The return of Quade and back to back wins against the Boks to clinch the Raeburn Shield (yep, it’s definitely a thing) was my highlight. As was winning the series against France with 14 men in game 3.

And thanks for the music suggestions Geoff. It will be part of a soon to be created Spotify play list to entertain me through these last two weeks of work. Also thanks for the articles throughout the year, essential reading every Monday.

Yes I agree Joe, you ideally want RA to still be involved. I assume they have to respect community programs and the remit of the local state union by not intruding however the latest rumblings around centralisation suggest they are trying to work with the states. Hopefully we shall see a positive partnership and clear strategy implemented soon.

I think RA has to somehow address the decline of rugby in the public school system. It can’t remain to be a problem for the state unions to figure out. The Western Force are clearly streamlining things in this area with their new Western Force Cup announced last week but always helpful when Twiggy is behind you. NSW and QLD especially need to see more schools competing in the Combined High Schools competitions. Of course some of the best talent will get poached by the private schools offering scholarships but if you build a system correctly in a strong rugby area (i.e. Western Sydney) you should still be able to attract and cultivate enough talent to come through that will stay and raise the profile of those schools. And as I said, I believe clubs will then become the beneficiaries if schools have bigger rugby populations as the players will then migrate to the various clubs.

Cheers Mugs, a real condensed read and plenty to think about. I was intrigued by your classification of the 4 types of rugby customer. I think for some time the first two categories (“core supporter” and “wants to be persuaded”) have been taken for granted rather than being catered for. And these groups probably represent the bulk of the rugby clubs around the country that have seen their membership decline over the last two decades. Plus I think it’s often the club that is the only rugby refuge left when the professional end of the game has struggled like it has in recent years but I suspect even the biggest rugby tragic have been turned off so much that they’ve stopped turning up to their local.

You summed it up really with the simple fact that clubs need members, and memberships need to be growing and at a minimum, constant. I would be very interested in how many clubs are actively seeking relationships with the schools in their local area. From my experience playing rugby in Perth, I played at one of the few private schools that had a program and this had a 10 match season (too short in my opinion). However my father who was the school coach would regularly organise 1-2 matches during the season against the local club we belonged to. Consequently after 3-4 years, the club started to see an influx of players from the private school going to the club to play colts after leaving school as the relationship had been formed and there was additional crossover with some of the club coaches helping coach at the school. If I was involved in that club today (live overseas so sadly cannot be) I would be strongly looking at approaching 2-3 of the nearest public schools and helping them install rugby programs (if they aren’t already running them) and hold some sort of club cup between the schools in that geographical area. I know there are greater complexities around the school competitions, especially with GPS in Sydney, but schools usually have resources and infrastructure that can be utilised at no extra cost and more importantly, it’s trying to capture the interest of kids at that crucial 13-18 year period of their life. The article by Geoff Parkes on the former teacher working that program in Melbourne is at the best example of how schools, clubs and rugby can be brought together to achieve a successful outcome. But if you’re a club and you have 3 or 4 schools that you work with and have developed connections with that’s likely to be one way of drawing on new members every year.

Whatever the solutions to the club conundrum are, I’m very doubtful that it will come from RA or that they will find a way to fund programs and initiatives to bolster the clubs. I feel the solution has to come from within the community club tier itself, especially as a one size fits all strategy just won’t be effective in regions with very different circumstances.

I tried sending the link before but didn’t work. If you search for “Gold Digger: The search for Australian Rugby” on most podcast platforms you should see it. It’s the latest episode.

It’s an interesting idea. Although I’m opposed to the idea of Wallabies being placed off shore (I think more efforts should be made to keep the best players here) there is that next tier of guys who are simply too good for club rugby and not getting enough game time when part of an extended Super Rugby squad. I had an interesting chat with Ollie Hoskins on my podcast this last week and there were a few interesting points he made.
– When he went to London Irish in 2016 he realised how bad his propping was and how natural it was for his UK contemporaries. He noted that while throughout his career in Australia (even as a pro at the Western Force) he’d only ever had general forwards coaches while the UK clubs, even at lower levels all have scrum coaches.
– Playing at London Irish with a decent contingent of Australians does make them all try to play with an Australian style, especially as one of the coaches there is Les Kiss. So the idea that they group together at overseas clubs would be of benefit if like Ollie they suddenly get called into the national team. During the week of his selection he spoke with Rob Simmons who was able to give him a heads up on what the Rennie Wallaby environment was like.
– Lastly and quite obviously, we just don’t play enough rugby in Australia. Australian pro players don’t get enough game time in an ordinary season in contrast to players in the UK. This is clearly having an impact over time in preparing guys for top level footy. As Ollie said, many players at Super Rugby clubs just end up being professional trainers for a large part of the season. Even if you don’t play for the top team at London Irish, you play in London Irish A team against Saracens A, Harlequins A, etc so you’re still getting game time to develop skills and build club combinations.

Can’t say I have heard the term. I think a separate definition makes sense. Community rugby is clear and also aligns with how RA distinguish it in terms of funding, grants, etc.

Yes, I started the podcast version while I was completing the film but also because I had a wealth of interview material that couldn’t make the final cut so I thought I’d use the longer podcast format to release it. Some things have changed since I interviewed people throughout 2020 but broadly alot of the structural issues are still there to be unpicked. On grassroots, I just found a few answers looking at some transcripts when I asked certain people what their definition of grassroots were:

– “I would probably say club rugby.”

– “If you look at the grassroots level, it’s about playing the game for the sake of the game.”

– “They’re the people who go get tickets, they buy the merch, they buy pay TV, and that’s just your average punter and they probably paid a bit of rugby at some stage probably most likely at school and a little bit of subbies. They’ve probably never played first grade. They’ve never been a professional rugby player certainly not being a wallaby and they’ve probably never been sort of an official and they’re definitely not this mythical audience that’s out there in the international world that we’re creating this massive Super Rugby competition for.”

– “It is either supporting a community or it is providing a community for people of all different backgrounds and all different situations to find a place where they can fit in and they can do all that kind of stuff. That’s what grassroots rugby is.”

– “Rugby is about bums in muddy shorts of people running into each other and you need old bums, you need young bums, you need all kinds of bums. You need tall, short, you know the whole thing. And it’s bums in muddy shorts running into each other and that’s what grassroots is about, grassroots rugby.”

Great initiative Allan (or should I refer to you as Muglair!?) and looking forward to contributing over the next few weeks. Your pain, frustration and I assume confusion at proceedings over the last two decades is the same motivation that pushed me to make my documentary film ”Gold Digger: The search for Australian Rugby’ which I’m hoping will come out in early 2022 (sorry for the shameless plug but I think there is material in it that will relate to some of the points you’ve outlined). During the making of the film I had the privilege of talking to many rugby people from across the spectrum both on and off the record and I’ll be happy to try and share what I’ve picked up in the last two years since embarking on this journey. Funny you mentioned “Grassroots” as I asked just about everyone I interviewed what they thought grassroots meant and the definition had a bit of variance depending on who you asked. Is it purely amateur rugby players? Rugby communities that participate both on and off the field? The volunteer movement? Or perhaps more broadly the general punter who ends up investing both financially and emotionally in the game at the top level? Probably an article in and of itself. Anyway, looking forward to reading and contributing.

I agree that there are multiple factors at play, however I think some are more influential than others. Certainly the 70s saw things like the NCC instituted and alignment with the AIS which gave promising juniors scholarships. But go and look at the number of games QLD played every year from about 1974 onwards. They even toured to Europe which was rarely done by provincial teams back then.

Nice article Northern Pom. And full disclosure, I appreciate the shout out to the podcast.

I suppose when you look back at how things panned out in 1995 and then Super Rugby in 1996 it makes sense to see how it evolved. Super Rugby was essentially a continuation of the already existing Super 6/10 South Pacific comp.

I agree in principal that we need a competition in Australia that brings together more local teams but I just don’t see how it can afford to be the premier competition we all hope it to be. So much of the revenue modelling is tied up in games against the Kiwis that it would take a lot (and cost a lot) to go it alone and hope that the product becomes attractive to overseas markets. I assume these 8 teams would have to run at a lower cost than the current franchises do to make it work. I see it more working as a developmental league in the way that NRC did and then feeding upwards but then that is creating more teams and more money. But something has to give, it can’t continue on as it currently does.

Australian rugby got better when Queensland and NSW started to play longer seasons in the 1970s and became more competitive. Wallabies were at their peak when they had two teams, were able to hold their position when they had a third and then got progressively worse by the expansion to four and then five teams. On the flip side, a country like Wales went the other way and struggled for a long time, especially at the start of professionalism before they switched from 9 to 4 teams in 2004. Wales then wins a Grand Slam and have been competitive ever since. Not World Champions but far more competitive than they used to be. England have players split between up to 13 clubs but still get beaten by Ireland who have players from 4. Argentina had many players in Europe before they created the Jaguares and were able to build the combinations that would then transfer up into the Pumas. Check the makeup of the team that beat the All Blacks last year. Soccer has other examples, especially with the Germans.

Not saying that a reduction in teams won’t upset many but you will see an increase in performance at the top level.

Only die-hards. But the point is you need development comes to make your commercial rugby successful. We were fortunate in the 80s and 90s that Shute Shield and Hospital Cup served that purpose but they no longer do that and we haven’t committed to replacing that. We have to value development comps for the value they create upstream.

If only we had committed to the ARC in 2007.

There is a lot of evidence across rugby union and other sports that contradict you. Not saying that it wouldn’t upset the wider Australian rugby community if you reduce the number of SR teams but the fact is you would see the Wallabies improve. There may be alternative ways to try and achieve the same result without going backwards but the sheer fact is that if you have less feeder teams you coalesce talent and create a more high performance environment that will have a more successful outcome. This is the predicament we find ourselves in.

Well I definitely think we need to fix the third tier and even the SR tier. I wrote an article last year laying out what I think would be a better structure and I stand by it still especially after the SRTT results this year.

But if we removed restrictions around Giteau Law then we will compound the problem even further.

It’s a fair idea 2 Bobs. No one really wants to consider the prospect of shrinking things down but it’s hard to argue that you wouldn’t see immediate improvement. It’s the next tier down, supporters and grass roots that would need alot of convincing and ultimately they’d probably need to see a direct benefit from such as change (i.e. funds diverted to an NRC, more support programs for schools and clubs, etc).

You could argue that the Reds and Brumbies improved slightly as the competition went on, both eventually winning a game towards the end. Force were pretty consistent but seemed to benefit from the competition and hold their own. Small takeaway I know, but I think one round of TT probably benefitted all teams rather than a third round of SRAU in terms of development.

I don’t think it’s fair to put the blame for 2018 squarely on the players or Cheika. This is one of the key points I’m trying to make in a lot of what I say, and that is that the system in Australia is flawed and that is why we have a situation in which there is lack of depth, poor combinations at the top level and a lot of desperation shown by the administration to find a short term solution. We definitely have to take small steps but I think they need to happen in our own backyard and we need to keep the guys who we have for as long as we can. If the current Brumbies or Reds teams can stay together over the next two seasons I’m more confident that a Wallaby team composed of those two will be competitive in France.

Yeah there will come a point where an out the box idea needs to happen. Perhaps sabbaticals like you suggest will be the halfway point. I know you can’t control the market of where players end up but I’d like to see Australia try to get as many overseas players playing together as possible. Like the LA Giltinis did this year (albeit with a couple of old timers including Mr Giteau himself) but also at a club like London Irish in the UK (Nick Phipps, Adam Coleman, Curtis Rona and Rob Simmons).

I think the World Cup seemed to put us about where we stood and probably still stand. Behind NZ and SA and probably somewhere in the middle of the 6N countries right now. The point about cohesion being developed in a lower competition is not that the team necessarily needs to dominate but that they build that team unity that then gets polished once the complete international team comes together. Japan and the Sunwolves is one such example.

I don’t think the A-league is in great shape do you? And I certainly don’t see how the Socceroos can do much better than they do when their key players are all scattered around and they only have the rare training camp and warm up games to come together for. As opposed to Germany and their players in the Bundesliga. Sure they don’t win everything but they are consistently competitive.

Yes you’re right. That was before the Giteau Law of course. I was just making a point that I think many of us were surprised that they left when you felt they had alot more to give. At least I felt that way.

Yes I thought that at the time too. Part of why I’m conflicted over Giteaus Law. In some cases it could provide a short term solution but overall as a long term concept I think it will erode the consistency of our national team and potentially cheapen the Wallaby jersey.

Both Giteau and Mitchell had recent familiarity in Europe with the playing conditions and players in other teams, so I appreciate that was an advantage. But I would have much rather we had settled on a team two or three years out and not have had to resort to calling in the calvary that would have had less of a connection to the system and players around them.

I’m working on this with the documentary that I’m making. The body of evidence that supports how a country can do more with less is out there already and I think it can directly apply right now to Australian rugby.

Yes, we have to realise our place in what is a very competitive sports market place. But we should also remember that at one point in time while AFL and League continued to flourish, the Wallabies had no problems in selling out the MCG and Super Rugby had a strong following. There is no reason why we can’t fit somewhere in between it all and as the standard and interest grows, we lure in the sports mad fans who have no hesitation in following two or even three different codes.

Might have been a slight advantage but only contingent on us actually playing them, which was not known given the draw.

Regardless, without him returning to Australia a year earlier to be part of the lead up and to reconnect with the systems he left at the Tahs and then the Wallabies, I’m not convinced he would have made that much of a difference.