Where to for Super Rugby?

[Forcefield]

Anyone got any questions I can relay?

Describe your perfect romantic evening.

It will provide you with about as much information as asking any of the above questions but has the slight chance of providing a few cheap laughs compared to frustration of another politico-waffle response.

 

[James Pettifer]

A serious question for Bill.

The ARU plans to cut either the Force or the Rebels. How is the ARU intending to continue to develop rugby in the region that loses a team?

 

[wamberal]

The buck does not stop with the ARU. When you get right down to it, the game should exist because people like it, want to play it, watch it, sponsor it, take up memberships, do some volunteering for their local club, etc etc



Might as well ask what Whirled Rugby is doing to develop rugby in Australia. It is a shared responsibility, from top to bottom and back again.

 

[BLR]

The buck does not stop with the ARU. When you get right down to it, the game should exist because people like it, want to play it, watch it, sponsor it, take up memberships, do some volunteering for their local club, etc etc
Might as well ask what Whirled Rugby is doing to develop rugby in Australia. It is a shared responsibility, from top to bottom and back again.

And in regions like WA where the local clubs are going from strength to strength growing the game the ARU want to knife the team they aspire to in the back.
They have lost something like $33 million dollars on a venture they knew would not work, yet what did they do to rectify the situation? The buck stops with them and stop defending these crooks.

 

[TOCC]

The buck does not stop with the ARU. When you get right down to it, the game should exist because people like it, want to play it, watch it, sponsor it, take up memberships, do some volunteering for their local club, etc etc

Might as well ask what Whirled Rugby is doing to develop rugby in Australia. It is a shared responsibility, from top to bottom and back again.

Do you have a family member on the board at the ARU, I struggle to understand how you blindly support an organisation which has failed its members so badly.

ARU govern the game in Australia, the ARU signed the contract for Super Rugby, the expansions teams in the current format. The ARU pissed $35million up the wall which was left over from World Rugby hosting a RWC in Australia. ARU are the organisation who managed development pathways for players and development pathways for the coaches. ARU are the organisation which oversees a highly fractured landscape of member unions, its the ARU who have failed to implement any kind of progressive strategic plan to get rugby union growing in this country.

Maybe the buck doesn't stop entirely at the ARU, but it's clear they hold most of the responsibility.

 

[Dan54]

Do you have a family member on the board at the ARU, I struggle to understand how you blindly support an organisation which has failed its members so badly.

ARU govern the game in Australia, the ARU signed the contract for Super Rugby, the expansions teams in the current format. The ARU pissed $35million up the wall which was left over from World Rugby hosting a RWC in Australia. ARU are the organisation who managed development pathways for players and development pathways for the coaches. ARU are the organisation which oversees a highly fractured landscape of member unions, its the ARU who have failed to implement any kind of progressive strategic plan to get rugby union growing in this country.

Maybe the buck doesn't stop entirely at the ARU, but it's clear they hold most of the responsibility.

To be fair on Wamberal's post, while you maybe right about the ARU doing the the above things, the ARU is a board voted in by the various state unions in Aus, who are in turn generally voted in by the various clubs within their regions. Change will come about not by people getting on internet and constantly finding the things that are wrong with the ARU (and there are plenty of things seemingly), but by making changes from the ground up, go and get involved at your club, go on the committee, get your representative to take your views to your state union, etc etc. It is not just the players that have to be developed from the grassroots!!!
And I am not in any way defending the ARU, I think there needs to be a lot of sorting out there, but more seeing where Wamberal is coming from, it is everyones responsibilty to improve Aus rugby!

 

[Dave Beat]

The buck does not stop with the ARU. When you get right down to it, the game should exist because people like it, want to play it, watch it, sponsor it, take up memberships, do some volunteering for their local club, etc etc



Might as well ask what Whirled Rugby is doing to develop rugby in Australia. It is a shared responsibility, from top to bottom and back again.

Do you have a family member on the board at the ARU, I struggle to understand how you blindly support an organisation which has failed its members so badly.

ARU govern the game in Australia, the ARU signed the contract for Super Rugby, the expansions teams in the current format. The ARU pissed $35million up the wall which was left over from World Rugby hosting a RWC in Australia. ARU are the organisation who managed development pathways for players and development pathways for the coaches. ARU are the organisation which oversees a highly fractured landscape of member unions, its the ARU who have failed to implement any kind of progressive strategic plan to get rugby union growing in this country.

Maybe the buck doesn't stop entirely at the ARU, but it's clear they hold most of the responsibility.

I agree with both of these.

Wamberal has shared many posts / thoughts over the recent seasons suggesting some must do improvements the ARU need to undertake because they have screwed things up.

I agree with him the buck doesnt stop with the ARU.
But as sure as hell they have to take responsability as they are the leaders of our code and currently showing no leadership (IMO). TOCC summed it up perfectly in his reply.

ARU (IMO) seems to pass the buck, not take responsability, delegate and not not partner.

Even fooking sheep are smart enough to stick together as there is strength in numbers - but we have a fractured landscape of member unions who are all looking after their self interest.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

Do you have a family member on the board at the ARU, I struggle to understand how you blindly support an organisation which has failed its members so badly.

ARU govern the game in Australia, the ARU signed the contract for Super Rugby, the expansions teams in the current format. The ARU pissed $35million up the wall which was left over from World Rugby hosting a RWC in Australia. ARU are the organisation who managed development pathways for players and development pathways for the coaches. ARU are the organisation which oversees a highly fractured landscape of member unions, its the ARU who have failed to implement any kind of progressive strategic plan to get rugby union growing in this country.

Maybe the buck doesn't stop entirely at the ARU, but it's clear they hold most of the responsibility.

You had me until the last paragraph.
I would say that World Rugby are doing a pretty good job - consciously or otherwise. The sport is growing in popularity every where but here.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

making changes from the ground up, go and get involved at your club, go on the committee, get your representative to take your views to your state union, etc etc. It is not just the players that have to be developed from the grassroots!!!

The changes are constant in the levels below the fully pro level. They have to be to accommodate the ARU's changing position, removal of funding and imposition of increasing costs.
I know its unpopular but look at the Shute shield Clubs as an example. They have limited FTA coverage, limited pay TV coverage and no press coverage (I bet you could open the SMH and it wouldn't even have today's games listed) and yet they manage to run a minimum $500k operation (for each club) essentially as far as I can see through sponsorship and unpaid labour. The comp is more watchable than the Oz super rugby teams.
Yet with all their money and full time employees its very hard to see what the ARU has done right in the last 10 years.
I know - its a broken record: but its as broken body.

 

[Dave Beat]

The changes are constant in the levels below the fully pro level. They have to be to accommodate the ARU's changing position, removal of funding and imposition of increasing costs.
I know its unpopular but look at the Shute shield Clubs as an example. They have limited FTA coverage, limited pay TV coverage and no press coverage (I bet you could open the SMH and it wouldn't even have today's games listed) and yet they manage to run a minimum $500k operation (for each club) essentially as far as I can see through sponsorship and unpaid labour. The comp is more watchable than the Oz super rugby teams.
Yet with all their money and full time employees its very hard to see what the ARU has done right in the last 10 years.
I know - its a broken record: but its as broken body.

SS has FTA - I havent found Soup on FTA yet.
Todays tele had a good full page spread on SS rugby, havent checked SMH.
Even our CEO got a mention in the pics.
Yes you are on the money.
And now on the budget they are working on games are being taken to the country.

 

[RebelYell]

Just received an interesting email; Bill Pulver will be attending my club's annual rugby dinner/function next Thursday night.

It's in Melbourne, so makes sense he'll be in town ahead of the Fiji match. I guess it's good of him to support the local community - but the man has to sit in a room with 100 die hard Melbourne fans who are wondering if he's about to cut their club. Interesting move.

Anyone got any questions I can relay?

Which Club mate?

 

[Dctarget]

Which Club mate?

The rugby club of my old school, Melbourne Grammar.

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

You had me until the last paragraph.
I would say that World Rugby are doing a pretty good job - consciously or otherwise. The sport is growing in popularity every where but here.

I'd go along with that. The game itself has probably never been stronger, but we're struggling here.

 

[Dan54]

The changes are constant in the levels below the fully pro level. They have to be to accommodate the ARU's changing position, removal of funding and imposition of increasing costs.
I know its unpopular but look at the Shute shield Clubs as an example. They have limited FTA coverage, limited pay TV coverage and no press coverage (I bet you could open the SMH and it wouldn't even have today's games listed) and yet they manage to run a minimum $500k operation (for each club) essentially as far as I can see through sponsorship and unpaid labour. The comp is more watchable than the Oz super rugby teams.
Yet with all their money and full time employees its very hard to see what the ARU has done right in the last 10 years.
I know - its a broken record: but its as broken body.

I not disagreeing IS, but don't you think that the state boards are also broken, and one of the reasons ARU is struggling?

 

[RedsHappy]

OK, here (link below) we have The Perfect Example No 369 of why the institutional framework, and the dysfunctional attitudes and toxic habits within it, that rules Australian rugby is totally fucked.

Of all people, here we have none other than the Force CEO speaking out almost fondly and deferentially toward the ARU board and noting that under no circumstances will WARugby be voting to unseat or even protest the ARU board at the EGM on June 20.

Seriously - the code is in a complete and utter mess, the Force 'culling' process has been devastating for them after, under a senior ARU signature, they were assured of an existence to 2020 that is now being denied, and nonetheless the Force CEO credits the ARU board with at least offering up some kind of 'consultation process' and says unseating this hapless and rudderless board that is lurching from destructive passivity to active repetitive debacles would not be desirable.

I'm left speechless and despairing by this sort of stuff (even though elsewhere here I have predicted that the June 20 EGM would produce little but handbags and wimp-outs and that nothing whatever would change from it).

Where is the spine in Australian rugby, where is the guts to quite appropriately take on an obviously failed and failing elite, where is the capacity for tough thinking and organised protest - vs merely tittle tattle, rumours and anonymised backbiting - that will not relent until our rugby code is given back to the people who have the passion and competence to save it?

Here below is the latest sad instalment in our death march.

http://www.rugby.com.au/news/2017/06/01/08/01/force-members-forum

 

[Inside Shoulder]

I not disagreeing IS, but don't you think that the state boards are also broken, and one of the reasons ARU is struggling?

Not sure.
I do think that the ARU has been more divided at state level than it seems to be at the moment - including in years when we have done very well on the field.
Frankly, I think someone with a lot of organisational experience needs to have a look at the structure of the game and administration in this country.
Getting an ex politician, in Mark Arbib, to do a review would raise a fair chance that you produce a structure conducive to political manipulation, I guess, leaving aside a lack - to my knowledge - of any experience in an organisation with the size of the ARU.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

SS has FTA - I havent found Soup on FTA yet.
Todays tele had a good full page spread on SS rugby, havent checked SMH.
Even our CEO got a mention in the pics.
Yes you are on the money.
And now on the budget they are working on games are being taken to the country.

View attachment 9315

Soup results get some FTA coverage.
I am weaning myself off Rupert's rags - I can't help feeling that's there is at least one other agenda in his headlines, apart from making money and wedging those who don't agree with him.

 

[p.Tah]

^^^ given your corporate experience RH you'd know you don't knife people in public when you don't hold the power, best to do that behind closed doors

 

[RedsHappy]

SS has FTA - I havent found Soup on FTA yet.
Todays tele had a good full page spread on SS rugby, havent checked SMH.
Even our CEO got a mention in the pics.
Yes you are on the money.
And now on the budget they are working on games are being taken to the country.

View attachment 9315

The banner re Pulver speaks bucketloads does it not re how that infamous remark has gone down in Sydney club land.

 

[RedsHappy]

^^^ given your corporate experience RH you'd know you don't knife people in public when you don't hold the power, best to do that behind closed doors

You may be joking pT but assuming not for a moment, the Force CEO as above was the very opposite of knifing in public or 'keeping our powder dry', he was effectively defending the ARU board in public and affirming there would be neither a public knifing nor even anything approaching a private one come June 20.

If the ARU board was 'sympathetic' to the Force and inclined to aid their situation in any way (and thus suck-ups from the Force CEO _just might_ be in order), they would not be actively today pursuing their side of a legal fight re closing the Force down and pushing for the whole matter to go to an assuredly lengthy formal Arbitration process that indeed as the Force has argued can be very drawn out and even more expensive that a Court-based fight.