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Australian Rugby / RA

shanky

shanky

Darby Loudon (17)
To be fair to the Brumbies, RA coming along and asking you if you’d like to hand over the keys to them must make one feel like Kerry Packer when asked why he didn’t pay more tax.
 
Pfitzy

Pfitzy

George Gregan (70)
To be fair to Rugby in Australia: none of the franchises is so big they can go it alone. Neither are any of the Unions.

All this dick measuring, along with Eddie, is white noise.

Get on with some reform that:

1) grows grassroots through better alignment juniors-schools-seniors
2) helps pro teams compete
3) gets our national sides on top of the podium
 
Members Section

Members Section

John Thornett (49)
Pfitzy said:
To be fair to Rugby in Australia: none of the franchises is so big they can go it alone. Neither are any of the Unions.

All this dick measuring, along with Eddie, is white noise.

Get on with some reform that:

1) grows grassroots through better alignment juniors-schools-seniors
2) helps pro teams compete
3) gets our national sides on top of the podium
Click to expand...

You could always do more with grass roots, (side note even local afl club complain with what they get & its more than any other sport in the country) but our grass roots is actually doing half okay.

Our main problem is from school to professionalism, we need to nail that
 
Pfitzy

Pfitzy

George Gregan (70)
Members Section said:
our grass roots is actually doing half okay.
Click to expand...

Depends how you define it - in some cities we have one "grassroots" in clubland due to size and resources.

In Sydney we have multiple "grassroots" at senior level - Premier vs Suburban - and that's a problem in terms of how resourcing works.

Schools is another type of "grassroots" and isn't always aligned with how clubs - junior or senior - engage in participation and development.

Members Section said:
Our main problem is from school to professionalism, we need to nail that
Click to expand...

I think it makes sense to streamline how that works in the short term, as that is the current pathway.

That said, it is well overdue for reform.
 
HooperPocockSmith

HooperPocockSmith

Bill Watson (15)
I'm not so sure 'grassroots' is doing that well in Sydney. Soccer and Aussie Rules have a greater presence in private schools than ever before. Many junior clubs have been forced into amalgamations due to lack of numbers. Subbies clubs that once had multiple senior grades are now only fielding one team. Some Premier clubs are unable to field all 4 grades. The whole 'our grassroots is fine' is a disingenuous take.
 
Wilson

Wilson

Michael Lynagh (62)
dru said:
Local population dynamics, available support, and crowd sizes are always going to be a question. The flipside of that coin though - if Australian rugby is going to host any domestic strength within a professional competition, let alone a domestic professional comp - how the hell do you do that if an entrenched and successful Brumbies can't manage in ACT?

As a quick comparison on population numbers I get ACT 430,000; Newcastle 320,000; Sunshine Coast 320,000; Wollongong 300,000; Ipswich 240,000; Townsville 200,000; Darwin 130,000. There is Adelaide which everyone seems to think is a non-starter at 1.3m.

Leaving aside Adelaide, the ACT is pretty much as good as it gets once you have nailed Brisbane/Sydney and then Melbourne and Perth. We really need to make the ACT work for Australian rugby.

The only alternative is Shrink to Greatness 2.0 by pruning our greatest success. Awesome <sarcasm implied>
Click to expand...
If we were to go down that path there's arguably a pretty good argument for loading the south-east corner of QLD with a team each in Brisbane, the Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast and riding the Olympic gravy-train as much as possible from an infrastructure perspective. The idea of 3 'rivalry' teams playing that close (with hopefully improving road and public transport links) is something you could build around in a fresh competition. With a lot more capacity for traveling fans then the current super setup you're less bound by the local population alone.

I don't necessarily think a full domestic 10+ team competition is a path we should be going down as an alternative to the current super rugby setup, but if we did that's the sort of thing we'd need to be taking advantage of.
 
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Members Section

John Thornett (49)
HooperPocockSmith said:
I'm not so sure 'grassroots' is doing that well in Sydney. Soccer and Aussie Rules have a greater presence in private schools than ever before. Many junior clubs have been forced into amalgamations due to lack of numbers. Subbies clubs that once had multiple senior grades are now only fielding one team. Some Premier clubs are unable to field all 4 grades. The whole 'our grassroots is fine' is a disingenuous take.
Click to expand...

Really? all we get down here is the reports that the afl is spending hand over fist to keep gws afloat & the actual player number are not growing
 
HooperPocockSmith

HooperPocockSmith

Bill Watson (15)
Members Section said:
Really? all we get down here is the reports that the afl is spending hand over fist to keep gws afloat & the actual player number are not growing
Click to expand...
I don't have any numbers to support my claim, just anecdotal evidence that suggests some of the big private schools are building up their playing numbers all at the expense of rugby. They might not be making any inroads vs league but they are eating away at rugby's heartland.
 
Pfitzy

Pfitzy

George Gregan (70)
The Ghost of Raelene said:
Soccer not so much from what I've seen. Demographics of areas have changed which has resulted in more Soccer teams over a push from the national body.
Click to expand...

Soccer's junior numbers have always been crazy good. It drops off fairly quickly once team sizes increase. You could say that soccer players won't generally play rugby, as we have full contact vs partial contact, but I've seen a few good converts running around in Subbies.
 
Pfitzy

Pfitzy

George Gregan (70)
I go back to Paul Cully's article about the whole "competition from league" being a distraction. He's right, and I'll stick my hand up and say that I've been one to use that stick occasionally.

The players we need won't ever go to league: props, hookers, locks. We have to value them, though.

I think where we fall down is in two areas of development:

1) Skills, because our base isn't big enough to raise the bar. Can only change that via participation uplift.

2) Coaching, which on the back of a small base, can't grow and place pressure on to perform.

A better spend of the Suali'i money would be in development officers IMHO. We don't have enough of them, either. Get them in schools to start 7s rugby programs at U12 level and plan for the long term.

Chuck a couple of hundred $K at making better systems to help put players and clubs in contact as well.
 
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