ARU development of the game

Trevor and Janice Knight write:

We have been concerned for some years at the decline of rugby in many regions of Australia. Player numbers are falling and support for the game is dwindling. There is little or nothing that can be done to arrest the drop in player numbers in many regional towns as it is brought about in most cases by the need for young people to leave home for work or study reasons.

Nevertheless, it seems to us that the ARU, in deciding where to promote the game, makes pretty sure bets. It spends its money where rugby already has a strong chance of surviving and perhaps even of growing. It could be argued that this is wise as to do otherwise might be a waste of money.

On the other hand, with some judicious planning and prior investigation, it just might be possible for the ARU to identify locations in which the spending of some development money might be rewarded by stabilising a fragile rugby area or even of making it expand.

Take for example, New England Rugby Union in New South Wales, with which we are moderately familiar.

The rugby competition there was, in its early days, very large. It covered the whole of the New England Federal electorate which was centred on Tamworth. It has been contracting for years and now we hear, it has only four first grade teams. One of the cause of contraction was the establishment of the University of New England with its residential colleges. Most men’s colleges formed rugby clubs and this multiplicity of clubs meant that teams like Walcha, Inverell, and the Tamworth clubs had to travel more frequently to Armidale than previously and so they abandoned New England, centred on Armidale and joined Central North Rugby Union, centred on Tamworth.

There was recently a move to reunite the New England Rugby union and the Central North Rugby Union but this failed reportedly because the clubs in Central North again were persuaded by their dislike of travelling. They should undertake some of the weekly rugby trips required of the clubs in Western Plains.

The point is that, within New South Wales and other states, there are hubs which are regional centres and which are thriving. We are thinking of cities such as Tamworth, Coffs Harbour, Dubbo, Wagga Wagga and the like. If the ARU were to bring about amalgamations of clubs which are fairly naturally associated with these centres, and were to devote some attention and resources to their natural, surrounding regions, rugby could be strengthened significantly.

This approach should be tried and, if tried unsuccessfully previously, should be tried again after an analysis of what caused the failure.

Also, it is not helpful for the ARU to state in its Annual Report the number of millions of dollars it has contributed to its affiliated and subsidiary unions. Some specifics would help and would ease the impression that the ARU wants to keep details of its activities secret.

On another issue, we believe that the current contract system is flawed.

Our view is that the contract system is too inflexible. It does not cater for those players who are taking the field in community rugby matches, who have exceptional talent and skills and who don’t wish to spend a number of years tied to rugby through a contract. Some of these will be professionally qualified or on their way to being so qualified and some will have other lifetime commitments such as farming. They do not want to commit themselves to being chained to a
rugby contract.

It is our view that the rugby contract system now keeps out of higher representative rugby, people like Mark Loane, Nick Farr-Jones, Greg Cornelsen and countless others like them. If the contract system was operating in their day, and if they had the same lifetime ambitions, they would have been lost to higher representative rugby forever. In addition, when not playing at higher levels, they helped to strengthen club rugby by playing for their clubs.

We suggest that the ARU make an effort to spot such players who are in the ranks of community rugby, not to put them on a contract lasting several years but to select them for higher representation and to cover their costs and give them some remuneration to make up for their time in the higher echelon, so that they can step into higher levels of rugby if they want to and when selected and can step out when they want to or when they fail to gain selection.

There is another side of the contract coin. Because the contract provides the players on it with a temporary level of security, an element of competition is removed. If they are not selected for higher honours, they lose no income and some are content to remain so. The rigour of having to strive for selection to play for say, club then zone (eg Central North) NSW Country or Sydney (we know, the Sydney Rugby Union has been disbanded, in the gradual moves toward rationalisation of representative rugby) , then New South Wales and then, if good enough, Australia, has been diluted. Players are now preselected, many at a young age and their progress is dictated by a coaching template that has little variation from bottom to top.

The “temporary level of security” is another problem with the contract system. We wonder how many former senior rugby players who have come through that system, have been thrown onto the scrap heap because rugby is all they know.

The contract system should be redesigned to remove the flaws we have described.

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