What would you have like to have seen RL?
Easy to sit back and throw stones on this one. How would you have played it?
The article is clearly a response to what Jones has been writing in the same paper over the last few weeks and IMO is a pretty poor effort. For a start the headline is "How I plan to revive Australian Rugby". Now of course she doesn't write the headline but her name is on the article, it's not Wayne Smith covering an interview he had with her, so let's have a look at it.
The main take out of the first four paragraphs is "
not all elements within the game are working in unison and our organisations are not aligned as effectively as they could be in their thinking or delivery. "
She then goes on to say there are "
structures that need reshaping and hard decisions that need to be made if we are to see success at every level of the game."
Her next point is we are doing shit at Super Rugby but we're working really hard on our fitness and skills and off the field we are still working with SANZAAR to concoct another comp beyond 2020.
Participation rates for men's and women's 7's are up and we've got a "Get into Rugby" program going into public schools getting kids to basically play touch footy. Oh and let's not forget we are getting lots and lots of girls participating in this little program.
They've introduced a size and age dispensation program for the kids and brought in the blue card system for concussion. Also "
Rugby Australia has developed a national schools strategy to improve areas of safety, growth, competition structures, governance, and resourcing."
If you've got this far through all the corporate bullshit in the article you're doing well.
She recognises the challenge of keeping talented schoolboys in the game and says "
We are reviewing our contracting system specifically to address this issue and will announce some changes in this area shortly,"
She then summarises by stating "
Our priorities for the immediate future include, first and foremost, strengthening the partnership between our national, state and territory organisations to create greater alignment on strategy and the delivery of community and professional rugby programs, with a focus on building winning teams."
What was that I said about corporate BS? Oh but it gets better "
We are taking advantage of the global strength of rugby through a new international strategy to capitalise on the fact that our national teams spend more time out of Australia, playing in our major trade and export hubs." WTF is that??
So to sum up she says, yeah we're shit at Super Rugby but we're trying really really hard, we've got lots of boys and girls playing touch in the schools, we're making it safer for the kiddies and we're coming up with something to keep the good kids in the game.
How ANY of that can be interpreted as any sort of plan, that hasn't been tried before, to "REVIVE Australian Rugby" is beyond me.
