The National Rugby Championship kicks off this weekend and I’m going to try really hard to care about it this year. Honestly.
I’ve followed the NRC since its inception and even paid to attend games, but I’ll flat out admit that not for one moment have I ever cared about who won. Because I never had a reason to.
Herein lies the problem.
I’m all for the NRC as a competition – the more rugby that gets played and televised the better. But a competition like the NRC is a lot like a diamond – there is not a great deal of substance in a diamond on a molecular level that makes it worth the monetary value associated with it. Put simply, diamonds are so highly valued only because we as a society value them so highly.
The crowd at Saturday’s Shute Shield grand final has been waved around like a trophy of its own by rugby die-hards as proof that rugby, at the grassroots level, remains alive and well.
But that crowd is built upon generations of tribalism associated with decades of club rivalry. Unfortunately that passion is rarely, if ever, transferable to other formats of the code. While more than 16,000 packed into North Sydney Oval on Saturday, last season’s grand final of the NRC – supposedly the next level of the game – was watched by two men and a dog in Tamworth.
But while that tribalism cannot be instantly transferred, it can be tapped in to.
The secret to increasing the value of the NRC in the public’s eyes may be to make each team representative of a community. While the NRC’s current KPI’s may relate more to player-development outcomes than grassroots engagement, why not try and have both?
Football Federation Australia managed to pull it off when they established the A-League. Rugby can follow their lead, and learn from their mistakes.
(Photo: Josh Brightman Balanced Image Studio)
Let’s look at two examples from the A-League – one hit and one miss.
The competition had a complete air swing on the Gold Coast. They plonked a team there and said “This is your team. This is the name. These are the colours. They’ll play at this stadium.” It didn’t work. Shockingly, Gold Coast football fans didn’t feel any connection to the team, so they didn’t buy memberships or attend games. Two and a half years after the club was founded it was dissolved.
Contrast that with the Western Sydney Wanderers. When it was decided that Western Sydney would get a team, Football Federation Australia held fan forums in Sydney’s western suburbs and fans were polled on everything from what they’d like the team to be called, what colours they’d like the team to wear and what stadium they’d be most likely to attend to watch a game.
The most popular name suggestion was ‘Wanderers’. The two most popular kit colour choices were red and black. The most popular stadium choice was Parramatta.
So when the Western Sydney Wanderers were announced, wearing red and black and playing their home games at Parramatta Stadium, the people felt like they were, in some small part, ‘their’ team. In five years the Wanderers have gone from non-existent to a membership base of more than 20,000.
While it is too late to start from scratch in that manner for the NRC teams, it does provide a blueprint for how to build that connection long term – if the NRC lasts that long which, without an increase in engagement, it may not.
At the moment, most club rugby supporters don’t have any form of emotional connection to the NRC, and sport is all about emotion. Take emotion out of the game and it’s just big blokes running around a paddock after a piece of inflated rubber.
The funny thing with emotion though is that it’s actually quite easy to acquire – it’s human nature to care about what we know about and are connected to. We just need to make people connected.
While it may be unrealistic at this time to insist that NRC teams be stocked with only players aligned with clubs and or zones in their respective regions, that may be the way forward. Then at the very least the NRC teams can lay claim to being representative of those regions and most importantly, give those rugby communities a genuine connection.
The NRC have tried to set the competition up that way, aligning the Sydney Rays with the four north Sydney clubs and associating the Greater Sydney Rams with most of the rest. But we still have the NSW Country Eagles supposedly representing Sydney University, Randwick and Eastern Suburbs.
It’s likely that supporters of Randwick will feel the same level of connection to the Country Eagles that rugby fans from the country feel towards the Galloping Greens from Coogee.
And when you dig deeper to find that the Country Eagles squad is coached by and stacked full of players from the Warringah Rats – who are supposedly aligned to the Sydney Rays – the legitimacy of the pathway from club rugby to NRC takes a hit.
While demanding an ‘origin’ criteria for NRC selection, where players are only eligible to play for the NRC team that represents the area aligned to the club they currently play for (or have previously played for in the cases of NSW and QLD Country) may be unrealistic, it would give the competition a real boost of legitimacy.
Because until there is a legitimate reason to connect emotionally, the NRC will continue to be just a player development league, and on this season’s showing from Australian teams in Super Rugby, a poor development league at that.
ThugbyFan
Guest
I hear you Bakkies and pretty much agree with what you say. Read my post and its very NSW-centric and it's who I am spitting chips at. I sometimes wonder if the Tahs boofheads and NSWRU, together with their mates in the Shute Shield clubs, are doing their damnest to kill off the NRC. As I said in my post "Some Shute and pretty much ALL of Country NSW rugby clubs have been shafted out of anything to do with the NRC." while other Shute sides have wrapped the 3 NRC teams into their own little fiefdoms. This seriously has to stop. NSW is the biggest rugby state and the organisations within are making a mockery of it. As for the BBL, I think most Sydney folks see the Thunder as Western Sydney and the Sixers as the Inner and North Sydney rich bish, so you have a very nice separation for fans to align to. I cannot comment on Renegades and Stars. And yep, I agree with you that most of the names of the BBL teams make we want to chunder on the Thunder down Under. Gee, Hobart starts with H and Sydney starts with S, so lets be bl00dy clever and think of a name starting with H or S. DOH! Amazed its not Hobart Hangmen and Sydney Sycophants. LoL
piru
Roar Rookie
Address your concerns to the NSWRU I would say
Tom G
Guest
As naive as it may sound I can't understand why the NRC isn't simply an elite comp for those sides finishing in the top 5 spots in the Shute and Qld comps with a side from Canberra, Melbourne and Perth just for good measure. By making all of the sides brand new(ok 3 or so years old) there has to be an added burden of finding a market for these teams who have no real inherent following. Far better to use the tribes that exist than try to invent new ones in a market that isn't too receptive to the code anyway. As for the other sides who don't make it into the comp there could always be a second tier comp running concurrent.. seems to work well in other markets but was never a consideration here. My first reaction to the NRC teams during their first attempt some years ago was that I looked at a side like the Rays. Back then it was an amalgam of Manly, Rats, Norths, Gordon I think. All of these teams have huge tribal rivalry and see eye to eye on little.. to make matters worse they took their home games to Gosford, I guess to be neutral. They won the comp in and most of their games in front of no-one and played some great footy but to what point??
concerned supporter
Guest
TWAS, Your comment is too warped, too stupid to warrant a reply.
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
But it's not apples with apples. One includes everybody who viewed one game. The includes everybody who viewed another game from a specific source, but ignores the viewers of the same game from another source.
concerned supporter
Guest
TWAS, The master of deception & negativity ."Apples with Apples" it is called. This was an article by respected Daily Telegraph Rugby writer, Iain Payten,Have you heard of him? Ch 7 compare with 7 Mate - 69,000 v 61,000 The SS GF was not on Foxtel, nor was it televised in Victoria, S Australia, W Australia or Tasmania. TWAS, Any TV ratings for the NRC games on Saturday & Sunday/ Any mainstream publicity for the NRC games on Saturday & Sunday? Even Brett did not do an article,perhaps there was not sufficient cash in your beloved ARU's coffers to pay him.
concerned supporter
Guest
Bakkies, So what,it it a Sydney competition,. Why would it be televised in Adelaide, Perth? But I think it was live in New Zealand,& on delay in Queensland. Stop your moaning.
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
How is it dishonest to include Foxtel? Did Foxtel viewers not watch the AFL?
Bakkies
Guest
Such a success it was only televised live in NSW and ACT.
concerned supporter
Guest
TWAS, " Where’s the network saying how great it was" Rubbish Question.Makes no sense. The answers to your continued negativity, ask Nick Fordham & John Murray.
concerned supporter
Guest
TWAS, you are the master of deception. Did you read the Daily Telegraph article properly? Read : Ch 7 ratings Shute Shield GF 69,000 Swans v Carlton - 7 Mate 61,000 DIFFERENCE 8,000 Go back to school TWAS,how did you go at simple subtraction? Then you made the dishonest statement including Foxtel, even Australia wide Foxtel and comparing them with the Channel 7 stations ratings. How can the ARU survive financially? Lion Nathan & BMW were MAJOR partners (Sponsors). They are gone. How much money from the ARU Net Profit or may I say it, Net Loss in 2017 ? Crowds in every Wallaby Test this year have been poor.How much shortfall in Income does this crowd shortfall represent?
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
Ahh the classic Concerned Support skewed statistics. So in summary you are saying the Shute Shield GF drew 61k, while the Swans drew over 300k? How come the only people talking about how successful it was are the SRU? Where's the network saying how great it was?
concerned supporter
Guest
Bakkies, you say "Sydney clubs will always look for something to moan about. The NRC was put back a week due to the parasites scheduling Shut Shield Final on the first week of the NRC. " Do you have any crowd figures, TV ratings, or any other news in relation to last weekends NRC games?Even Brett has not done an article on the 4 games.NRC publicity is practical zero.Buildcorp pulled their NRC sponsorship. On the other hand, "THE success of the Shute Shield Grand Final was not just confined to North Sydney Oval last weekend, with TV ratings showing Warringah’s emotional victory drew a bigger free-to-air audience than the Sydney Swans’ game. A resurgent Sydney club rugby season culminated with the Rats taking out the Shute Shield over Norths in front of an estimated 15,000 people in North Sydney. It wasn’t quite a record Grand Final crowd but is still an almost 400 per cent improvement on the 4000 people who attended the Shute Shield decider just three years ago. The decision by Channel Seven to move the Grand Final from 7TWO to their main channel also paid dividends, with 69,000 people tuning into the 3pm broadcast. That’s a decent result on a Saturday afternoon but what proved surprising was Warringah playing Norths drew a bigger free-to-air audience than the Swans, who thumped Carlton across town at the SCG in a 4pm clash. The Swans only had 61,000 people watching on 7Mate — 8000 fewer than the club footy. It must be said the AFL game was also shown on FoxFooty, but Sydney’s share of a national pay-TV audience of 259,000 was only 26,000. “We are absolutely thrilled with how everything went,” Sydney Rugby Union president Dave Begg said. “It was the culmination of a fantastic year. Obviously it has been tinged with tragedy but you can only be proud about the way the rugby has come together. “Saturday was a great day but it’s not even just about the Grand Final. It’s about the energy throughout the whole Shute Shield and the community coming together and saying “this is a great product”. “If Seven have the capacity to put us on the main channel next year, those ratings figures go to prove that Shute Shield can be a ratings winner.” Iain Payten, Daily Telegraph, 30 August 2017. So there you are "Bakkies the Bitter One",these TV ratings were probably greater than most Saturday afternoon Super Rugby game during 2017, even night games.Bet they were better than the NRC games.
Bakkies
Guest
The Vikings were started up as a partnership for the NRC between UC (who came back on board as a sponsor), the Brumbies and the Vikings. This is when the branding should have been nipped in the bud. Petitions were sent to the Brumbies to reconsider the name and colours. Don't think playing in Erindale was that big a deal as Rugby Park doesn't exist these days and Manuka Oval has been taken up by Cricket and AFL. The pitch will have to be mowed out as soon as the AFL finishes.
Bakkies
Guest
It's the NSWRU. The QRU back their teams. The reason why Qld Country were forced on the Gold Coast was that the private run Bond Uni were willing to back the team to ensure it was sustainable.
Bakkies
Guest
Than you have Gladstone, Yeppon, Mackay, Rockhampton up on the Capricorn Coast where the likes of Mark Chisholm, Rob Simmons, Steve Moore come from. I am sure that there are a few ex Rockhampton juniors are in the Qld Country NRC side.
Bakkies
Guest
'I don’t understand why we can’t have a national club competition? Make it professional (but control the funding, no top-ups, so it’s equal) ' Ask the Sydney clubs they blocked it in the early 90s and the smaller clubs will also be left to dwindle.
Bakkies
Guest
Incorrect. If it went back to no NRC and the Force remained it will go back to the dark old days of WA based Super Rugby players being siphoned off by the Sydney and Brisbane after Super Rugby finished. Their coaches wouldn't see them again till pre-season. Pre season was also starting ridiculously early compared to SA and NZ due to the fact that the Super Rugby contracted players weren't playing Rugby. The players in Australia weren't happy with that (see Mortlock's comments about it) as those not in the Wallabies would prefer to play Rugby rather than run around cones and up hills. Sydney clubs will always look for something to moan about. The NRC was put back a week due to the parasites scheduling Shut Shield Final on the first week of the NRC. The Shut Shield clubs have it far better than their NZ counterparts who finish their club season in July.
Bakkies
Guest
'For instance, if the eagles are affiliated with Randwick, easts and uni (along with nsw country),' See my post above it's more the axis of evil having to align with Country as they couldn't afford to tender for their own backed team.
Bakkies
Guest
'Look at the mess called NRC, some Shute clubs and SR Franchises are ignoring/opposing the NRC, others have jumped on board while others run it as their fiefdom. Some Shute and pretty much ALL of Country NSW rugby clubs have been shafted out of anything to do with the NRC.' Incorrect. All of the Super Rugby teams bar the Waratahs are supporting their NRC teams, the two Qld teams have the backing of the QRU and have club coaches working with the Reds assistants. The way it should be. Ideally there should be a third Queensland team of course backed by the QRU. It's the fault of the Waratahs and NSWRU for letting three clubs go unrepresented. If the western Sydney clubs and regions continue to be unrepresented they should succeed to the Brumbies. Something that should have occurred years ago. The ARU then channel more funding to Brumbies Rugby to develop Rugby in those parts of Sydney that were neglected by the Tarts and NSWRU. As for Country Eagles the axis of evil clubs Easts and Randwick (the other axis of evil club Sydney Uni aligned with them due to the decline of the Stars) only fell in line with them to provide a Sydney based training centre and couldn't afford to tend for their own eastern Sydney based team. As for the Base Ball League what's the story with the two Melbourne teams? Who do you choose to support of the two teams that both play in inner city stadiums? At least with the Sydney rabble there is a east/west thing with the horrendously named Thunder and Stars. Given how tribal Tasmania is with north and south I seriously doubt Cricket supporter teams in Devonport and Launceston are too keen on supporting a Hobart only team in the Hurricanes. By the way what does a Hurricane have to do with Hobart?