Waratah management will soon meet to review the season and plan for the next. This season will get a pass mark for rugby results, mitigated by the injury toll (which incidentally was no worse than that of the Reds and other teams).
It will get a fail on the finances and the continuing decline in crowd attendance. Still ringing in their ears will be the fans’ criticism of ugly rugby, which can be further defined as reverting to type by aimless kicking when put under pressure.
Aimless kicking makes the statement that the team has run out of ideas and is kicking in the hope that the opposition will make a mistake, rather than patiently maintaining possession of the ball and sticking to a pre-determined strategy.
As admirable as the performances have been over the past month, the team with many champions in it has not become a champion team. And this has been true of every Tah team since Super Rugby started.
The Tahs have not developed a winning culture and playing style that they are prepared to stick to regardless.
Tah mangement will review coach Hickey and decide whether they want more of the same – to get into the finals and lose.
If not, they’ll find someone who has the technical understanding of the game, but more importantly the ability to inspire men into becoming a champion outfit, and creating a winning culture.
Achieve this and the crowds and finances will look after themselves.
The alternative for the Tahs is financial implosion in one of the most competitive football/entertainment marketplaces in the world.
The Tahs need a winning coach with a proven record of achievement. An insightful coach with the courage to right a moribund culture that has the ability to self-sabotage. Ewen McKenzie tried but in the end got stymied.
The $64 million question is will Tah management share this view and have the courage to appoint a coach who can build a champion rugby team, while supporting the necessary change to a winning culture in the process.
Chris from Kiama
Guest
There are too many problems with the Tahs and Rugby in general to tackle them all at once. But to tackle them at all there needs to be real leadership at the ARU and Tahs Board level and this has been sadly lacking. Juniors - rugby is played at very few schools - what are we doing to convince more schools to play rugby as their main (male) winter sport? And that's just in NSW and Qld. Private schools and just a few public schools. Not good enough to keep a flow of good athletes coming. Administration - the leather-patch brigade still doing their thing. They can't run a professional code, a district comp or the juniors effectively. Too busy playing games. We need a new model and a lot of new people - but where will we get them from? The stadiums - SFS is pretty old and tired, everyone struggles to fill ANZ, prices are way above AFL or NRL. The players - much has been made of the disconnect between players and fans and it's true. Where are the cult figures who fans love - I can name heaps in NRL in particular? Only TPN and occasionally KB - though even he is rather aloof. It will take a massive cleanout - a la Reds - to get things happening - if it isn't too late already. I've got to say though that the crowd at Auckland for the semi was less than exciting so maybe it's wider than just the Tahs.
Matthew Skellett
Guest
Well Greg they may be "grumpy old men" but they have a right to be and so they should for the mediocre rubbish the Waratahs serve up EVERY season
greg
Guest
"Achieve this and the crowds and finances will look after themselves" ha ha nothing will make the grumpy old men who call themselves waratahs fans!! these old men like to run down the club more than they do support it
Matthew Skellett
Guest
MEDIOCRITY with a capital"M" is what the Waratahs are all about -"near enough is good enough" is their unwritten motto stamped on their foreheads pure and simple - I now refuse to encourage such stupidity by supporting this organisation anymore .
Rickety Knees
Roar Guru
Agreed Damo - it would be great to see such an initiative introduced and certainly wouldn't do our games image any harm. Aboriginal players have an X factor that is worth investing in, why Rugby doesn't maximise these opportunities is beyond me.
Damo
Guest
Yes Rickety, this has been an ARU neglected void as well. Are they expecting Joeys and other GPS schools to keep finding Kurtley's and giving them footy scholarships? Why the ARU does not, in conjunction with local clubs like Uni (Redfern) and Parramatta and Penrith create visible and celebrated indigenous involvement is beyond me. The NRL's efforts in this regard do great things for these communities as well as their code. The ARU sitting on it's hands is shamed in comparison. Sometimes there is no argument when the Mungoes call rugby 'elite'.
Rickety Knees
Roar Guru
Yeah JP you are right - Avoca Beach 1st Grade (2006 NSW Team of Year) have won the past 5 premierships on the Central Coast playing a wonderful brand of running Rugby. Avoca Beach is a small community of about 4,000, our production line to national honours include: Quentin Fyffe - Canada Matthew Hodgson - Australia, Australian u/21, Australia Sevens David Horton - Australian Schoolboys Tobie McGann - Australian Womens Jesse Parahi - Australia 7s, Australian Schoolboys Nick Mezritz - Indonesia Trent Dyer - Australia 7s
Jack Petro
Guest
... oh, and ... Ricketey ... the Waratahs will never be Avoca Beach ... so don't expect them to be as good as your boys!
Jack Petro
Guest
Rickety - when you say "NSW Rugby Powers", you do mean "Waratahs HQ" as they are now separate from NSW Rugby - which has a staff of 3!
Rickety Knees
Roar Guru
Sorry Chester - we will have to agree to disagree - IMHO being affiliated to Petersham and Canterbury Rugby Clubs does not constitute taking Rugby "across the road to Redfern". Just about every club has or has had players with indigenous backgrounds playing for them - this no big deal. Starting a Sydney Uni sponsored indigenous Rugby Club in Redfern would be a big deal in fact a huge deal!
Jaredsbro
Roar Guru
What is it about the 1890s to 1907/8 approach to Sydney Metropolitian Rugby is so bad, that there's been a subsequent (over a century) of self-loathing about the district system, which the NRL is now descended from. It was after all the NSWRU that invented this system. Surely we don't hate RL as much as our forebears did to completely do a year zero on the district system. Anyways this system would work well. Particularly if players had to be afflliated to the nearest club to where they live and for the number of Waratahs to be capped per suburb/club district.
Damo
Guest
What you fail to grasp Drop Kick is that the players are not , in the main, being criticised. The culture is being discussed because culture effects how well (talented and committed) players are able to perform. If you spoke to John Eales in private you might hear something less like his gracious article and a little more like a 'cultural' discussion. Intelligent mature people are able to criticise things. That is how improvements can be planned and created. The fans are not going to respond better because you write posts that demand that they 'should'. The fans can do whatever they like. They are not being paid. The board, the executive, the coaches and the players .....well .....they have to make account to 'whining commentators' who are still, unlike you, happy about the law of free speech.
Hawko
Guest
This reply does not address the blatant untruth in your first paragraph. People who are not able to admit errors are very likely to believe that their set of beliefs must be right no matter what the facts are.
chester
Guest
Ricketty I think you will find that in the past 3 years there have been several indigenous members of the under 16 sydney uni rep side. Most of these players play league aswell and unfortunately they are often signed by league clubs which have deeper pockets and they don't continue to play union. You shouldn't comment about Sydney Uni if you haven't bothered to get your facts right
Rickety Knees
Roar Guru
Chester, Sydney Uni is the current great "cherry picker' of Sydney Rugby, in the past it has been the eastern suburb based clubs. Uni does little for junior rugby (apart from a flag waving exercise with Canterbury Junior Rugby Club). To its eternal shame in all the years it has been in existence it has never taken the game across the road to our indigenous brothers in Redfern. It has done well to survive but it could do a whole lot better.
Rickety Knees
Roar Guru
JT - this article has been written in the hope that this public discourse will be read by the NSW Rugby Powers that be. There are alot of disaffected Waratah fans out there that have to be reconnected with. IMHO playing at places like Gosford, Parramatta and Wollongong would be a major step to renegaging the fans and getting away from the perception that the Tahs are only catering to the Elites of Sydney.
Damo
Guest
What if the Parramatta /Penrith local derby was the curtain raiser for such a S15 game? Now that would draw a crowd.
Damo
Guest
Yes Greco, and why is this so? Why cannot the team engage with the communities from which it's players came? A game at Parra Stadium for instance, with attendant grass roots marketing to ensure a full house, would have three way benefit - 1.the team would have the support of a grateful living western Sydney community 2. the western rugby community would have access to the team and the code at it's elite level near where they live 3. The code would claim it's place in the communities that have massive fan and player potential. As well as creating a following for the big games when larger stadia need to be filled. Local, 'living' (as opposed to 'desert' venues like ANZ) communities are the best to engage with passionate fans. Plus a smaller stadium brings unity to the crowd. The dollars would fall for these games but if managed competently, the passion would rise. Then we may see a team engaged to a fan base that drives and encourages them to an entertaining style of play. I agree with Drop Kick about one thing - the fans are a big part of the problem. How do the Tahs get fans , passionate fans, to come and scream for their 'local' team? It is a structural / cultural problem. Suits with budgets and power have to make decisions so that the excited, passionate, 'fan' turns up.
Damo
Guest
Yes, Jack And No, Drop Kick If there is only a problem with the 'fan culture' as Drop Kick attests, then the whole problem will be solved when all the fans and potential fans read Drop Kick's post and wake up to themselves. I look forward to that day as I await World Peace and honesty in politics.
AndyS
Guest
Unsurprising when NSW/Q'ld have historically shared 90% of the club funding though. I'm with you if you are advocating a redistribution, maybe after a balancing up period of eight or nine years?