In club rugby, east is east and west is west

 
Andrew Logan Columnist

By , 7 May 2008 Andrew Logan is a Roar Expert

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Twenty years ago, in 1988, Sydney rugby club Randwick became the first Australian club side to play the All Blacks.

They were defeated by 25 points to 9, although the two tries to one statistic is probably a more accurate reflection of the game. The match was watched by thousands from rooftops around Coogee Oval.

In 1983, five years before that, an epic 12-10 grand final win to Manly over Randwick led to the appointment of Alan Jones as national coach, and the subsequent 1984 Grand Slam tour, and the 1986 Bledisloe win.

In 1991, former Wallaby coach Rod Macqueen erupted out of a 173 game grade career with Warringah, coached the side to two consecutive Grand Finals, became Waratahs coach through a 10 match unbeaten run, and eventually coached the Wallabies to a World Cup in 1999.

Sydney club rugby has a history of producing acorn moments: those moments which are recognised by canny observers as being a portent to great oak trees for NSW and Australian rugby further down the track.

A history of great players producing memorable moments in club grand finals. A history of great coaches emerging as contenders from club training grounds. And a history for which new chapters were written each and every weekend throughout the Sydney winter.

Unfortunately, the only acorns which get the attention required to flourish, seem to exist east of Homebush.

The Penrith oak, which should be a sturdy sapling by now, is actually a stunted, struggling twig whose new leaves are stripped whenever it shows promise.

In 1999, the struggling minnows had their day in the sun when they won 10 regular season games, surprising many a fancied opponent in the process. But no longer.

You could say that Penrith has been forgotten, but that would be a forgiving to those charged with growing the game in NSW.

Studiously ignored might be closer to the mark. Disregarded would be closer still. And snubbed might be most accurate of all.

Penrith have struggled over the last few years. Once upon a time there was support from members of the NSW hierarchy. Fraser Neill and Ewen McKenzie have both supported the idea of Penrith rugby being strong. There was once a fairly successful development program happening too, driven by former NSW commercial and operations manager Dave Gibson. Unfortunately for the west, Gibson was sacked by the Waratahs in May 2007.

A couple of years ago, NSW Rugby did some analysis and discovered that an enormous percentage of the population of greater Sydney was west of Blacktown. So why, the question was asked, is rugby not growing out there?

The answer was twofold.

First, there is no real rugby culture in the west, and second, no-one wants to play for the team which is out there, because they keep getting belted. The good players they do manage to unearth, go east to stronger clubs.

The recommendation which came out of this analysis was: “Fix Penrith, and you’ll grow rugby in the west”. Did it happen? It certainly doesn’t appear so.

This hasn’t stopped Penrith from trying to fix themselves.

In 1999, the Sydney clubs were allocated a sum of approximately $5,000 each to develop junior rugby. The Penrith club sat down and said “OK, what are we going to do with ours?”

The idea eventually was to find 10 schools and get them to field a team in a schools competition in return for a donation to the school of $500.

In the first year, this Penrith administered competition attracted 10 teams – roughly 200 new junior players trying rugby in the west of Sydney. The second year, 15 teams nominated for the competition.

These days this competition is still administered by Penrith rugby and it has teams playing a midweek competition in divisions for Yrs 7/8, Yrs 9/10 and Opens (Yr 11/12).

There are about 2,300 players in this competition. That is not a misprint. There are over two thousand juniors playing rugby in a competition administered by Penrith Rugby, who also pay for the referees and other incidentals. About 600 of those children are girls. The program was started by Penrith, is run by Penrith, and relies on a mix of funding from Penrith and other sources.

One of the great success stories from this competition is Prairiewood High at Wetherill Park. After forming their first rugby union team just four years ago, Prairiewood’s First XV snatched the Robson Shield, which is contested state-wide.

Captained by an Assyrian of Iraqi origin, Prairiewood’s winning team was a mix of Samoan, Fijian, Tongan, Italian, Turkish, Dutch, Uruguayan, Spanish, New Zealand, Maltese and Lebanese kids.

Herald journalist Paul Sheehan recorded his impressions of a conversation about rugby with the school’s principal, Denise Smith: “I believe her, because we were talking after Prairiewood’s First XV had played in the final of the statewide open rugby championship, the Waratah Shield. They had just been thrashed, 51-0. Not to worry. They won the shield as the best state high school and lost the final to a rugby dynasty, St Edmunds College, Canberra, who had won the final for the seventh consecutive time and the 13th in 20 years. Their captain, James Stonham, playing in the tradition of previous Eddies’ captains Ricky Stuart and George Gregan, dominated the game and was picked to play for Australian schools”.

“Yet, although I am a dubious product of Eddies, it was the losing captain, Senan Naamo, who made a deeper impression on me. Naamo is tall and gangly, the son of Assyrian immigrants from Iraq. ‘He’s a lovely boy, a serious student with exceptional character’, Smith told me. Naamo gave the captain’s address at the presentation. He’s not a polished speaker but he’s a dignified one, and he struck me as the sort of young man upon whom teachers could rely to help build a school’s espirit de corps, especially one in the middle of a melting pot”.

Penrith Rugby Club are responsible for this school playing rugby. But unfortunately, these young players are not coming through to the Penrith ranks. And neither are many of the Penrith juniors in their U15, U16 and U17 sides, particularly those who make the rep sides out west.

Alex Pinson, Penrith junior and member of the Sydney West Schools rugby rep team, is a poignant example. He received two letters from leading Sydney clubs after he made the SWS team, offering him playing positions with them. This was especially cheeky, considering that he is the son of Penrith RUFC General Manager John Pinson, and Nepean Blue Emus junior rugby President Michelle Pinson. Incidentally, the Pinsons did not contribute to this story. The information came from elsewhere.

Obviously, the talented players from the Penrith district are quickly snapped up by rugby league clubs, and, in a classic case of the snake devouring itself, other leading Sydney rugby clubs. So despite Penrith being responsible for thousands of kids under the age of 17 playing rugby, they continue to struggle at the senior level because there is no way to keep them in rugby after they reach the grade ranks.

If they are any good, the lure of rugby league cash, and rugby cash and scholarships is often just too strong. A cursory glance at the annual reports of the leading clubs will show that the Penrith club runs on an annual budget about one-third the size of the frontrunners.

This is not the only problem for the rugby people struggling to keep the game alive west of Blacktown. The rugby hierarchy does its part to keep the west down too.

In 2003, Penrith Rugby Club made a submission together with Penrith City Council, to host a team for the World Cup.

According to sources, it was agreed that they would host Argentina – an award made in large part because of the successful hosting of the rafting and water sports by Penrith during the Olympics, and also in part due to support from Panthers Leagues Club who were supplying the accommodation, and use of the Panthers state-of-the-art training facilities at Hickeys Lane.

Six weeks before the World Cup, the offer to host a team, any team, was suddenly withdrawn and Penrith Rugby were left to go cap in hand to Penrith Council, and Panthers, and give them the bad news. Former Penrith and then Wales coach Scott Johnson’s offer to take Wales to Penrith was declined, because “Argentina were there”.

Argentina stayed at the Crowne Plaza, Coogee. Wales stayed somewhere else. No-one stayed at Penrith.

In 2007, there was a meeting between Penrith officials, NSW Rugby and Jackie Kelly, the outgoing Member for Lindsay. Kelly (who is now on the board of Penrith Rugby Club) was aware of some land formerly owned by Australian Defence Industries at St Marys and was interested in having the land turned into sporting fields – specifically six full size rugby pitches complete with stadium.

After a visit to the site, Kelly asked a NSW official how much they might need to develop the site if she could acquire it on their behalf, through legitimate government channels, at no cost to either Penrith or NSW Rugby.

Since she was on her way to Canberra the next day, Kelly asked for a simple document to take with her, setting out an initial estimate for development of the site. Penrith rugby officials completed the submission and emailed it to NSW at 1am to be forwarded to Kelly’s Canberra office, since it needed to be lodged by NSW Rugby.

Throughout the next morning, Kelly phoned Penrith officials, looking for the document which had not yet been received from NSW, and which she needed for meetings in Canberra regarding the ADI site. By 1pm the document had still not been submitted. At 3pm, NSW officials finally contacted Penrith to say that the document had been reviewed, and that they didn’t feel that they were able to support the initiative.

The Canberra decision making machine rolled on down the road.

The ADI land still sits idle waiting for a development proposal. And Jackie Kelly, former Liberal minister and now Penrith board member, continues to lobby the new Labor government for development of the ADI site – the same Labor government, by the way, which recently canned millions in funding for the National Rugby Academy at Ballymore.

Incidentally, at the first site meeting with Jackie Kelly, the same NSW officials who eventually canned the idea, turned up 45 minutes late.

As rugby people, we’re entitled to ask: “How does a club with more than 3000 juniors playing rugby under their administration manage to be almost completely ignored by those who have the power to help it compete for market share in Western Sydney?”

The rugby game deserves better.

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