...a guarantee that money can still flow to grassroots rugby. People may think they're getting nothing because their small club might not get a direct grant but money must be being spent to keep each competition running and ensure that qualified referees are available etc.
I can't speak for competitions apart from my own. Our competition is fully self funded - we (the clubs and players) pay to manage the competition, pay our referees, pay our own development staff, pay to maintain our own facility. Our competition does not receive a cent in direct funding. We may get some funding from the QRU indirectly through Queensland Country for our senior rep program. Most other rep is funded by the players themselves and partly by the competition.
It may be true that the ARU and States are doing some of those things that you mentioned - if they are, then the competition that they are assisting needs to do a better job at being sustainable, and building the support structures to enable them to do those things for themselves. That's where the ARU and States should focus their attention, working with successful competitions and sharing knowledge on building sustainable grassroots competitions using the volunteers who make these things work.
I said a number of posts back that these are the non-cash assets that the ARU and States have - thousands of volunteers who give their time to assist in growing a game that they love. There are also non-cash assets that the ARU could use to assist those volunteers with their jobs - sending a few quality players off from various competitions to training camps with the professionals, provide a few match day experiences to volunteers, send the analyst to the bush to record a first grade game and get some sports science students and coaches involved in the basics of game analysis using video...
There are so many positives that can be utilised to improve the game, but it seems the ideas well has run dry.
