Dump the NRC and build player base to fix Australian rugby

Almost twenty years ago, rugby turned professional. We’ve seen some highs in that time, as well as some lows.

As ARU CEO Bill Pulver has asked for supporter feedback on structure and spending, I thought I’d throw in my two cents.

In 1994 the ARU, NSWRU, Queensland Rugby Union and country unions around Australia were managed by committees elected from the ranks of the clubs. These committees were populated by people who brought a wide variety of skill levels from a very broad range of activities.

All were unpaid, fiercely competitive and passionate volunteers. The Sydney club competition was widely considered one of the strongest competitions in the world. Queensland and NSW Country were not far behind.

Before professionalism, Australia came third in the 1987 Rugby World Cup and then first in 1991. Financially NSW was not strong due to the building and mismanagement of the Concord Stadium, but the ARU was holding it’s own.

The people who had been managing rugby were seen to be inexperienced in dealing with the complexities of professional sport. To use the popular phrase of the time people from the ‘top end of town’, with business experience, took control.

Very quickly liquidators, car salesmen and bankers were running NSW Rugby and the ARU. Within the boards, there was limited knowledge of the requirements of rugby in Australia.

With strong public support coming off the back of the successful Rugby World Cup campaign, the ARU was awash with funds. Under control of the CEO, Managing Director and Chairman of the Board, John O’Neill, the ARU went on a massive infrastructure and support explosion, staff numbers multiplied and multiplied again.

John O’Neil engaged a consultant from his days at the State Bank of NSW, Dr Michael Crawford, a person who had never seen a game of rugby, to develop a plan for the future of rugby in Australia. This became the Crawford Report – the basis for the direction of rugby.

A key thrust of this report was the creation of a third tier in Australian Rugby, a tier between club rugby and Super Rugby.

The ARU abandoned all existing programs in place during the early 1990s, including the groundbreaking and world-recognised coaching program developed under the auspices of the Australian Institute of Sport and run by Dick Marks and Brian O’Shea.

This program had consolidated skilled coaching processes and was available to all coaches throughout Australia. It provided a consistent and practical methodology and played a significant role in improving the quality of coaching of rugby in Australia.

The ARU policy under John O’Neill was, “if the Wallabies are going well, all else will follow”, as Alan Jones, former Wallaby coach commented, “it was like building a house starting with the roof”

On top of the incredible staffing numbers were the massive amounts of dollars thrown at recruiting high profile rugby league players. Development of Junior and grassroots rugby was downgraded and Club Rugby in Sydney and Brisbane was consistently given reduced funding and support.

It is interesting to note, most of the players in the winning Rugby World Cup team of 1999 had come from the amateur programs and coached by people from the Marks O’Shea program.

Today we see five Super Rugby teams, with only two just making the top half of the competition. Australia is ranked sixth in the world and the ARU has announced a $6.3 million deficit.

The ARU is technically broke, as are four out of five of the Super franchises. Funding for Club Rugby has been reduced from $100k in 2009, to $28k in 2011 and to nil in 2015.

We do however have a third tier.

Rugby participants, the ARU proudly announced, are up by 16 per cent. This however is misleading as the numbers are bolstered by carnival participants (whatever this means) and strong growth in women’s rugby.

The number of serious participants is actually close to 248,000. It is from this group our Super and national teams come – and this is the real problem.

Australian rugby does not have enough boys playing rugby. This is not a new problem, but has got worse and is now critical. Club rugby participants rose by 1 per cent and despite the clubs best efforts this is not enough.

The ARU approach through the late 90s and 2000s has been to pick the low hanging fruit via talent identification programs. This in fact exacerbates the problem as many late-developing, but talented players are turned off and change codes or give sport away if they are not selected in a program.

There is no effective net to catch the late developers.

The ARU, apart from asking for funds through a Sports Foundation, have asked for ideas and thoughts on how to address the critical situation the ‘top end of town’ have left Australian rugby in.

Participation, serious participation, is the most urgent situation to be addressed. The goal should be to have 500,000 registered players by 2025.

To do this, the already existing but vastly unfunded club infrastructure should be employed. Clubs in Sydney, NSW Country, Brisbane, Queensland Country, ACT, Victoria and Western Australia should be given the responsibility of developing rugby at the grass roots in their allocated areas.

They should be funded, supplied with appropriate admin support, technical coaching support and management support. They should interact with their State bodies, encouraged to develop a strong and competitive competition, which has public credibility.

The ARU and the State body would need to be hands on at every level. Each club would have responsibility for their junior network. From the ARU, similar to the Marks O’Shea method, a consistent program would be required to ensure all coaches and people making contact with players are teaching correct fundamentals.

The clubs responsibilities would extend to ensuring programs are in place to reach all schools, not just GPS. The practice of asking parents of junior recruits for up to $250 to enroll must cease immediately.

There needs to be a database of every recruit from the earliest age, parents and grandparents, this should be maintained by the clubs and be transparent to the State body and the ARU. It should be for life as these people become the supporters of twenty or thirty years time.

The third tier should go. Integrated clubs have never worked, the difference between a good club player and a good state player is about 20 or 30 hours of perfect coaching and training a week.

If club coaches are coached and skill levels are enhanced, the skills of the players and the standard of club rugby will not require an expensive and unwatched further expense.

As reported on 5 May 2015, only 76,160 people watched the NRC in 2014.

Clubs should be encouraged to develop their own referees, being exposed to juniors and working their way though colts into grade. It is significant there was not one Australian referee considered good enough to be placed in the upcoming World Cup squad.

If club rugby is developed to a serious credible level TV exposure follows, as this comes so does sponsorship. Today club sponsorship has almost dried up but five years ago sponsors were pumping over $5 Million into Sydney club rugby, some went to paying players, much however went to development and developing skill levels.

In today’s world, this could easily be $10 million into Australian rugby, not at the expense of the Wallabies. Tribalism and competiveness are powerful tools. Volunteers should be encouraged, trained and acknowledged, again a very powerful force.

Dr Crawford did not understand this.

Put simply it is a numbers problem. Consider tennis and swimming in Australia. Australian tennis was strong when there was a court on every corner and most kids had a racket.

However as courts made way for houses and Tennis Australia adopted a talent identification program, Australian tennis has dropped off the radar.

Swimming on the other hand is very strong, pretty much every child is taught to swim in Australia. What this means is everyone participates and the special ones are identified. If the child is keen, he or she then embarks on a program.

There is never any shortage of top swimmers.

Last week Football Australia released its twenty-year strategic plan. Significant among its key objectives is massive growth of participants with a target of 3000 elite players and a consistent coaching philosophy at grassroots.

Australian rugby can be turned around. We just need to do the basics well. We must foster a strong local competition from juniors up with skilled coaches, keen volunteers and most importantly a large, strong player base.

Russ Tulloch
President of Northern Suburbs 1992 – 1995
Member of NSW Rugby Committee 1996 – 1997
Life Member Northern Suburbs Rugby Club