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Geelong, a necessary piece in the Puzzle for the success of Victorian Rugby.

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en_force_er

Geoff Shaw (53)
Geelong is a city that has one rugby club that, in senior rugby, competes in Division 2 of the Victorian Rugby Union. It fields two teams in Div 2’s A & B grades and often struggles to get these two teams out on the field every week.

This is a pretty poor show for a city of 220,000, 160,000+ if you don’t count greater Geelong. Areas like Geelong are untapped resources and are imperative for Vic amateur rugby to grow and become more successful.

The Set-up of Vic Rugby dictates that a club must have a minimum of 3 senior teams to compete is Division 1 (which is divided up into 3 grades) then Division 2 (also divided up into 3 grades, A,B and C) is made up of the rests of the clubs whose teams are divided up by quality. So, theoretically all Geelong has to do to make Div 1 is up their playing numbers by 15 or so but in reality to be competitive they’d have to up their players numbers by alot, the best way is to act now to create a bigger player base for the future.

The potential rise of Geelong rugby would not be a short-term thing. I would love to see this club push into Vic Premier Rugby in the next 10 years based off some intelligent decisions that really need to be made NOW.

There are a few ways that rugby in Geelong, and thus the Geelong Rams RUFC, can be improved. Here are the obvious ones:

A more successful junior set-up.
Geelong Rams RUFC struggles to field juniors in all the age groups, U8, 10, 12, 14, 16 and 18. Ads must be put in local papers, represent ivies of the VRU and even Rebels (they pledged their players with align themselves with clubs) must go out to the schools and preach. With a few more good juniors suddenly their junior sides will be more successful and their player retention will go through the roof. 20-25 kids an age group in a whole city is all it takes.

More schools playing the sport in the area.
Currently only Geelong Grammar plays rugby in Geelong and they are made up of mostly boarders from others parts of the country, the will mostly not remain in Geelong once they graduate, so other options must be explored. Major schools that could accommodate rugby programs are Geelong High School (2000 students), St.Joseph's College (1340 students, all boy), Geelong College (1200 students) and St. Ignatius College (1000 students). Obviously, the majority of these schools are half girls but to be competitive in the lower levels of Vic Schools rugby you only really need 20-25 kids in year 7/8, 9/10 and 11/12 respectively. That's 60 kids per school and is more than feasible.

The creation of junior Geelong Representative side and an Academy.
With a (3 or 4) schools sides and a club side suddenly age-grade Geelong representative sides become an option. This would be great for fostering passion for rugby from the Geelongites. Their guys could play a yearly fixture against Tasmania, whose rep side always get's walloped by Victorian Schools so that fixture never benefits anyone. As for the academy it obviously would be amateur, it could be used to increase the skills and athleticism of Geelong’s players so that they could hopefully one day become professional.

Taping Geelong’s tertiary student population.
There are 4000+ University Students at Deakin University alone. Radical moves must be made to access these people and the rest of Geelong's quite large tertiary student population, it is very realistic to assume you could squeeze 20, 30 or even more students out of this, many of them would be from Rugger areas or might be interested in trying the game.
Out of the 4 or 5 Deakin Geelong students I know, I’ve met one currently play rugby. He plays in Melbourne (he trains Thursdays and plays Saturdays). Nobody ever contracted him and he never heard Geelong had a club. Surely, there must be more of them out there, they must be actively contacted by the club.

Creation of a Colts (U20) side.
Through tapping into the tertiary player base the club could not only add to the stocks of their seniors but also have the beginnings of a Colts team. Colts teams are imperative to both creating and retaining a player base, guys of that age love to play with their mates and this kind of team makes this possible. They could also supplement this Colts side (and their seniors) by offering to set guys up with apprenticeships and housing in the area. They need not pay these guys more than they rightfully earn or undercharge them for the housing it's more about extending an opportunity. This is more and more realistic as the government offers more and more incentives to offer apprenticeships.

Lastly, there must be a Gents team.
I have no doubt that, with an average population of 37, Geelong has 15-20 or more players that would be willing to field an over 35s team. There must be at least that many rugger expats in the town. This is good because it attracts supporters and people who are passionate/knowledgeable about the game we all love. This would really help Geelong rugby.

With the Rebels starting up the professionalism of rugger in Victoria has to improve. I would love to see in the next 5 years some Vic academy or even Rebels coming from Geelong. Let's all hope it happens!
 

en_force_er

Geoff Shaw (53)
Yes yes, this is intimidatingly long but it's something I've thought about for a while.

I hope someone reads it haha. Writing this was my study break.
 

RugbyFuture

Lord Logo
presumably ignatius and josephs have links to the orders which have served rugby so well, so maybe entry through that gate is possible, much like how you have the jesuit rugby comp.
 

en_force_er

Geoff Shaw (53)
presumably ignatius and josephs have links to the orders which have served rugby so well, so maybe entry through that gate is possible, much like how you have the jesuit rugby comp.

I'll admit the though crossed my mind but they were more picked for student numbers.

Things like Jesuit rugby carnivals (of which I believe there is one this year) could be the carrot that entices these kids over.
 

cheezel

Bill Watson (15)
Good post en_forcer. While I agree with you, I think (hope) the rebels will give the whole state of Victoria some regular top level rugby so kids will have something to aim for.

My old man played rugby at Geelong grammar and for the state, but there was no where else for him go other than club rugby afterwards.

The rebels will give the vru a fair bit of cash for schoolboy rugby and to get the game out there so that more kids will be inspired to play the game.

Test matches on free to air tv at one in the morning in Victoria doesn't help either.
 

en_force_er

Geoff Shaw (53)
yeh i like the sound of this, perhaps send it to the VRU? or get gagger to publish it?

For sure, but I'd rather write a proper more comprehensive article on where Vic Rugby should expand too.

To there must be clubs founded in Shepparton-Mooroopna, Mildura, Sunbury, Latrobe Valley (Traralagon, Moe, Morwell), Wangarratta, Wodonga (possibly pull a sneaky and pinch some NSWelshmen from Albury) and Glenelg (specifically Portland).

Even if they are crappy 20 man teams just in it for the piss, they win fans and create a local scene. Also, the more country teams that start up the more feasible multiple country leagues or conferences becomes. Travelling 6-8 hours every 2nd Saturday is just ridiculous and is no doubt limiting the expansion of many of these clubs.
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