Last week I received the email newsletter from the ARU, Get Onside. Usually this doesn’t have much in it that I don’t already know, as a well read rugby fan (humble too), and it tends to be more a PR marketing piece than informative. On this occasion an article caught my eye – “Williams takes Rugby to the bush”.
The first reason was my recent interest in grassroots rugby, and the extent to which the ARU (and state unions) have (or haven’t) been providing support for it.
On a first read you would be forgiven for thinking the camp was run by the ARU. Clearly the ARU has some involvement, as you don’t have a Wallaby Assistant coach (Jim Williams) and Junior Gold coaching staff in attendance without it.
The reference to Junior Gold scouts is neither here nor there, as presumably they are at any event where any prospective talent might be (including league events one would presume, alongside the Sydney Uni scout and the Joeys scout).
The reference to “Camp director Dave Schmude says the support of Australian Rugby, as well top quality coaching, are the keys to the Camp’s ongoing success” is the only real suggestion this wasn’t an ARU camp.
The second was several days earlier I had stumbled on a web site for the National Rugby Camp, which I hadn’t been aware of before.
Well, to give it its full name, it’s the Abigroup National Rugby Camp. And if you read the website, you’d be lucky to see any mention of the ARU at all.
The website makes clear that “Brothers Paul and Dave Schmude organise the camp on behalf of NERU” (NERU being New England Rugby Union), and good on them too for organising such a great venture that has clearly grown over the years.
The list of sponsors shows a lot of support from local New England business. However, the prominence of Abigroup’s name is clearly because of the support for it over the years. Indeed, the John Cassidy Scholarship gives a greater clue, given it is named after the former Chairman and CEO of Abigroup who resigned in 2004.
But you wouldn’t know it from the ARU’s press release, and that was the first thought I had when I realised it was talking about the same Camp I had read about a few days earlier. I had to check to make sure it was!
While this is a great concept, and the support of the ARU is to be applauded, in many ways it is pretty much what I expect the ARU to be doing as part of their reason for being. In fact, I say more, more, more! One in every state! Every weekday and twice on Sundays!
Further, when I read the press release from the ARU, having already been aware of the Camp and Abigroup’s role in it from several days before, my first thought was how it gave no credit to Abigroup.
Now John Cassidy and Abigroup may not necessarily be doing this for the kudos (although that’s a major part of why companies sponsor these type of things), and simply because of a love of rugby.
However, if I was the ARU, I’d be wanting to show how grateful I was for the long term support Abigroup has given the Camps and thus the sport of rugby over the years by at least mentioning them.
The ARU isn’t exactly rolling on clover at the moment, with cost cutting resulting in the Australia A program and Australian Rugby Shield being cut, and talk of some of the Wallabies major sponsors looking at not renewing.
So given rugby is meant to be the sport of the big end of town, you’d think it was Sports Administration 101 to be looking after your sponsors or prospective sponsors, by making clear where at least some of the credit for the camp appears to be due – Abigroup.
We certainly get every other sponsor shoved down our throat by the ARU, so on this occasion I’m a little miffed they didn’t mention one where I think rugby fans would say they deserve to be lauded.
Perhaps I am just a narky cynical sook, but I always seem to find the cloud for every silver lining the ARU trots out.
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