G&GR GRASSROOTS RUGBY THINK TANK

[p.Tah]

Right Breast - District Logo (if there is sufficient $ committed to development from the Senior Club), otherwise For Sale

Hugh, I could be wrong but in my expereince the 'right breast' on the jersey is often free or its has the jersey brand (Canterbury, Kooga, Classic). If it is the district logo, in my view that can be replaced by the ARU logo. If it's the jersey brand they could move their logo back to where it use to be, at the bottom of the 'V' where the jersey buttons up. If clubs and the ARU work together they could encourage a manufacture to make the right breast free. It will only take one manufacturer to move it there and they may get a lot more clubs using their jersey brand.

I have only occasionally seen advertising on the breast of the jersey. Is it that common?

 

[waratahjesus]

In league, the "district badge" is often the badge of the club that that district falls under for junior development. My area, everyone wears manly badges (previously north Sydney bears)

As most wallabys are never sighted backin subbies, having Tahs, reds or brumbie etc might be a better option as it makes the pathway seem closer to home and also ties in the union to its grass roots better.

If you get subbies interested in there local superugby team the local union should be able to profit from it and reinvest. (should be)

SupeRugby sides then should sell the national side pathway and so on.

 

[It is what it is]

Rugby League
snip......
Why am I focusing on Rugby League you ask? Simply, Rugby League expanded on their existing structure to increase awareness. Branding (as P.Tah has shown) symbolised the potential destination of the juniors. As a young child I wanted nothing more than to play in the NSWRL (as it was then known). I identified with the existing structure, and wanted to play for my team. The similarities of Rugby League in the late 1980’s and Rugby today are not dissimilar. Both Sydney and Brisbane have strong club structures, with distinct followings (Canberra being an honourable mention, Melbourne and Perth will be commented on later). This is the baseline. Juniors playing rugby should be given incentive to play for established teams (which I will not name, as I have no wish to engage in debate over teams that are omitted). Ultimately, they will aim for Super Rugby, the best provincial competition in the world. Without a strong base structure, it is easy for juniors to lose focus.

In due course, I will take this further. I intend to examine the model of the AFL, and how it can be applied to Rugby. I would like to examine how Rugby increases it’s foothold in Australia, from the four perspectives I outlined earlier, being juniors, seniors, exposure and the Rugby brand. Rugby in Australia is at a pivotal point. Much like Rugby League 20-25 years ago, it needs a push to kick start an organic entity. We are the ones that need to push it.

Until my next outburst, feel free to pick holes. As long as we build Rugby in Australia, anything goes.

EDIT: I may not have referred to Rugby League as NRL like intended to at the start of my post. So much for form!

The huge advantage Rugby League teams had to drive funding of their senior and junior clubs in the 1980's was their large licensed clubs and poker machines.
Pubs didn't have any machines and these leagues clubs were booming.

 

[I like to watch]

and no poker machine taxes!

 

[Gagger]

As a sport, rugby needs to move itself into the position where people place emphasis on rugby.

I'm not sure you've got the emphasis right there! (couldn't resist)

Great post BTW

 

[Rugrat]

R

we're looking at doing that from a Reds perspective, at least with Jnr clubs next year. Glad to hear its a positive position.

Are you placing the ARU Rugby logo on the junior jersey as per the post or the reds logo?

 

[RugbyReg]

Reds.

 

[Johnno2500]

Big thing for me is Re-modelling sydney rugby. I know a bit about Brisbane rugby but i am an expert on sydney school boy rugby having played in the private school system CAS in the 90′s and played vs lot sof the GPS and ISA schools to. I am 32 yr old man who has played rugby all his life in both public and private school systems. Facts I can add about re-modelling sydney high school rugby in 2012 and beyond.
-In year 2012 internet and globalisation age, the geography, demographics, and meaning of the tope private schools have changed massively since say the 1990′s and 80′s 70'′s 60′s 50′s.
-Students from all religions, and cultures and ethnic background. Not just christian, or anglo saxon. Many Asian, pacific , and african students, and all religions attending to these elite private schools.
-Now in 2012 transport and geography and time poor parents is an issue, 2 parents in working families work full time.
-So on saturday, parents would prefer if conferences were local based in other word more local derbies.
-My theory to re-model private school rugby is this: Run it like super rugby ver much based on local derbies to promote excitement
Have 2 conferences or even 3 :
-Greater northern Zone (Joeys,Riverview,Barker,Knox,St Pius,SHORE,ST Alo's,St augustines, central coast grammar-9 really good teams)
-Sydney metro zone(Cranbrook,scot's,waverley,newington,trinity,st pat's strathfield,king's,oakhill) 8-teams really good ones
(Then if st andrews, st stanny's bathurst, st Greg's campelltown, 2 boreal schools Oxley and Chev want to join 13 good schools:
If not just run with 8 in sydney metro:
-And have a development division or weaker divison( sceggs redland'spttwater house, sydney high, sydney grammar,blue mountains grammar):
-And have finals and grand final run over 2 week finals format 3 weeks max:
-On north shore you have about 9 top schools add central coast grammar to as they are big school not far from north and they play in ISA anyway.
-Have sydney metro zone , so for example cranrbook scots,waverley,newington, in same zone and a few others.
-And greater western sydney zone (GWS)
Kings,oakhill ,triinity st pats strathfield and a few others.
-More local derbies, and less stress on parents with trasnport in saturdays. This is modern times 2 parents work so less travel time is a winner for parents after a hard week at work
-Local derbeis are what sell in super rugby and would sell better in school boy rugby too.
-And you can add the Greater sydney surrounding areas like bowral with oxley, and chevalier, and central coast grammar who can easily go in northern zone, and the top schools in orange and bathurst.
-So more local derbies and less stress on parents as a result with transport.
-And you can be flexible with new conferences and have a state title warpath shield with all schools, like winner of each conference and the public schools competing for a waratah shield.
-Be great if joeys and riverwiew, shore,can play Barker and Knox in real local derby matches (hence re-zoning school conferences based on geography), not just mickey mouse trial matches.
- These local derby match would make matches more exciting and meaningful as they are real comp matches not just trial matches:

:And call the new ZONES some sames: GPS(northern zone) or GPS(sydney metro zone or greater sydney zone)
-Or call it ISA northern zone or or ISA sydney metro zone: so basically merge all the bodies into 1 central body
-Or split the 2 zones based on geography
Local derbies sell and parents are sick of travel times for meaningless trial matches. If you live on north shore you will not have to travel over the harbour bridge once all year.
-And start showing 1 or 2 matches on tv every weekend. Grand finals will pull 20,000 play it at north sydney oval or Parramatta stadium or at home ground of the no 1 school like super rugby reward team that comes first all year with home ground advantage.
-Encourage sponsorship eg QANTAS,telstra to sponsor teams, or the comp itself

 

[cg26]

Everything about the current size and organizations of Touch and Oztag aside, it is a decent idea to have variants of these/competitions that are tied to rugby. It could be organized together and make it easier for schools to take up rugby. As simple as using the same balls for the boys' rugby and the girls' touch (simplification alert! girls playing union is good too, and an area where AFL in particular, is getting ahead of us).

Is touch, or Oz Tag, Rugby?
ARU should consider merging with or taking over Touch and Oz Tag in order to bring ALL versions of rugby under its umbrella. If Touch and Oz Tag resist, then ARU should simply roll out its own version of the game in competition to them to assert its rights to these spin off version of our game, and strangle them until they come to the party.

So the mechanism is wrong IMO, we don't need to merge, or to 'strangle' Touch as it exists, simply take up some space with an ARU branded game. But the idea I agree with.

Although again, AFL have something similar they try and promote, I think they call it AFL Nines, and it hasn't really taken off yet.

 

[Set piece magic]

Personally I think that managing Australian rugby is much like managing the Australian economy, with the ARU being akin to the reserve bank.

The reserve bank has a number of goals, i.e. inflation at 2-3%, GDP at 3-4% growth, unemployment ~5% etc, and these can be drawn in comparison to accomplishments for the ARU - attendance size, super rugby etc.

However, the reserve bank has since worked out that at a core, if inflation is managed at 2-3%, generally everything else takes care of itself with a little bit of work here and there. Hence in Australian rugby, if we win the bledisloe / RWC, most other stuff will take care of itself here and there.

At grassroots level, you can add a logo to the jearsey, or have better lighting or better grass, or let them play at ballymore once a year, and don't get me wrong these things are good, but the number one thing that will benefit grassroots is rugby at the elite level being in good shape.

Obviously it's not quite that simple, however for the rugby economy to thrive we need to have a wallabies team that flies by the motto 'win, and win well'. And you can all watch as Australian rugby storms to it's rightful place in the sporting landscape.

Furthermore, success with this type of thing seems to run in the formula the more you have the more you get, with the elite team doing well grassroots doing well which bodes well for the elite team in the future etc.

 

[It is what it is]

Big thing for me is Re-modelling sydney rugby. I know a bit about Brisbane rugby but i am an expert on sydney school boy rugby having played in the private school system CAS in the 90′s and played vs lot sof the GPS and ISA schools to. I am 32 yr old man who has played rugby all his life in both public and private school systems. Facts I can add about re-modelling sydney high school rugby in 2012 and beyond.
-In year 2012 internet and globalisation age, the geography, demographics, and meaning of the tope private schools have changed massively since say the 1990′s and 80′s 70'′s 60′s 50′s.
-Students from all religions, and cultures and ethnic background. Not just christian, or anglo saxon. Many Asian, pacific , and african students, and all religions attending to these elite private schools.
-Now in 2012 transport and geography and time poor parents is an issue, 2 parents in working families work full time.
-So on saturday, parents would prefer if conferences were local based in other word more local derbies.
-My theory to re-model private school rugby is this: Run it like super rugby ver much based on local derbies to promote excitement
Have 2 conferences or even 3 :
-Greater northern Zone (Joeys,Riverview,Barker,Knox,St Pius,SHORE,ST Alo's,St augustines, central coast grammar-9 really good teams)
-Sydney metro zone(Cranbrook,scot's,waverley,newington,trinity,st pat's strathfield,king's,oakhill) 8-teams really good ones
(Then if st andrews, st stanny's bathurst, st Greg's campelltown, 2 boreal schools Oxley and Chev want to join 13 good schools:
If not just run with 8 in sydney metro:
-And have a development division or weaker divison( sceggs redland'spttwater house, sydney high, sydney grammar,blue mountains grammar):
-And have finals and grand final run over 2 week finals format 3 weeks max:
-On north shore you have about 9 top schools add central coast grammar to as they are big school not far from north and they play in ISA anyway.
-Have sydney metro zone , so for example cranrbook scots,waverley,newington, in same zone and a few others.
-And greater western sydney zone (GWS)
Kings,oakhill ,triinity st pats strathfield and a few others.
-More local derbies, and less stress on parents with trasnport in saturdays. This is modern times 2 parents work so less travel time is a winner for parents after a hard week at work
-Local derbeis are what sell in super rugby and would sell better in school boy rugby too.
-And you can add the Greater sydney surrounding areas like bowral with oxley, and chevalier, and central coast grammar who can easily go in northern zone, and the top schools in orange and bathurst.
-So more local derbies and less stress on parents as a result with transport.
-And you can be flexible with new conferences and have a state title warpath shield with all schools, like winner of each conference and the public schools competing for a waratah shield.
-Be great if joeys and riverwiew, shore,can play Barker and Knox in real local derby matches (hence re-zoning school conferences based on geography), not just mickey mouse trial matches.
- These local derby match would make matches more exciting and meaningful as they are real comp matches not just trial matches:

:And call the new ZONES some sames: GPS(northern zone) or GPS(sydney metro zone or greater sydney zone)
-Or call it ISA northern zone or or ISA sydney metro zone: so basically merge all the bodies into 1 central body
-Or split the 2 zones based on geography
Local derbies sell and parents are sick of travel times for meaningless trial matches. If you live on north shore you will not have to travel over the harbour bridge once all year.
-And start showing 1 or 2 matches on tv every weekend. Grand finals will pull 20,000 play it at north sydney oval or Parramatta stadium or at home ground of the no 1 school like super rugby reward team that comes first all year with home ground advantage.
-Encourage sponsorship eg QANTAS,telstra to sponsor teams, or the comp itself

Congratulations Johnno2500 on having a crack here with a few ideas.
The various GPS, CAS, ISA etc associations schedules, history and politics will make it very difficult but at least you're 'Having a Go'.

 

[waratahjesus]

With the recent talk about turning Bledsoe week into a Super Bowl type festival. I think it would be great for subbies rugby to have there grand final weekend as the launch.

Not to sure on the timing but perhaps this could work in Qld as well with a test match there.

Get the rugby championship trophy, Mandela plate and Bledisloe there, get the wallabies to man the BBQs, have the wallaby open day at the games. Wallabies presenting medals and trophys etc.

Turn it into a weekend festival of rugby with rugby being played as the backdrop.

 

[PaarlBok]

If you want to grow rugby, you should launch it at the very bottom structure. Ask yourself the question what needs to be done to make it more attractive for kids to play rugby as a 6 year old (SA schools bottom). For every player being drawn, you can multiply it by 10 to get to the sum of rugby supporters gained for rugby. This is hard work and passionate people needed to get it going.

 

[Hugie]

Given that this is a think tank I'd like to contribute my observations on some of the key strategic points that need to be kept in mind when considering how to grow rugby:

1. Rugby is a complex and difficult sport to follow, most people do not want complex in their code of football. Hence Football, league and Aussie rules are simple. Grange Hermitage is complex: VB is simple. Around the world Football is the biggest sport and Rugby has a limitted following, but one that is prepared to pay. Like all things complex when it's bad its very very bad but when its good it's magnificant.
2. 70% of boys in NSW (and probably Qld) attend a CHS school and 20% a CCC school, which means that most rugby players are drawn from less that 10% of the school population (there are lots of exception this is a broad generalisation). This means that there is huge potential to grow the sport and make easy gains (however remember point 1, most boys will not enjoy the complexity) by promoting the sport in CHS and CCC.
3. The advertisers recognise that the rugby target market is high income high net wealth people who enjoy complex and will pay. If you trash this demographic then you will move to a VB market segment that competes head to head with Football, league and AFL and you will loose. Grange Hermitage should not try to compete with VB.

I think the good news is the huge potential Rugby has to grow in Australia and the early gains should be easy, just stay away from head to head contests with Football, league and AFL.

 

[Roundawhile]

For those old enough to remember, rugby league in the 1980’s had two (maybe three) matches broadcast each weekend. In addition to this coverage, the ABC would telecast a Saturday afternoon match, then replay that match early on a Sunday morning. As a kid, I would watch the Sunday morning match eagerly if I had missed it the day before.

As a kid growing up I also watched league because there was bugger all rugby to watch.

Same still holds true for todays kids who can't afford Fox.

 

[Roundawhile]

Just off subject slightly, in NZ they have a great programme aimed exclusively at kids called Small Blacks, where kids send in stories of their games etc, also have a few ABs on talking about how they started playing etc, giving tips etc, and also giving kids general coaching tips, they even bring out a Small Blacks mag for the kids. Would love to be able to get it downloaded as a few of the kids I know down at rugby club over here would lap it up.

​

This quote from Dan54 in The Rugby Club thread.​

​

No wonder rugby is their No 1 sport.​

 

[en_force_er]

As a kid growing up I also watched league because there was bugger all rugby to watch.

Same still holds true for todays kids who can't afford Fox.

The only realistic thing to hope for is that Foxtel reaches a higher saturation point as a product. I spose it's reasonably feasible.

 

[p.Tah]

Small blacks - that's a macchiato isn't it?

 

[Eggsie]

Now this is a question for the ages. Many of the suggestions here have merit and I suppose that I have some variations to add. Firstly I think we need to increase the profile of the product in the non rugby schools and to encourage participation at that level. This is probably best achieved by linkages with local clubs who would have the resources and infrastructure in place for the schools to leverage from. The club that I am involved with has players from this demographic and I am sure these links could be formalized. Secondly, whilst the talk of terry tag etc has merit,I have long been of the opinion that sevens rugby should be the avenue that we pursue as our 'enticer' or entry point for the non rugby environments. The game has the ability to be structured into a series of carnival weekends, rotating through clubs and schools, takes less players to form a team, can be scheduled in the off season (whetting the appetite prior to the season proper) and can be contained within the average mungo attention span (sorry couldn't help it). Thirdly we need to increase the number of potential representative spots available in junior representative sides, perhaps by introducing barbarian club sides into the schools rep programs and vice versa. This will increase the interaction and viability of players and coaches, whilst providing incentives for players. We should also introduce rep opportunities in the aforementioned sevens programs. Junior clubs need to be strengthened and supported. The Reds and the BJrU are constantly improving in this area, but I am constantly hearing about junior clubs struggling financially and operationally. Given that demographically it can be assumed that a large proportion of our ex players and supporters are in the professional and business fields, this is ridiculous. Surely we can develop a structure or framework that can assist these clubs ?

 

[Hugh Jarse]

On 10 August, the ARU media unit proudly announced:
THE BIGGEST WALLA RUGBY WEEK ON RECORD

http://www.rugby.com.au/tryrugby/News/NewsArticle/tabid/1760/ArticleID/7382/Default.aspx

Anyone know how this went? Was it all spin and BS or was there some actual substance to the week that may lead to more juniors in the target recruiting areas?