If the racist comments were made then the person should be banned for a long long time in attending games. Nobody deserves to be exposed to that garbage.

I will say there is something a little off with the comments and public discussion on this game, there is more chatter and outrage about the comments made than someone been deliberately split open and requiring 20 stitches and another player who tried to collapse someone’s skull in with a headbutt. Might be just me but I think this should be where the majority of outrage sits as these things can actually severely damage or kill people. Maybe I’m just old fashioned. There is almost more chat about the passive clean out than a player been headbutted, all very strange. Out of been headbutted, elbowed in the back of the head, racially abused and passively cleaned out, I know which order of things is rather receive.

All that would happen would be someone would challenge in an Aus court and because of the way the world works, the Aus court would see the European precedent as gospel and rule the same here.
Plus World Rugby is based in Ireland, so the governing body is ruled by European law as thats where it trades. They therefore wouldn’t put the ruling in place to enforce as they are bound by European law.

It cant legally be done. The Bosman ruling in football happened in the early 90s through the European court of justice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosman_ruling

The only way we are going to generate huge money is for the French system to get larger than it is, that we are talking about income levels where they are happy to pay large transfers for existing players and for the english system to dramatically increase in size, instead of the metrics of their club game going backwards, where they will also pay transfer fees. Otherwise its just going to stay at the free transfer model it currently is.

It would be nice if the Rebels could be in a rugby ecosystem where they could sell Tupou for $1.5-2m, Leota for $750k, Gordon for $750k and reduce their salary bill to remain, to remain viable but unfortunately the rugby ecosystem is financially too small for that at the moment. Its how a lot of football clubs survive.

100%

All that needs to be asked is “is the NRL a successful business and has positive growth” if the answer is yes then it shouldn’t matter if the power brokers are all female, all male, aliens etc. Besides a small portion of the population most couldn’t give two rats about who holds the power and those that think otherwise need to realise the majority of people they surround themselves with are actually the minority.

I guess if the entry barrier was that low, its better than nothing. I know the majority of clubs on the Gold Coast are worse off than they have ever been for teams. Some numbers might be able to be hidden because of growing womens numbers (i wouldnt call it booming but its more than its ever been, which is great) but these numbers are just replacing the increasing drop in boys numbers in the sport, which means you are still going backwards.
As for 1000 registered junior numbers, again i just dont trust the numbers. If you had 2 teams per age grade (which is very good and i understand some clubs do reach these numbers) that still averages out to be around 40 children per team. Its just not happening. Things just dont measure up when broken down.

If you asked 90% of the kids in these what a ruck was and how to scrummage 2 weeks after their experience, they wouldn’t be able to tell you. Rugby would honestly be no better off from it in the long run, minus the statistics they can put on a sheet of paper for government funding or board re-election. My kids actually go to one of these schools. It’s literally a sign up here to get a day off and a ‘rugby’ minded teacher will do 2 training sessions the week of the tournament to make sure they kinda know what the rules are. I lived in Melb for a decade and since coming back to the GC the local club scene is a shadow of what it was, less teams across the grades, less junior teams, etc. all this despite the statistics saying more participation and schools playing than ever. It really doesn’t do anything at all.

I’m born and bred qld’er with kids in GC schools. Those comps are generally 7s tournaments or small 15s tournament structure things things that schools with league programs enter for something different with a splattering of some rugby schools. I currently live on the GC in what I’d classify as central GC, I can think of 3 schools in a 30min drive from me that have teams. Kings, All Saints, Sommerset and maybe 4 at a push to TSS. The rest don’t realistically play rugby, they play league and might enter a team to a rugby 7s comp or a ‘rugby’ minded teacher gets the league boys together to enter a random tournament in the off season for some fitness. I can’t think of a single public school with a proper rugby offering of a week in and week out experience. Happy to be corrected.

We need to stop repeating some statistics that come out. Rugby is not played by 167 schools in QLD, there is about 10 on the Gold Coast which is comfortably the 2nd largest city, Maybe double that in Brisbane. I’d be surprised if there is realistically half the amount of that number. There is probably 167 schools that run a 30min PE session at least once a year and therefore counted on the annual report for the sake of government funding.

Trust me and im sure Rich would back this up with his extensive knowledge of rugby in Japan, but rugby in Japan is not on the up. It was definitely trending upwards in 2019 but has gone backwards since this point and is arguably the worst position its been in well over a decade. Overall the sport isnt in a good spot outside a few countries and the overall health of the game isnt as positive as it was around 2019. Outside France, South Africa, Ireland and a couple of emerging South American nations, the balance sheets, tv figures, tv production values, participation rates and sponsor interest isnt in the greatest health. Some are still managing well because they had a sound base but the base is eroding. Going back to Japan, there is multiple corporation teams that are in risk of folding or funding been pulled.

Piru i completely agree.

Foley didnt do a good job and it arguably cost a team a world cup, however nobody deserves the online vitriol. On saying all this its World Rugby that have created this environment with the black and white interpretations and crusade at all costs to appease lobbiest measures. As you said so much common sense gone from the game and its magnified everything on the field. I want a cleaner and safer game by my word they have stuffed up the delivery of this to the extreme.

Id argue the Farrell issue was created from World Rugby as well, who decided to take the extreme measure and appeal an independent panels finding on the issue. Leading to the vitriol on his side.

Its about time leadership at that place moves on.

But you were talking about Ronan O’Gara who has nothing to do with the French union.

What money does La Rochelle owe Australian rugby? You do realise the French Union is completely different to the privately owned club teams.

My 2 cents on this.

2015 ABs is comfortably the greatest team of all time. It literally had a handful of players in discussion for greatest in their positions of all time. I think they slice all current competitors for a comfortable win, but its all hypothetical.

Ben Smith at 15, Nonu and Smith in the centres, Dan Carter, peak Savea on the wing. The greatest back row of all time in Read, McCaw and Kaino. World player of the year version of Retallick and 10yrs younger Whitelock, Moody and Franks upfront. Aaron Smith. It will take a long time to reach these levels again for quality in a single team.

What i think some have got caught up in the the competitiveness of a number of nations now. There is definitely quality of competition like never before but quality of competition doesn’t mean quality of play. There is players currently running around that have been on the scene for a while that look like world beaters but were journey men for a long time Danty, Bundee Aki, etc. to me that shows the quality isnt where it might of been to where it is now.

We have potentially the worst AB team in 30yrs almost winning a RWC with a man down.

Im not sure its the standard of RSA, Ireland, France that has increased, as much as the standard of NZ has declined to be their equal. And the other teams traditionally around them have declined dramatically. This is probably the worst Aus team in 40yrs, the world English team in a decade, the worst Welsh time in 15yrs, Argentina no better nor worse. Even developing teams in recent world cups went backwards in Japan and Georgia.

People haven’t crunched the numbers yet, but when they do, they will find out this RWC group stage has seen the most 50+ scores since 2003. The most teams kept to 0 in 20yrs. I higher points differential in the winning to losing team since 2007, and a higher points differential between tier 1 and tier 2 since 2007. But the narrative is at least correct now because perception is everything.

No there will still only be 11 allocated international weeks each year. Some countries like NZ and Aus have played games in non allocated weeks but they are already doing that. It will be the same amount of fixtures that is currently played.

The nations cup won’t create any extra fixtures. It’s just the RC and 6N fixtures and then reverse fixtures in July (3 matches) and November (3 matches). You just won’t get any 1 off tests anymore than won’t count towards anything.

There is a massive misunderstanding of what RA controls and what it doesn’t. They are a mess of an organization but also seem to take the blame for a lot of the terrible things the states do.

Knowing the breakdown of where money goes from each junior participant, won’t get into it because it would take an article to explain, but can basically guarantee it’s the state union and his club that is gouging the vast majority of that large fee.

Unfortunately when it comes to junior costs you need to be looking at the States and your club.

That’s only how things appear in a snapshot. The Tahs are heavily reliant on RA for a financial grant and also supplementing large portions of their top talents wages, let alone some of the youth players are signed through RA aligned program. Its the states that are running RA dry and equally RA are the only reason the states are financially stable. So basically RA would exist without the states but the states wouldn’t exist without RA.

Even if only some administration costs are consolidated within RA walls, it would mean the Tahs would reduce liabilities on their spreadsheet, while also allowing RA to maintain a reduced grant. So would be a financial win/win for both parties.

What do you mean minimising accountability for RA? If anything trying to bring everyone under their umbrella is trying to increase accountability. Currently the way things go they are perceived to be accountable for all blame but reality is they are not in control of all decisions, which is a little unfair.

Look im not a big fan of some of the people at RA, but the states have the majority of power and are the only ones that can make the decisions for the greater good. Its like the Covid lockdown situation, everyone blamed the Federal government to start with, then we all started to realise they dont actually have as much control as we thought and its the States that collectively have more power over how we do things than the one off entity of the federal government.

Id personally like it all to be burnt to the ground and started again, but that isnt going to happen.

This is the issue with the federated model. RA don’t have the power to enforce change, it has to be voted on by the states. We need to be as angry if not more at them. This goes to what was said post match yesterday on Stan, good high performance in not a democracy, infact very few successful sports are. Currently RA can suggest things but they have no power to enact them because the states will vote for their own interests.

Club land is not thriving. We need to stop saying this. The elite premier clubs are doing alright currently because there is a siege mentality created in them but outside these clubs it’s extremely dire. I have just returned to my home town in QLD after a decade away. We used to have 4 divisions with around 7 teams in them (around 10-15yrs ago) now there is 2 divisions, one of the divisions has 4 teams, so it’s hardly a comp. Some clubs are only fielding a single team because numbers are so low. I know this is a common story throughout the country.

Part of the issue in Aus rugby is the following.

– the non premier clubs have more distaste for the premier clubs than the professional sides
– the premier clubs have distaste for the pro sides

It’s a nasty loop and a lot of people that support the premier club don’t realise just how despised they are outside their circle. I know many people that cringe when they cry poor when 99% of the other grassroots clubs are using equipment with gaffer tape on it or don’t have any more than 1 ball to use per team.

We all need to have our bubble burst and we all need to do things differently.

The thing is, RA are going to have to stump up the money no matter who participates. They are either going to have to leverage off the SR clubs and pay for a number of squads to travel around the country for a number of weeks or they are going to have to stump up for a number of squads from clubs to travel around the country for a number of weeks. The only question in my eyes is do we empower the SR clubs to leverage the level below them or the clubs to create something above their current standard.
Are we going to pump money into a selected amount of clubs to allow them to be better versions of themselves or are we going to pump more money into the SR teams so they can finally run a real 12 month program like all other countries are doing?

In my eyes it’s a clear no to the club idea, have thought about this for years on end. It just does nothing for improving the standard of our players, which at the end of the day is what this conversation should be all about. Forget about buzz words like connection, community, blah blah, decisions should be made in the best interest of raising the standard. I’m also not convinced the club support is as large as many think, watching Bond v Brother semi on the weekend, which obviously is a big game, the crowd was in the hundreds and not thousands.

Let’s just go SRAU without the wallabies players and then if we want some carrot and connection make the 6th and 7th team a Shute Shield all stars and QPrem all stars. It would allow the players best performed in the season to test themselves at clearly a higher level and all the club fans can get behind them.

This is just a silly post. I’m all for providing further subsidies if the quality of athlete is worth the investment however claiming they are better is such a silly thing to say. The Opals would concede 200 to the Boomers, the women’s cricketers bowled out for less than 20 and the Matilda’s have already proven they can’t beat an u15s boys team but none of that matters. I think what has shown is that people want to support winners no matter the technical quality.

Horrible thing to say but I’m not sure if the up side of the current athletes in women’s rugby in Australia is big enough to see significant improvement with professionalism. I’m not sure if the standard of athlete is good enough to have any significant return from sustained investment.

Perhaps the argument will be the improved investment will attract higher quality athletes and more than happy to have that but I’m not sure if the current bunch is much better than just solid amateur players. Just because you play for a country doesn’t mean you are worth an investment.

There isn’t a large pool of players playing the game, perhaps this would change with the attraction of sustained investment but currently in my eyes the game needs to grow more and show more to deserve more than is been offered. Women’s ice hockey and men’s netball would all love to get paid, but doesn’t mean it’s a smart decision.