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Australian Richard Kingi tackles England's Ben Gollings as Will Brock, left, looks on during Rugby Sevens Cup Plate-final, Sunday, April 5, 2009, at Adelaide Oval in Adelaide, Australia. England defeated Australia 24-19. (AP Photo/David Mariuz)
Rugby and Adelaide make unlikely bedfellows when the International Rugby Sevens series stops off in the City of Churches on its global tour this weekend at the Adelaide Oval.
The tournament has found a niche audience in Adelaide thanks to the support of the state government – who were instrumental in bringing the event to the state in the first place – and generous coverage in the local media. The event is nestled nicely in a month in which Adelaide comes alive with various Arts festivals, the Adelaide Cup and the Clipsal 500 V8 Supercar round
The crowd on Friday night at the currently truncated Adelaide Oval (construction work is being undertaken, with the famous members stands no longer standing) was healthy but unspectacular, with the Chappell stands filled by the homeless SACA members, yet large gaps in the general admission sections.
The number of Waratahs and Reds tops in the crowd hinted at a large number of tourists or ex-pats from the eastern seaboard in attendance, with a healthy spread of Wallabies tops throughout. (There was even an Adelaide Rams jersey! Wrong code, I know, but a rare sighting that deserved a mention).
There was the usual contingent of English and Kiwi supporters, a large group of Kenyans and even a proud pair supporting Niue, the tiny Pacific Islanders who played the Aussies in the final match of the night.
The locals (yes, there were some) were the ones bemused by the rules!
In the CBD, only a short walk south from Adelaide Oval, there was nothing to indicate that the tournament was even on.
Aside from the healthy coverage in the print media there was little else alerting locals of the tournament’s existence.
South Australia’s five-year contract to host the Australian leg of the series expires next year, and the ARU, together with the IRB, must be thinking of moving the tournament to a place where it could better help the code.
Unless there are genuine intentions for the game to expand into Adelaide in the long-term – something that appears highly doubtful unless it’s in a revitalised domestic league, such as the now-defunct Australian Rugby Championship (ARC) – then questions must be asked of the tournament’s value in South Australia.
A niche audience in Adelaide is great, but it will achieve little for the code, especially when it is struggling in the markets that matter most.
Crowds are down in its heartland, and despite the popularity and recognition of the Wallabies and the Sevens tournament, in a place like Adelaide, with no professional representation in either league, the NRL gets better traction than the Super 14 competition.
With the inclusion of Sevens into the Olympics from Rio 2016 on, the game has been afforded an enormous opportunity; one few codes could ever be given.
If it finds the right balance between Sevens – the Twenty20 version of rugby – and the traditional fifteens game, then there is a chance for the code to rebound .
But there needs to be more of a crossover between the two versions of the game in terms of marketing, promotion and player movement (something we are already witnessing) for those knock-on effects to have a significant impact, and that could only be achieved by moving the Sevens tournament to Sydney, Brisbane or the Gold Coast, or to a lesser extent Perth, Canberra or Melbourne; places where the code has a presence and a legacy from the tournament could be better utilized, whether that’s in Sydney on a weekend when the Tahs are on the road or the like.
As much as it pains me to say so as proud South Australian, the Rugby Sevens tournament would be better served in rugby’s Australian heartland rather than a rugby backwater.