Where to from here? – how to restructure Australian rugby

 
gatesy Roar Guru

By Gatesy, 19 Nov 2007 gatesy is a Roar Guru

24 Have your say




It seems ludicrous to me that on one hand we are saying “where are all the big props going to come from?” while on the other hand virtually ignoring the potential for expansion of the game if we can’t get away from that private school thinking, and develop the clubs as regions in their own right.

Obviously this is difficult, depending on where you live. For example, in Canberra, where I live the schools and clubs play in the same competition and the schools dominate. While you could say that there should be fewer teams playing for the schools so that some of the kids could be released to play for the clubs it is a fact of life that kids want to play footy with their mates, and not against their own schools. At least, in Canberra, each of the Premier clubs now has its own junior talent Squads, made up of kids from that region, (even if not playing for that club), which then feeds into the Brumbies Talent organisation and ultimately the Academy.

It seems to me that you take a top down base to apex approach where the Premier Clubs in each city, are the key, feeding into the ARC and State structures, similar to what Cricket does. Just like Cricket, it should be every players aspiration to make first grade in his Premier Club, before he can expect to go on to higher honours. The idea of players playing for their State before they have even played in Colts, just seems silly to me, and we are narrowing the base too much and, in my view, devaluing the worth of the Clubs.

The structure should be the same in every state, whether we are talking NSW or Tasmania. The only thing that would differ would be the numbers in the structure.

It may be that the Subbies competitions in the large cities could be organised along regional Premier club lines, so that they act as feeders to the Premier Clubs and then have all of the eSchools in those same regions feeding in as well. More high schools should then be brought into the fold so that there is a dual development pathway with schools playing mid week and allowing a lot of those players to play for clubs on weekends. This would, of course, necessitate unprecedented co-operation between different organisations, and we all know how hard it is to dislodge people from their individual power bases. it would virtually mean that you would have to have amalgamation and then very strongly run District organisations, with the Premier Club as the apex of the organisation. All of those District organisations should then answer to their respective State organisation.

If the Schools want to play each other in their own competitions, that is fine, too, but not so as to exclude themselves from the main stream.

I would prefer to see the Schools organisations feeding also into State-based rep sides, so that you don’t necessarily have an elite pathway that excludes many potentially good players, at the Junior levels and which probably assists Rugby League to get its hands on good, talented young players, before they get anywhere near a Premier Club.

This whole exercise needs absolute leadership and dogmatism from the very top down if we are to push the game ahead on a national level. Players need to see pathways that are achievable.

While all of that is going on we should be working the ARC into the mix so that it is a wholly meaningful step beyond the Premier Club structure, and so that it becomes a recognisable brand for all Australian Rugby followers and I believe that possible the best way to achieve this is to take one team out of Sydney and base it elsewhere (say North Queensland, or Adelaide for example), so that ultimately you have a national competition similar to the Basketball or Cricket. I knwo that there are financial problems with mounting that competition, but enough good minds should be able to think their way through that issue.

The District/ State Cricket model seems to me to be a perfect model to follow and no one can argue about the strength of Australian Cricket.

This is a job for strong and determined leadership, which puts all parochialism behind it.

Then the Premier Clubs could look at setting up Talent squads and academies to further enhance their value to the region. Whilst I am a great admirer of the Sydney University Club, I agree with the first post in this thread re Sydney University. Surely one of the criteria for being recognised as a Premier club must be the Junior Structure, the talent squads, the pathways and Academy concept and its overall commitment to being the focal point for Rugby development it its respective region.

That kind of structure is where the talent will be unearthed. If we keep it to a narrow focus we will always be in the position of not having a guaranteed stream of talent coming through in all positions.

We have to get away from some of the old notions of parochialism, because if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you always got.

We're hiring. Find out more.

Get a daily rugby union email

Our daily emails are only sent if there is content for the sport. You can subscribe to multiple daily emails; or get the daily Roar email with all our content in it.

We value privacy. More.