Search results

Sounds hopeful.

I am sorry, I have not got the foggiest idea what you are saying, with the best will in the world. Maybe you can help me to understand. Is my club, Eastwood, part of the "elite amateur" faction? AFAIK, our first graders get paid - not much, but they are certainly not lilywhites. If clubs...

Maybe you are a bit confused; the phrase I used was "over the years", and that is what I meant. Not just 2020. If the choice is between having something like a Shute Shield competition (even one in which "most players spend only a few years") or not having one, are you seriously saying that...

One would hope that rugby is a lot more than just the Shute Shield. On the other hand, it would take the most febrile imagination to envisage the state of the game today had it not been for the huge number of talented players that have been churned out from the Shute Shield (and the Brisbane...

Maybe just a teensy weensy exaggeration there? You can speak for yourself, but you cannot speak for "everyone else who didn't go to a GPS school".

Another way of looking at it is that we just do not produce enough players of a standard good enough to maintain a competition of the size we have. When I left home (Eastwood) I moved to Mosman. I almost bought an apartment at Manly. Without meaning to insult anybody, surely it is pretty...

It all depends on the detail, though. There has been a lot of talk about isolating all the NRL teams in a closed location. Would we do the same? (seems a bit unlikely to me).

Okay, let them put their hands into their own well supplied pockets. Nobody is stopping them, as far as I know. Don't forget the Mosman Whales. They must have a bright future, with all those famous rugby identities in their neighbourhood.

Mate, if they wanted to, they could do a lot.

In which case we are overclubbed, as least in terms of any kind of "nurturing of the grassroots". Let's see. Would $100k per club seem reasonable? Okay, that's 90 million, please. Let's see how the 11 wise men fund that.

Maybe that's because they are fundamentally in competition with each other - for players, for sponsors, for supporters? As above. You show me a vibrant club, with good crowds sinking beers on the hill on a Saturday afternoon, and I will show you a club with an adequate bank balance, sponsors...

There is a huge gap between writing them off, on the one hand, and swallowing their somewhat anodyne opinions, on the other. Having been a (former) great of the game gets people's attention. That's all. They are not Princes of the game. Their opinion, frankly, is worth as much as yours. Or...

"A number of highly experienced rugby and business leaders are standing by to mentor and to lead". Well, nothing is stopping them. Plenty of district clubs need some "mentoring and leadership". Or is that not glamorous enough for them?

Looking back over the last 20 years, I would say that biggest single mistake that was made was to can the ARC after one season. That's pretty much down to JON, although the district clubs bear a lot of the responsibility too. (Those grassroots!!!) Another entity that bears a bit of the...

No, the word you want is "hindsight". I might add that my memory of the health of the game 20 years ago differs markedly from yours. In my memory the game was absolutely booming.

What are you suggesting? A referendum? A plebiscite? Some form of on-line voting? Would the majority rule? Seriously, mate, commercial negotiations take place between the corporate entities that are contemplating some sort of contract or other agreement. You and a lot of others might not...

Not many Skeltons. But, yes, good news.

Mrs Wamberal and I have always enjoyed the cross-dutch encounters far more than the Saffer ones.

Much better technology these days, I think that is the big difference. It used to be commonplace for the top jockeys to be passed brown envelopes (literally) every month from owners. All they had to do is tell the owners when their horse was trying. The amazing thing is, it was not about...

Does it ever. One of my favourite stories happened in the early days of Sha Tin in Hong Kong. Peter Miers rode five winners, all for the one trainer (who would be lucky to saddle a dozen winners in the average season). He bought himself an apartment building on the Gold Coast with the...