The IRB: where to in 2011 and beyond?

 
Working Class Rugger Roar Guru

By Working Class Rugger, 13 Aug 2010 Working Class Rugger is a Roar Guru

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The IRB’s four-year development cycle will conclude just prior to next year’s Rugby World Cup and once again resume in its aftermath using much of the profits it will receive from the event.

Much has been made of the loss the event will make, however, that loss falls directly on the NZRU and NZ Government not the IRB who have ensured they have secured there slice of the pie well ahead of first games being played.

Now, in the last four years the IRB has invested the monies they received from the 2007 event in many different areas. From individual nations of the likes of Russia and the USA, to age grade Championships most notably at the U20s level with the Junior Rugby World Cup and the second tier Junior Rugby World Trophy and finally in tournaments including the Asian Five Nations. All are obvious and measurable in their successes.

This leads into the premise of this piece. With a full year before the IRB development cash cow what does the game’s international body have in mind for the next four year development cycle that will be funded primarily by the New Zealand event? That’s right, I’m asking for clear and definitive leadership. Up until then how about a few suggestions.

Rugby has seen significant progress in nations like Russia where the IRB has taken an active role in shaping its development. The first and arguably most important program the IRB should be looking to implement is a clear and concise standardized development framework for the game. One that is easily accessible to all Unions and comes with active IRB development support.

By providing all Union’s and more specifically the smaller developing ones the IRB can greatly assist the games further growth well into the future. Currently many Unions lack the expertise to implement their own programs. Being provided a solid and easily implementable program at no cost with active support would not only assist in growing overall participation figures but competition standards across the board.

The IRB recently changed its classification of Union’s from Tier One, Two, Three etc to High-Performance, Performance, Targeted and Associated. The High-Performance Unions are obvious being the current powerhouse’s of the sport. When the funds from the RWC are once again divided amongst the many member Unions these will likely receive little if any at all. As it should be. However, apart from committing further funds outside this group and more specifically toward the Performance, Targeted and Associated Unions the IRB should openly state those Nations that they see as Priority development targets. Much of this should be done through providing meaningful competition to each identified.

Priority targets are easily identified along regional lines.

The Pacific:

The IRB do invest significantly in the region most particularly via competitions. IRB funding allows such tournaments as the Pacific Nations Cup and Rugby Championship to provide annual regional competition. The PNC provides a key development platform for the four Nations involved. The only real issue is the lack of Australian and New Zealand involvement. However, while it would be ideal it’s not completely necessary. Maybe expanding it to a home and away series could be worthwhile in investigating but its current formant appears to be successful enough.

On the other hand the Pacific Rugby Championship should be tweaked. Expanding its size to eight teams and two rounds (home and away) to create a regional Rugby season would greatly assist the games develop in the region providing regular competition above current domestic structures.

Asia:

Japan, South East Asia including both India and Sri Lanka and the Middle East. Japan already has professional structures in place as well as a reasonably healthy participation in the game. However, prior to its hosting of the 2019 RWC the IRB should be looking to grow the game further in the Nation. Efforts should be made to ensure the first RWC outside the traditional powers is as successful as humanly possible.

South East Asia including India and Sri Lanka. This region contains measurable playing populations with Singapore being the smallest and Sri Lanka the largest. While Sri Lanka are undertaking vigorous development programs in efforts to greatly expand its playing populations via schools with Government backing the IRB needs to look to accelerate other’s development. Currently the gulf between Japan and the rest of Asia is growing and the IRB must look to rectify this. A regional tournament akin to Super Rugby involving Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Hong Kong, India and Sri Lanka would provide the necessary competition to assist in the nations of the region to claw back some of the territory lost to Japan. China is only really in its early development stages and waiting for what exactly the Chinese Sports Ministry commits to its development would likely be the best course of action.

Middle East:

There are currently at least two divisions of regional club leagues in the region formed along the lines of the soon to be disbanded Arabian Gulf rugby Union. The IRB should be looking to bolster the standard of both divisions as well as work with the new Unions in the region to attract sponsorship and interest. This region has a high number of expats and could build a reasonable presence in the region. Efforts should also be made to include Iran. There improvement has been nothing short of incredible when considering the little to no involvement or willingness to receive assistance from the IRB. They are currently storming up the divisions in the A5N’s recently gaining promotion to its second division for the 2011 edition.

The Americas:

Canada, USA, Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay: Both the USA and Canada are important development targets for the IRB. It appears that growth of the game has somewhat stagnate in Canada in recent years and the IRB must enact efforts to re-ignite growth. There are some solid platforms to build off in the National U20’s championship and the newly formed Canada Rugby Championship. While growth isn’t the problem in the US. It’s providing adequate competitions structures and encouraging greater quality of athlete to play the game.

The USA has a wealth athletic talent developed through arguably the best identification system in the world. This has been addressed to a degree in house with the establishment of the College Premier League; however, high School and junior rugby are the future of the game in the US and will ensure the growth of College Rugby and hopefully some sort of professional setup in the future. It is important that in the next four-year cycle the IRB achieves the goal of creating to sustainable and self-financing organisations so they can re-focus their efforts towards Mexico after the 2015 event.

Argentina, Chile and Uruguay: The game is experiencing great growth in each of these countries and once again of the back of in house efforts. Uruguay is working actively to double its current player base to 10,000 active player’s while Chile has seen impressive growth since hosting the JWRT two years ago. The IRB successful lobbied for Argentina’s inclusion in the SANZAR alliance. Now alongside the other two they must facilitate efforts to create meaningful competition to ensure they aren’t merely the whipping boy of the Big 3.

Brazil: The IRB has been investing significant time and effort into this particular nation. And it’s obvious why. It is vitally important that the games return to the Olympic arena at the RIO 2016 games. The IRB should be working tirelessly to ensure come the event Rugby is in the Brazilian sporting consciousness.

Africa (Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Tunisia):

The game has really begun to move forward on the continent with these for outside of South Africa providing its shining lights. There are several other potential nations that could emerge but currently the likes of Kenya provide the best opportunity to creating a truly competitive Africa. Out of all the regions this is where IRB funding could do the most good and spread the furthest. Rugby could truly be Africa’s second game.

Europe (Spain/Portugal, Germany, Russia, Belgium, Romania/Georgia and Ukraine:

In all these cases there are pre-existing national competitions. While they possess the necessary structure’s to progress the game they don’t have the backing to do so. Competitions such as the SuperIberica de Rugby, Bundesliga and Black Sea Cup all provide the IRB with readymade competitions allowing them to focus on growing the game domestically.

By working intensively to establish the game in these handful of Performance/Targeted Nations the IRB could greatly expand the games overall international reach in the years leading up to the next two RWC’s.

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