Blame football for rugby's decline

I think that is highly unlikely, as it stands many schools have more kids playing soccer than rugby in Sydney GPS schools, however rugby is still seen as the premier code and most likely always will. Just the way private schools work.

The Premiere code in GPS is now Football. In the next generation when those payers send their boys to their GPS code those schools will be known as Football schools and Rugby schools now longer. Scots has a similar decline to Kings. It is falling off a cliff for Rugby.

The ARU needs to spend more money on the cheerleaders, more development

I think your being silly, the Waugh family was poor and had no connections, that could even be a problem in cricket, in football it would be a much bigger problem. There was no doubt Waughs were most obssesed with cricket and that was going to be their choice. Steve Waugh was also going to become a teacher as a back up plan but lasted one day, then went on the dole for a period as well. Have a look at the case of Vardy from a poor background, he got put on the scrapheap from an academy at 16 and told he was too small. Mark Waugh was actually much shorter than Steve Waugh at one stage and they thought he would never grow. Rugby and rugby League have a long history of recruiting sprinters or anyone fast really.The Bulldogs according to Robbie Slater were interested in him, Slater had speed though. Canberra Raiders went to recruit the African Commonwealth games silver medallist but he tested positive for steroids, and he was even over 25 I think. With sevens speed has become the biggest commodity. Sevens gives one the opportunity to recruit some speedsters and then maybe they could transition over to 15's. The other side of the coin, is kicking skills. Hugo Porta one of the best kicking fly-halfs played as a junior with Boca Juniors. Kick off is extremely important in sevens, and hen you have the conversions, only the best kicker will get to have a go.

Football has for the past 5-7 years cleaned up the game,and are now offering a longer term career path for its players.Of course the attendances and viewer support is enormous.The game of sport has changed dramatically since our last glory days of John Eales and Rod Mcqueen(two truly special people),and Rugby has not kept pace with the demands.Entertaining play plus results swells attendances and viewership. Extra teams in Super Rugby does not equal quality players,better results,larger crowds,pleasing stye,or a production line for the Wallabies and therefore a more competitive national team.Its just gives the Networks more product , the players more money,and the ARU (hopefully) extra funds for development.,which they possibly have not used wisely.The expansion whilst possibly good for the global game,is detrimental to the game in Australia.We just do not have the number of quality players,and very few seem to have developed into Wallabies in waiting of so far. We need change-but thats another story.

Don't blame middy, it is his life producing day in day out articles and arguments like this.

Very few players are good at a top level at more than one code of football. It is very unlikely that any of the top 20 Soccer players in each state would ever make a top level team in any other type of football. The difficulty that top players face when trying to change codes shows this. The article is just silly. Football generally is in decline. AFL, NRL, A-League, and Rugby attendances are down not up. TV rating are all down also. Rugby is leading the way down, but all other codes are following. There is no "code war", and one code isn't in battle with any others. These are sports, and people can play what they like, it's not a case of one code trying to hoodwink players into playing. Football means football, and Soccer means Soccer. There is a clear, universally understood word for the game, and you choose not to use it. This is another example of where this article is just plain stupid.

The problem is we are not that good at Rugby or more to the point NZ is a far superior Rugby nation than Australia. The one thing that puzzled me the most is why we never called our best players especially those who played abroad. Just pick the best players in their respective positions and see what happens. Who cares where they are playing.

Think the decline began awhile back - parents have been sending their kids to what they perceive to be safer sports for many years now, hence the large decline in Rugby and league participation. Over time this has resulted in Football picking up - the result can be most clearly seen in Sydney, which is now an all code city - Football being the big winner, especially out west. Unfortunately, Rugby has borne the brunt of this - caught in a pincer movement from both Football and AFL, whereas league has only had to deal with Football - AFL has not yet become an all class game in Sydney, whereas Football always has been.

No domestic comp means no cattle . SIMPLE. Improve the Shute shield

"At Kings this year I read there were twice the football teams as there were rugby teams." -As a coach of rugby at Kings I can tell you, your ears need a good cleaning out, there are another five football teams which total about 352 players all up. However as rugby is a 15 man side there are 405 ish players, not exactly twice the football teams.

While league has nowhere near the same level of international exposure, its domestic presence is orders of magnitudes greater than unions. Kids see league players on tv every week and have their heroes that they idolise. Aside from Israel Folau I'd be shocked if any teenagers could name a single other Wallaby player.

League, Soccer and AFL are all eating into junior Rugby. I can see why AFL is eating and that is because of the money that code is throwing in schools AFL and that includes girls schools. I suppose with soccer there is the dual sword of supposed less risk and a large international exposure but for the life of me I cannot understand why League is mowing down Rugby in many areas of NSW and Queensland. League does not have anywhere near the international exposure and the injury toll, in League, is high. I realise that Rugby’s funds are limited but surely greater promotion and funding in schools and junior Rugby is needed to combat the other codes.

Agreed as well, and you can add what code can grow domestically when 3 to 4 months of there main season is dedicated solely to test rugby. This year June most of July/Aug/Sep you have one team running around, how it gods name does rugby is expect to grow with that set up.

Pretty speculative article - of course the top 20 soccer players in the land would stick with soccer, just as the top 20 swimmers are not going to take up walking all of a sudden.

Mid what about AFL? They've got teams in CAS schools now and also some GPS schools. I wouldn't blame football/soccer too much. It's a whole combination of things that has lead rugby in Australia to this point where they find themselves. I could provide a list of what I think are the root causes but it wouldn't achieve much. The poster Sheek has expressed his views many times and I agree with him.

T I am more talking of quality players who saw no future in Football poor training etc these players left to other codes they don't today.

I must admit my memory only goes back to the late 80's early 90's, I went to a CAS school and football and rugby were always on a par with regards to playing numbers. Somebody has created this myth that some time long ago rugby union was this immensely popular sport in Australia and football wasn't. I can't remember rugby union ever being more popular than football. I can remember attending university in Lismore and joining a local rugby union club, playing the first season of u/19. There were 20 boys there and the coached asked who had seen rugby union, 3 people put up their hand. Rugby has never been more popular as a sport in Australia than it is now but it will never be as popular as football.