Senior changes a reason for optimism in Australian rugby

Maybe it's not technically a conflict, but it fails the pub test when they use their media outlets to justify their decisions.

The RA had the right to veto but instead saw delusion and Unit Trusts in Melbourne.

I think this Castle woman appointment is not a good move, what is her experience.Too bad Allan Jones on radio holidays I am sure he would say a few things about this.Why not give the job to Peter Fitzsimmons a man with heaps of rugby and media experience.

Great post and a wake up call for those who take their teams for granted. Regardless of who a side is, when you invest emotionally, finacially and real time in a side you expect them to be around, you expect to be able to support them through good times and bad. Understand the personal 'diminished quality of life' statement as well. In life we make decisions to 'fill our time' and having done so you are invested so it must be horrid for someone to take that away under the circumstances it did. To start the new season with the team 'vanished' from all existence on the table, ground etc...ugghh. Imagine if Manchester United suddenly 'disappeared'. Besides the anarc!hy that ensues There'd be a lot of lost souls wandering around Manchester and elsewhere thats for sure.

Thanks Piru I, personally, am completely devastated by the lost of the Force. It has diminished the quality of my life to a material extent and I have now seen a side to Australian society that I detest. What makes it so hard to take is the fact that those in the east, especially Mosman, couldn't give a rats for what they have done to us in the West. Above all, I think of the loyalty shown by the Force squad and to a man wish them everything of the best in the years ahead. They are truly deserving of this.

Why.. we Roarers, of course!

I'm not really sure why we are holding much hope for Raelene to turn things around in Rugby land Australia. Out of all the things I read I can see how she is qualified to do so. Other than Heading up the Bulldogs and Netball NZ, I can’t see how this qualifies her for the job ahead. Everyone either seems quite positive though or then there’s the feeling sorry for her with the whole poison challis thing, maybe I missed something. Even a Polly would have announced a platform to get the job or even after they had the job, surely. Then there is the baby step argument going around that drastic change will happen, but not quickly, gradually. What changes??? Does anyone know how she got the job and what her plan is..........

no one but seeing as we don't have a rugby team to follow anymore, this is the discussion we're having. There's something in the water at the Roar which consistently turns banter into butthurt

If coffee’s your selling point you don’t deserve a rugby side. Who are you the rugby police?

Most def overpriced but over-hyped?

Hopefully this is a first step for us to be run by the nzrfu . We are becoming the NZ b team.

I see little room for optimism while Castle still reports to the current Board. This is the same Board that has recently leased (one year at a time) the Western Force IP back to RugbyWA but only after the playing squad was decimated. So the West can have a professional team but has to completely rebuild its player stocks AND find a competition to play in. Thanks for maintaining that development pathway EARU. This is the same Board that has relaxed the salary caps for the remaining clubs only to see the same level of largesse continue to be poured out upon the Melbourne Rebels who now have a >45 playing squad - with about a third ex-Force players. That should drive the Rebels player payments to $1.8M - $2M above the previous salary cap of $4.5M. I now understand that the EARU is going to pickup the difference. So much for the expected savings for grass roots rugby. Nevertheless - I wish Castle all the best. I hope she can reverse the tendency for the EARU to be so quick to make the wrong decisions about Australian rugby yet so slow to make the right ones. There is obviously no change in this direction as the continued obfuscation towards to IPRC proves.

You guys are all dreaming.. Castle or Clyne won't make a shred of difference. Rugby here's a toff private school sport, historically. Spoiled school kids absolutely don't ever "give their all", not even in a Wallabies jumper. Never ever do they genuinely hit that high mark, other than Sean MacMahon. And there's your entire problem. That 20 percent killer desire that, say, NZ players absolutely have to have, lest they be pilloried by the public.. Our guys don't have that, and will never have that. It's a brutal sport, and it's too easy for the privileged kids to just flick the brutal work to someone else. After a long line of varied local and international coaches, CEO's, directors blah blah blah blah blah. No different. Rugby is currently the sport played by Aussie kids with the soft constitution of privilege. Brad Thorn will leave a solid mark, given a few years to weed the sooks out.

They do,what NSW and QLD want and forgot that they should lead Australian rugby and not bow to wishes of one or two states. They are digging the hole deeper for themselves as they arr to weak to look out for the national interest.

Raelene Castle has a big job on her hands and she still has that idiot Clyne trying to manipulate her and the rest of the board. (which all need to go a blind man can see that) she doesn’t inspire much faith if she already thinks the current board is doing the right thing in axing the western force not paying our women rugby players and bringing our game into disrepute. Simon Poidevin says Australian rugby needs to work together but I can’t see how with the irreparable damage that the ARU has caused to Western Australian rugby. (Or is Western Australia not part of Australian rugby) there is no faith in rugby Australia they have poisoned rugby for so many with their underhanded and manipulative tactics to get rid of the Western Force. The hate that the ARU has created for themselves here in the west is unbelievable you can almost taste it whenever you talk to a rugby supporter, whether they are a Force supporter or any other rugby franchise supporter, the damage they have created is phenomenal and inexcusable. We here in the west are now deprived of any top level rugby and will be reduced to second tier rugby which is pretty sad for our up and coming players that want to play top level rugby with that pathway denied to them and the support of their family’s to be able to watch their children, siblings cousins friends play the game that they aspire too being denied to them. And yes it’s easy to say the eastern states team will pick them up if they are any good but who is going to pick up the cost of an airfare for the parents or the cost of accommodation of these aspiring young players so they can watch them children play at the top level of rugby, some of us here do not earn the great amounts that it cost to get to the eastern states, we are just everyday families who love the game, but we are the parents who get up in the early hours of the morning to ensure our offspring make it to those early morning games to those late night practise sessions standing over hot plates doing the sausage sizzles and other fund raising ventures in support of our club rugby on the hope that maybe our kids will be good enough one day to maybe become a super rugby player maybe even a Wallaby. If not at least we can go and watch top level rugby at its best. I don’t understand how cutting a team has increased our talent pool, the loss at the moment of a lot of our up and coming young players plus senior players heading overseas is so detrimental to the development of our young talent,(because there is no room here for them in Australian Rugby with only 4 super rugby teams) Imagine what they could learn from the likes of Polota Nau or Matt Giteau, Scott Fardy etc and I know that some have gone for the money but when they are in the twilight of their rugby careers they won’t have teams to come back too and pass on the rugby knowledge experiences that they have Like George Smith has done for the Reds. There should have never been a team cut it just needed to be managed better, which just shows how inept rugby Australia are at this, Raelene Castle needs to start a fresh without the hangers on like Clyne Eales and the rest of the board members, they need to go before the hate turns not just from western Australia but from the whole rugby community. As for Twiggy he never got involved until too late he like the rest of us we thought with the evidence in front of you there is no way of the force being cut, It still doesn’t make sense no matter which way you look at it, but that’s the ARU all over nothing makes sense except that they could do it despite their promises. I could say so much more about the injustice of Rugby Australia but I’m just a disillusioned parent and lover of rugby that wants more for grass roots rugby and the broader rugby community not just eastern states rugby.

When you read through all these posts, particularly those where the Vics are having a go at the West and vice versa, you get to see exactly what the ARU/RA/WHORU have achieved in 2017: The shrinking of the national rugby footprint and a bitchy animosity between the fans from all states.</em> Well done Clyne, Pulver and the merry men and women of the ARU Board. What an outstanding achievement. You all forget the men (and women) who put their bodies on the line each week for your entertainment and particularly those of the Western Force circa 2017 who showed incredible loyalty and strength of character in a situation forged by gross mismanagement and incompetence from Mosman. Against that who gives a (whatever) about which City's coffee is any good or which place is cooler than the other in the context of rugby.

my post was in humour

De Clyne is the biggest problem. Reading David Vaux's submission he mentions that de Clyne told the board not to trust Twiggy.

Hurling is played in the Summer.

Woodart's right Wellington coffee is generally very good. Perth coffee is overpriced and over hyped, like the rest of the place really. But one thing Perth is good at is self-promotion. As for the articles well the Telegraph for one claims every place it goes to is the best on the planet.... Don't know about Executive Style, but if it's w**k factor you're after Perth is the place to go.