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Pulver must be ruthless and clubs must be selfless

Roar Guru
16th September, 2013
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The ARU needs your help to plan for the future of the game. (AAP Image/Dan Peled)
Roar Guru
16th September, 2013
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It’s a fine point when you think about it, isn’t it? You have the Sydney clubs telling the ARU they nurture all of the talent, so the ARU shouldn’t have the right to dictate.

Yet a lot of that talent is young guys who have had to come from interstate to get noticed, largely because of the stranglehold those same clubs have had on rugby for so many years.

Largely because those clubs did not assist the interstate clubs to become stronger. Largely because those clubs took whatever came to them from the private schools and neglected the high schools, in their own city/state.

How many Victorians, South Australians, Western Australians (in recent years) and Canberrans (in years gone by) went to Sydney or Brisbane to play rugby?

How many good players came out of public schools, who were completely ignored by those same people?

(In fact, why has the Australian schoolboys rugby organisation had so much influence on the landscape of Australian rugby?)

Those clubs had a monopoly and were happy to take those guys in, then conveniently forgot they were not Sydney born and bred.

A few come to mind, from recent times, Digby Ioane, Ewen McKenzie from Melbourne, blokes have moved south from Queensland, blokes have moved north to Queensland, how many Victorians, Tasmanians, South Australians and West Australians have come to Sydney and Brisbane, for opportunities?

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Not everyone who has been through the Sydney system came from Sydney. In fact, those clubs are not at all choosy.

Those same opportunities that were not available in Adelaide or Perth or Hobart or Melbourne because there was simply no collective will to help out.

Nobody to bite the bullet and have at least a half decent club competition in those states.

We all remember the scorn that was poured on the Brumbies in 1996. But then they started winning.

Even now, we are, unbelievably, arguing that Super Rugby players should be playing in the same city in which they are contracted. Jake White pulled it off, why not the rest of the franchises?

I went to a club game earlier in the season in Perth, between Associates and Nedlands – the guy I was travelling with could not believe that I would go to a club rugby game when there was an AFL game on between the West Coast Eagles and the Sydney Swans at Subiaco (are you kidding?!).

It was a nice afternoon on the verandah, and (I have to say) ‘Soaks’ have a fantastic clubhouse and canteen – but there was no real atmosphere, no players of any note and I struggled to see it as a breeding ground for the Force.

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It was a fairly entertaining game of footy, but not a first grade standard. What a shame.

Their marquee guy was Scott Staniforth. Well done to him, but wouldn’t it nice if it were a WA native?

Unlikely, because anyone who started as a junior at that club, showing any talent, is probably playing at a Sydney or Brisbane Club – and we continue to let it happen!

It would be unheard of in league or AFL for clubs to let their talent go elsewhere for their development, so why do we do it?

Why haven’t the strong clubs of the east helped the weaker clubs of the other states? Why has the ARU let it happen for so long?

Why is it cricket can develop a strong Sheffield Shield competition, with each state team relatively strong and competitive? Because they bit the bullet and got on with it a hundred or so years ago.

So what is our excuse? Cricket was essentially amateur until the Kerry Packer revolution of the late 70s, so there wasn’t that much difference.

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We could have done the same, when Australian Rules or rugby league weren’t that strong.

What have we done in the last hundred-odd years, other that sit around and debate self-interest issues?

Club rugby has been around for a very long time, in every capital city, but languishing in most.

We have allowed league, football and AFL to prosper while we argued between ourselves – largely the discussion has been between the private school populations of Sydney and Brisbane, and it has always been mostly about self interest.

Meanwhile, the rest of the rugby world has moved on, and we are in danger of being caught out, believing our own rhetoric, when the whole argument that the rhetoric is based on is seriously flawed.

We are in one of the toughest sporting markets in the world and still there is no collective will to get a business plan in place that will see rugby prosper over other codes.

We have the ludicrous situation where the Western Force players are crossing the country to play for Sydney clubs – are we really fair dinkum?

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I would have thought that, by now, it would have been a simple thing to insist they play where they live.

It seems this is not the case and that RUPA, or someone, has convinced everyone there is some contractual reason why they can’t be prevented from playing for Sydney clubs.

I can only assume the reasoning is that Sydney clubs are paying them and there is some restraint of trade provision at work. What a shame when it comes to that.

In Canberra we have, for years, sought to bring our standards up, and be competitive with the rest of the country.

But, we all remember how well the Kookaburras and the Vikings were received when they stuck their heads up above the trenches and started winning and beating Sydney and Brisbane clubs.

What was the response? kick them out of the competitions!

We all remember how the Canberra Colleges fared when they started having a stranglehold on the Waratah Shield.

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Believe it or not, the advent of professionalism has not yet totally eliminated the influence of the ‘alicadoos’ – little people with over-inflated ambitions. And lots of people with opinions that don’t reflect realism.

It is high time we all started navigating the ship in the same direction, and it is for the good of the game from the top down, not from the mid levels down and up – let’s get some serious direction into the equation.

The fact the Wallabies are currently directionless is probably due to the lack of direction from above that has ailed us for some years.

Gary Flowers had a go, for the good of rugby, John O’Neill canned the ARC for the good of the balance sheet, and look where we are now – Bill Pulver seems to be trying to get the ship back on course, but the shoals of self interest are threatening to see it stranded, yet again.

The starting point should be the ‘golden rule’ – he who owns the gold makes the rules!

If I were the ARU and I controlled who gets a Wallabies contract, I would try to think of ways to control the pathways to the gold (not the sponduli, but the jersey).

Bill Pulver is on the right track, but he needs to be more ruthless, or authoritative, with the clubs. They are the block to progress.

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If we are going to have a second tier, the clubs have to give up something.

They have to see themselves as the breeding ground, the contributors to the top level, the facilitators of the pathway.

They should be actively trying to develop players who can play at the highest levels and not always looking for something in return.

That insistence on recognition can only be a reflection of the fact their officials are hungry for personal recognition.

What is wrong with a bit of selflessness? What is wrong with turning up for your club with the goal being you see your young guys through to higher honours and ask nothing in return?

What do the District cricket clubs do? Why don’t we try to understand their model?

They have an amateur structure (how many people go to watch club cricket?) yet they have a fantastic second tier (the state teams) and then a hugely successful third tier, at the national level.

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I just don’t understand why we don’t look more closely at it.

The ARU appears to be on the right track, and should not be shy about showdowns with the Sydney clubs.

You are the peak body, you control the game for the good of everyone and that includes the people in Perth, Adelaide, Darwin, Oodnagallaby, Bong Bong, Ding Dong and everywhere else, so don’t be shy about it, Bill!

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