1
![Not allowed!](images/buttons/down_dis.png)
![Not allowed!](images/buttons/up_dis.png)
Essentially, the issue for Australian rugby has always come down to "But we just don't have the base to support more than 3 pro sides that are at the required level to be competitive in SR while still being able to draw in good crowds and ratings". But the problem is not that it is the case, rather that there is absolutely no plan or interest in changing that fundamental issue. The establishment has no desire whatsoever to widen the base of either the amateur or professional game - they want all support and development to remain exactly where it is now and always has been. So the game will stand still as every other sport overtakes it.
So I believe the Tahs have performed worse than Rebels this season-so is Hoiles thereby proposing the Tahs should be the next ones getting axed? Otherwise RA will have to admit publicly the major stuffup that the Rebs have been.
Hoiles is on the money. Drop to three, hell they should drop down to two, or even one super rugby team.
More talent available for GRR expansion.
Dear Lord, if you give us back Johnny Cash, we'll give you Justin Bieber.
I'm not going to argue development because it's certainly something RA has failed to do at any real adequate level but let's be 100% realistic here. We have the current 5 teams drawing primarily from just two nurseries in Sydney and Brisbane. It may be inconvenient for some to accept but it's the truth nonetheless. It's certainly unsustainable. For it to have really worked the respective bases would have to have produced the majority of their roster from within.
How I look at this is that we'd be better off going to 3 in SR and have RA look to cooperate more with GRR by removing some of the roadblocks to a 2nd Aus based GRR squad. I know the Rebels are a bit of a sour spot here but they could be removed from SR and look to find backing to enter GRR while sourcing talent both internationally and direct from their own club scene to play at a level more suited to where it currently sits. Which is at present above the NRC but below that of SR.
That's not a knock against the GRR by the way. It's been very entertaining to watch but it is still very much a start up league and will take time in which to grow. But doing this would assist in allowing the respective club competitions to grow with players knowing that they have a direct pathway to the point where they start to produce an even more steady stream of talent. Even more so than the WA scene has to date. This would also allow for the Sydney and Brisbane nurseries to have a reduced burden on producing 65% of 5 teams worth of talent.
But my point is that is not an accident, the establishment has steadfastly refused to do anything that might change that situation. Just dropping a professional team in a location without making any provision at all for development of an associated nursery is completely arse-about, yet they did it twice. So claiming it as "just the way it is" is grossly understating why Australian rugby is in its current position.
They don't even stop there though; they claim the current situation as the specific reason why all resources and planning should be directed to just those two locations going forward. It is a self-fulfilling condition, and it simply isn't going to get any better until they change the underlying problem. And if GRR were able to just step up and suddenly it all started to change, it would only serve to highlight the sheer blindness and ineptitude of the rugby establishment.
The mechanism for widening the footprint and support for rugby should be the NRC, but RA just doesn't seem interested. Probably for exactly the reasons as above - done properly, it could only dilute the influence of the "heartlands". But personally I'm not sure GRR should go anywhere near Melbourne any time soon. They've been a seagull around the neck of RA, and I think would be the same for GRR for much the same reasons. Newcastle might be a better option, provided they can keep NSWRU at a long arms length. If not, their best growth project within Australia might well be South Australia. Or just keep the focus overseas for a while.
I just suggested Melbourne as they have current set up but I actually think a South Australian entrant in GRR wouldn't be the worst idea. Melbourne by proxy of being the centre of the AFL universe was always going to be an extremely hard nut to crack. The Storm have been at it for over 20 years and have had the better part of $100m pumped into it and the growth of the base for League in the state has been negligible. I actually think RA would be better served cutting them and funding a semi-pro rep/academy team as a means of maintaining a pathway participating in as above say the Shute Shield. Would certainly save a fair slab of cash that could be redistributed to the Melbourne/Perth clubs as a means of helping to grow those bases.
Back on Sth Australia. If the funding could be found I think it would be a perfect fit for GRR. It has a small Rugby community but one that you could galvanise behind the project.
I'd see it as a bit of a project. Wouldn't be immediate, or necessarily even real soon, as I'd hope they would learn the lesson from the past. Maybe start with an expanded academy offering semi-pro/pro development in support of an NRC team, then developing that into a GRR team. Got to get the base right first though.
On target as usual Andy. My point of view is that Asia and the Western Pacific is the imperative initial focus. What happens in the "heartlands" should be irrelvant to us. It's pretty much all I care about now - apart from my Mungo intetestz![]()
"The main difference between playing League and Union is that now I get my hangovers on Monday instead of Sunday - Tom David
It would depend on the level of investment. If they had the level right and there was the desire for a 2nd Aus team they could do it by importing talent while setting up the local academy systems and working with grassroots. But it would absolutely require that level of investment at the grassroots level.
If it wasn't quite at that level then the semi-pro/pro development pathway would be the go backed by significant investment in grassroots development. I've actually been having a development discussion in relation to US Rugby recently. Particularly on how to kick start development and fundraising. I don't know if it's done elsewhere but Field Hockey in NSW runs a development program that is open to all comers regardless of skill level as a means of upskilling everyone. It runs over 10 sessions and costs roughly about $25 a session. I think it could be something worthwhile trying in Sth Australia. The goal in the conversation I've been having revolves around taking the money raised via such a program would then be used to establish new schools programs and youth clubs in which ever one of the 8 competitive regions it is based in the States.
This could be done in Sth Australia as a means of getting more schools playing and establishing things like club starter kits etc. Ultimately, as you build the base and draw more into the upskilling program the amount of money available for further investment in getting more people playing would grow.
The real issue is not being addressed. Saying the players aren't good enough, that Aus cannot supply enough players for four (or five) teams is misdirection.
Rebels getting belted 66-0, then 57-6, has got NOTHING to do with the players ability. Let's not forget this is a stacked team, willfully ignoring the celery cap. It has got EVERYTHING to do with endeavour.
This franchise has been a bottomless pit, sending the whole sport bankrupt. They have not produced any players. The shenanigans of their owners and RA have been laid bare to the public gaze. They have no sponsors. The attendance has haemorrhaged. The membership has deClyned to disastrous levels, and about to get worse if possible. Half the team was Forcibly relocated. Cooper was only there to escape Thorn. Genia only there for the filthy lucre, Toomua and Jones only there for RWC selection. It looks as if more than half the team is leaving now.
None of them had any interest in performing as the season whore on, as they had to play teams outside the Oz conference. Nothing to do with ability. It's the HEART that was missing. The players, the missing crowd, the coaches, none of them want to be at the toxic Rebels
The long sobs of autumn's violins wound my heart with a monotonous languor
Absolutely spot on SB.
Proudly Western Australian; Proudly supporting Western Australian rugby
The RA pulled the Force at a time when their own development structures were starting to come to fuition. These same players had to be relocated, whilst others that were developing have been able to take sanctuary in GRR, and have not been lost to the blackhole of Australian Rugby. For that RA and Clyne especially need to take accountability for their timing of culling the Force from Super rugby and causing Rugby WA into insolvency.
There model for melbourne is a complete failure and even more of a problem is that they allowed a new franchise to basically be an international cesspit from its startup without a genuine model to develop and engage the local fanbase and have been given disprotionate sized handouts from the ARU and RA on top to keep it sustainable at the expense of a Franchise that actually nutured and devloped its own talent and was starting to see the results of it, The Western Force.
That is where Clyne, Pulver, Robinson, Sherry, Eales etc failed abd where Raelene and co keep failing at. They are ignoring the bigger picture and cashing out the future of Australian Rugby for what they thought would be short term gain which has resulted in even more abject failure to the point the code is spuralling into oblivion.