done the job of developing Wallabies for a long time and it was almost enough. Now though, the professional era has caught up and passed them by. This definitely needs to be addressed but who could blame the ASRU refusing to cede control to the Loony Bin at Moore park.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Parrot
The spend figures of that mob are damning. Last week there was an article posted here quoting Mark Gerrard suggesting that the ARU should take a leaf out of the NRL development system. I pointed out some of the many flaws in that set-up and related how they are at least attempting to fix it. Peter Beatty was on TV a couple of days ago (hazily IMO) outlining a strategy. They have nowhere the funds of the AFL and maybe that horse has bolted. But they at least recognised the elephant in the room a while back. Beatty said that a couple of measures they had taken to find more money included reducing admin staff by about 30 (IIRC - and this billion+ outfit already had less than rat's Arse HQ) and all staff flying cattle class.
Australian Rugby? two band of Old Boys fighting a turf war. FFS
Spot on Alison. Well the RA after Gary Flowers had left. O'Neill's childhood dream was to have a team in Melbourne and he has nearly killed the game in Australia to achieve that. The other unions could see through the bs of RUPA and the VRU to replace the board at an EGM. They have all seen the annual reports.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alison
I doubt that O'Neill would have put the fourth team up for tender. What has since been forgotten is that the Gold Coast and Western Sydney both submitted bids. Perth's was so far superior it wasn't funny. Victoria thought they would walk it in and didn't supply suitable training and playing venues which Perth had done. Perth also had Community and media backing. Channel 7 broadcasting the rally featuring mums and dads was a real vote winner.
There was also pressure from outside Australia to have a/the team in Melbourne too, and keep South Africa at four
They should never have increased South Africa to 6. Infact ththey should have just kept the teams at 5 each, a nice even split. If 2 of the nations could fund 5 teams with the money distributed from the SANZAAR TV rights deal then I am sure Australia could also easily support 5 teams financially, especially if they didnt pay players like Hooper a fortune to be crap, and pay Cooper and Hunt ridiculous amounts to play club rugby and ofcourse waste all that RA funded top up money on all the Waratahs players egos and most of all if they didnt spend so much paying the shitty managers and CEO's/executives all these incredible wages and bonuses then the game might actually function here but ofcourse according to Clyne and co it was all WA & The Western Forces fault!Quote:
Originally Posted by chibi
No one outside of Australia has said there needs to be a team in Melbourne. The RA now has an obligation to field four teams that's it. Doesn't matter where the teams are based. O'Neill told Sanzar that a fifth Australian team would bring in more revenue. They fell for it. The Kiwis should have vetoed it as they knew that the side would be rubbish due to no money and no players. They used that reason for so long to block Australia for having a fourth side.Quote:
Originally Posted by chibi
They vetoed the Perth side in the early 2000s, (2002?) along with the addition of the Cheetahs. The reason given was that South Africa was too under-performing at Super 12 level and should stay at four, while Perth was too far away and Melbourne was a bigger market and more convenient for away games.
We now have South Africa back to four and Melbourne in the competition instead of Perth; both as they initially wanted in 2001/2002.
Funnily enough, I always wanted to keep the Super 14 as it was, without Melbourne and retaining the Cheetahs; but making that competition into 15 with a Japanese test-strength side, maybe with a couple of Islander and Argentinian "name" players. I would have included the Argentines in the Tri-Nations/Rugby Championship, but not in Super Rugby. I couldn't envision that Argentina would be able to bring so many players back from Europe for Super Rugby, so instead I thought that as a new SANZAAR test team, their players should be included across all Super Rugby sides with the same status as homegrown players (i.e. no restrictions); with the exception that they would play for Argentina in tests.Quote:
Originally Posted by SPaRTAN
(Digressing further, I would have looked into providing the same privileges for players from other countries within the region's sphere of influence: in other words, Zimbabweans, Namibians, Kenyans, Tongans, Fijians, Samoans, Hong Kongers, Koreans, Uruguayans, Chileans etc)
The reason that was given was that Australia didn't have the depth for four teams with no national competition to help increase it so were diluting their player base. O'Neill did nothing to increase it instead promoting club Rugby to the third tier creating premier Rugby competitions. He left to go to Soccer so Gary Flowers brought in the ARC against opposition from Sydney clubs.
Flowers got the fourth team and got the boot from the ARU O'Neill came back reverted to type by scrapping the ARC to push up the clubs. He is an Easts man and they were against the ARC. It backfired as the clubs nearly put themselves out of business trying to professionalise the comp and Uni who were a terrible side facing relegation (hence the launch of the cabal known as the Friends of Sydney Uni Football Club) started hoarding Brumbies and Tahs players. Once proud clubs like Gordon and Randwick fell behind in the arms race nearly going broke. Both clubs developed a lot of Super Rugby and Wallabies talent and haven't won a premiership since the dominance of Uni. Ruined the comp. O'Neill slashed the pathways and national coach development program which was highly successful while trying to run the RA like a bank so players weren't coming through and the underage results declined rapidly.
He brought the Rebels in at a terrible time the RA were near bankrupt and relying on a Lions Tour windfall to stay afloat. Players and coaches are still not coming through at the rate required despite Pulver restoring the vital things O'Neill cut.
Another thing that gets my goat about O'Neill is that he became a dial a quote for the dwindling Sydney press telling the RA and Sanzaar how to fix their problems which he created. He also spoke out against Flowers who was one of the few Sydney Rugby people from the RA who went in to bat for the Force.