Five ideas for rugby union in Australia

- Need national (ie volume) negotiated sponsorship of insurance etc for all levels from grassroots - way too expensive for kids to 'try'rugby. Kills participation hence the enthusiastic interest. - ARU Need to start managing & supporting development of club officials, to support the grass roots clubs with knowledge experience and capabilities, plus support some of this key cost that limits the growth of clubs (think of the attraction to a club that has professional head coach and trainer to max the performance & skills levels of both amateur coaches and players). Foster the improvement & support of everyone who wants to stay amateaur, but also provide an integrated pathway for those who want to take it even more seriously. Track the grassroots clubs by KPIs and put resources and funding into those that are falling behind. - Have not yet seen anything made of fan 'road trips' for any of the competitions. Think the NRC could become a real hoot for weekend road trips to the regional centres and Fiji for nothing more than the pure love of Rugby. - Could mixed 7's work? If a way could be devised, it would open up the whole social aspect - think mixed netball etc. Perhaps with an adaptation of 'golden oldies' rugby rules. 3/4 gender split with the reverse in 2nd half (subs maintain the split)- and opposition teams don't know what the split will be until everyone is on the field.

piri I can appreciate what youdo but you are used to the heat and I cant see the Highlanders or most NZ sides handling those sorts of temps

The drinks runners run all game in winter so what would it be like in sumner

'They really need to start winning'. That's true and the strongest reason for ARU to invest in a national tournament - because more Australian teams will play finals rugby, and an Australian team will win it every year! When your local team plays in national finals it attracts public interest. Super Rugby guarantees only 1 Australian team a finals match each season, and that one team has never been Melbourne or WA. That game might not be against an Australian opponent. In comparison Victoria and WA play multiple AFL finals each year which captures the public imagination. Same with NRL in NSW and Queensland. Rugby? Nothing much. Lack of domestic finals is a MAJOR FLAW in the design of the Super Rugby tournament. The irony is a complete home and away series in the Australian Super Conference already. But they mucked up the communications around that. The ladder is muddied by points from cross-conference games. No one knows who came out on top head-to-head between the Aussie franchises. And there are no conference (domestic) knock out finals in Super Rugby. It might be faster to fix that (separate the Aussie conference points from cross-conference points and introduce Australian conference knock out matches to find the winner) rather than wait for the NRC to lift off?

I am advised that an Islander's age relates to the date of Christening rather than the date of birth .So a "12yr old " islander could indeed be 13yrs of age as from his d.o.b. Is this correct?

Agree piru - I think this is what's stopping the NRL putting their 17th team in Perth. As I've said before, I don't think the market is big enough for both a Rugby and a league team, and Rugby is far better suited as there is quite a few SA, English and Kiwis there. Hope the Force can stay there, they really need to start winning, although that's still no guarantee - the storm have only increased 5% in 15 years at the top, but if you don't have a least a few good years, it's hard to maintain the enthusiasm.

Clipper I can only speak for WA but yes, since the Force came to town the rugby comp far outstrips league over here. Several new clubs and age groups have been added over the past ten years and the junior comps are now too big for their former home at Britannia and are now farmed out all round Perth. A big reason the Force is important to rugby in Australia imo as the NRL has been circling - they'd love to put another team over here.

That's interesting In Brief - is it due to bigger player numbers in VIC and WA and other states which don't have any league presence? Is Sydney still declining, or has that halted?

I'm another public school type, the stereo type is BS. Regarding player numbers they are much higher now than ever before. The number of senior full contact rugby union players in Australia today is almost the same as the number of senior, full contact rugby league players, but we don't hear that league is dying.

Not entirely. They've been playing rugby since about 1900 and they also love soccer, to the point that their Women's side won the World Cup. Much is probably due to the Anglo-Japanese alliance following Japan's defeat of Russia. I think an Australian university side of some sort toured Japan shortly after WW1 and went down to some Japanese university rugby sides.

because there is no rugby anywhere in the country below Super level except for the Shute Shield. It's one comp in one state - not rugby's only breeding ground

Makes navigational sense - long distance air travel along a N-S line of longitude is far less demanding than along an E-W parallel of latitude. Interesting that the Japanese have taken to the very British Rugby Union, especially with their devotion to the very American baseball.

@Benof PhnomPenh Yes. For a start the Tokyo Sunwolves should play in the Australian Super conference and not an African one.

Will Genia & Quade Cooper last time we won the Tri-Nations buddy!

Rugby is surging in popularity in Japan (starting from a solid base) to the point that domestic games are on the box and the national players are recognised to the level that they appear on national ads selling everything from laundry detergent through to cars. Does this surge in popularity to Australia's North represent an opportunity for ARU? At this stage only soccer really engages constructively in Asia, and the sport benefits greatly from this. Rugby is afforded a window of opportunity to at least begin an engagement with Asia via Japan that would benefit the sport both in Australia and Japan. It may be something that is outside of rugby's traditional line of thinking, however that is perhaps what is required.

'NRC does not offer a pathway' Bulldust

Wallabies have beaten NZ once since Deans left.

Cheers frullens, Any wisdom to impart to Darren Lehmann and Steve Smith ?

Daly, Kearns , Mckenzie randwick front row and a large reason we won the 91 World Cup . There are now no combinations