Author: Skip

The hardest conference in the tournament throws up another belter this week as the Reds look to get their season back on track against the Brumbies. Last Week Last week the Reds lost a hum-dinger against the Force 29-32. They created several try scoring chances but were unable to put them all away and I felt that if they hadn’t had the chance to play for a while against 14, they might not have got as close as they did, so Dick Graham & team will want to put this right. They picked up a losing bonus so stayed in…

The Reds look to get their campaign back on the right track at home to the Stormers.  Last Week The Reds suffered a shock loss last week to the tournament’s surprise package, the Lions.  Prior to that they lost a tough away game to the table topping Shorks, meaning they came back from Africa with no points to show for their efforts.  This leaves them 10th on the log overall and 4th in what is shaping up to be the most competitive Australian conference we’ve seen yet.  A loss in this fixture and the Reds season will really start to…

A scrappy game with more refereeing controversy sees the Reds beaten by the Lions at Ellis Park, 23-20. The Match The Reds have suffered an upset defeat at the hands of fired up Lions outfit following a disastrous second half in which they failed to score a point. It started brightly enough for the Reds, their forwards were making in roads and presenting the vaunted Genia/Cooper combination with quick front-foot ball allowing Cooper to control the game well.  The Lions seemed to have turned up remembering their last outing against the Blues and were determined to run the ball form pretty much…

Outside the box ideas for how we can keep Aussie rugby talent in Australia with a top-up system

So the whole bloody saga has ended……apparently.

For some time this website has been campaigning for a 3rd tier and there has been much discussion about how it would help develop players.  It’s well known that the ARU has tried this before, with the ill fated Australian Rugby Championship (ARC) which folded after one year and also the Australian Rugby Shield.  I’m going to put my cock on the block and try to come up with a way it might work if done differently, plus some idea of how much it would cost. Where the ARC went wrong. To not learn from history is to repeat it,…

Having looked at the finances of both the ARU as a whole and the Reds (see here and here respectively), let’s take a look how the NSW Waratahs are doing (their annual report is here).  Two years ago the NSW rugby union decided to split into two parts, the amateur bit and the Waratahs, who report on the professional game in NSW.  I will only be looking at the second part since its inception and not from before the split as, basically, I suffer from the same chronic laziness which affects Sam Ikin from time to time, but there is…

After the great feedback I got for the article on the ARU numbers (see here), overlord Gagger gave me the go ahead to look at some of the Australian super sides from the same angle.  As befits their status as champions, I shall start with the Reds, (their reports are here).  It’s no secret that quite recently the QRU was in deep financial trouble, I would go so far as to say that they were pretty close to the brink. Staving off Disaster In fact, the finances at the Suncorp got so bad the ARU threw in some cash…

The ARU annual report – what are we to make of it? With very little fanfare, the ARU recently released its annual report, which can read here.   As a wallaby fan, I’m interested in what the ARU do with the hard earned I put their way so I’m going to look at the numbers and the longer term of the ARU, based on what their report of 2011 does and doesn’t say. Revenue In 2011, revenue  dropped to $68 Million and expenses were $72 million, leaving an operating loss of about $4 million.  This is down from the $3 million…