How Rugby Australia can build the code in western Sydney

They won’t be short of a conversation topic

Thanks Oz. Very interesting. Two Shute clubs are having a shared reminiscence lunch tomorrow. One team is inside the cartel, one on the outer.

Well said that man!

Don't disagree with the premise of the article at all But super confused by what Private School that plays rugby would challenge a random school in Penrith to a match? And lose it to a bunch of first timers? Can't for the life of me think who that would be.....

Eastern Suburbs, Eastwood, Manly, Gordon, Northern Suburbs, Sydney University and Randwick. So Souths and Warringah not part of it

“ When stars came over from RL or when established locals who made it to the Wallabies or Tahs and wanted to play with their new mates at club level, where was the paymaster? I pay your salary, you’re going to stay/go to Penrith/Parramatta/insert another struggling club. You’ll train with them, play the very odd game when your calendar permits and go to schools in the area. Never happened. I have no vested interest in Western Sydney. I just care about the game. So many of these f£&kers do not, at least as much as it takes place beyond their narrow boundaries” I’ve said as much in recent years, ozinsa. Kurtley, Izzy and others should’ve been allocated to areas of market impact, not to boost the prestige of ‘marquee’ heritage clubs.

Can you name the 7 clubs?

holy moley Ken. Do we agree across our beautiful continent?

Seconded.

Class act: It’s not about brain v brawn. When I was a teacher over 20 years ago, there was a fashionable list of 7 types of intelligence/brain. The intelligences were (as I vaguely remember them) numerical, verbal, interpersonal, emotional, moral, kinaesthetic, spatial. Most people have some types more than others. Many big, strong athletes (sports men and women ) have spatial and kinaesthetic intelligence and others as well, even if they are not strong numerically or verbally which have traditionally been emphasised in schools. Some people are scholars and sportspeople (eg Rhodes scholars). I think of players like Angus Bell, John Eales, Matt Bourke who have succeeded at Union because of the type of brains they had in addition to their powerful, athletic bodies (I’ve listed them because I think they were all at least competent scholastically). I once coached a kid at Rugby League who was amongst the most intellectually challenged people I have ever met (he scored 4/15 on an inter D academic ability scale where the mean was 8). He must have been one of the most kinaesthetically gifted people I have ever known, but there wasn’t a test administered for that, and it was only through sport that he got any rewards in the school system. I work with a lot of school drop outs who are much more gifted kinaesthetically than I am. They certainly have what it takes to play Rugby. But, Class Act, maybe I’ve gone off half cocked on my hobby horse because I didn’t recognise a leg pull when I saw it – In that case, touche

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Farthing, I loved your article. I work with quite a few Pacifika young men in youth detention, and I talk about Rugby with them. My impression is that many if not most are turning to League for their Rugby because it is much more visible on TV (free to air) and there are more clubs, even in Victoria, where I live. Rugby is a very complex sport. I played League as a youth, but I was assigned (willingly) to coach an under 15 Rugby Union team at a famous Melbourne private school. As a coach I could beat the other school teams, except Scotch College, where rugby started in year 7, not year 9. I had some able players in the team, but could not teach the game fast enough to make up for the 2 year start the boys at Scotch got. Maybe a better coach could have - I was learning as I went, too. I also could not beat the club teams that my team played. They were keen (not playing compulsory school sport) and coached by community members, and had grown up with Union. There need to be clubs established and fostered in working class suburbs. It has to be clubs, not schools (though schools can be a great way of introducing the sport) because with clubs there is a pathway from juniors through to seniors, and time to learn the game as part of growing up. There is an Aussie Rules club in every Victorian suburb and village, and players move from under 11s or younger through to Seniors. My son did this. I grew up in Qld, where there was a League club in every suburb and village. Union existed in the community but was not nearly as widespread. We are reaping the reward of determined and exclusive amateurism for 100 years. In that century, League got established as the popular code. To match the Kiwis, if that is what we want, we have to make Union much more popular. This is a very difficult task, and will not be achieved by administrators who really don't want to achieve it. I'd say it's actually a desperate task, if we want Union to prosper and be more than a boutique sport. I would hope the young men you describe could get more game time, and more encouragement from Rugby Australia. It sounds to me as if your private school opponent was willing to do the right thing, but it must be very difficult for such a school to bring in a local state school when the competition is contracting, and they are looking after their own prestige in an exclusively schools competition.

brains don't beat brawn when that 100kegs monster keeps smashing the 58kg ringing wet fly half every time he gets his hands on the ball

Very well said, but they don't care. The amount of Aboriginal talent out here that is being lost to Rugby is staggering yet the Tahs sit by and watch the Bulldogs and panthers sign them all.

OK its a well known RL school with a long history of RL production line but its RU history is untested and if it exists very recent. They dont play regular RU games on a weekend or during the week but maybe offer the odd game to try to attract students but its a RL school. You make out its a RU powerhouse.

Greg, I see positive signs coming out of RA. The article addresses an historical event and an historical neglect. Pulver’s smarmy comment about footy in Campbelltown is still biting us on the bum. Let’s see McL right the ship.

more than might hey!

Stephen might've had the wheels