Australian Rugby / RA

[Braveheart81]

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BH - they already have a NSW & QLD Subbies side so no new development on that front.
anyone wanting to be a more serious rugby player - maybe, maybe not, their are some X Super players running around in Subbies and they may form a potent team for a 3T.
You may then say / ask about development instead of having X Super has been players running around, I'm sure they will lift the players of their team, but also the opposition. An example there was considerable interest when Cebal pulled on the Balmain jersey last year.

The representative subbies side plays one or two games a year don't they?

The idea behind a third tier is to create something that lies between first grade Shute Shield or Premier Rugby and Super Rugby.

I don't see how having representative subbies teams would help that. Would it encourage first grade players who don't make the higher teams involved in the third tier to ditch the Shute Shield to go and play subbies so they're a chance of joining the third tier that way?

I just don't see how it makes sense.

 

[Dave Beat]

Would it encourage first grade players who don't make the higher teams involved in the third tier to ditch the Shute Shield to go and play subbies so they're a chance of joining the third tier that way?

Bloody hope note, I like the Shute Shield and get more enjoyment following that than the Tah, and Wobs, however the Tahs are climbing on the enjoyment thermometer.
I do think there would be some talent living in Subbies because their mates are playing there, thus having the comp post Club & Super - I'd be interested.

 

[Rugby Central]

For the record I was not endorsing Subbies as an avenue for the third tier. I was taking the piss at the financial incompetence of many SS sides that seem to have less money than a number of Subbies clubs.

I would love to see Subbies lift in quality but as a priority it is far behind SS and Premier Rugby.

Back to the differentiation of ARU and Australian Rugby, there are 20 something premier and SS Clubs while Sydney Subbies has 50 clubs alone. No matter which way you look at it, the ARU continues to ignore the Australian Rugby Community at its peril.

What we need here is something akin to the Super League debacle. It was the lancing of the ugly boil that brought League to the forefront of sport in Australia. Rugby could use a new governing body competing against teh shelterd workshop at St Leonards.

 

[Rugby Central]

This idea is totally left field but as a concept it’s better than anything I’ve heard come out of St Leonards or Moore Park. It doesn't benefit the ARU but would work wonders for Australian Rugby.

The NZRU sets up a club competition in Sydney. They then offer a Sydney rep team the chance to join the NPC as a province. They can send their fringe players over here and we can get our good players more exposure.

NZ Rugby gets access to a wider playing base and exposure to the commercial benefits of the larger Australian market and Australian rugby fans get quality rugby run by a proper administration. The outcomes could be that NSWRU and ARU go, “So that’s how you do it?” being exposed to a little competition for players would be healthy. Clubs that take part could get to be part of something great and offer a genuine development pathway for players.

Who cares if they unearth future All Blacks from the competition. It’s not like the NSWRU or ARU would look at this level anyway.

Possibly ridiculous but somebody has to do something to develop rugby in Austalia and if it's the NZRU pissing on our turf I no longer care.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

Taking that thought one step further, there are a fair few economic refugees from NZ now living in Australia, and a fair stack of them have had kids since arriving.

There may come a day in the future that there is sufficient talented players with NZ heritage in Aust Rugby to run a West Island team of NZ Ethnics in an expanded NPC.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

Copied a couple of posts from another thread, but IMHO they probably deserve some oxygen on this one.
The background is based on a suggestion from George Smith that ARU should start a programme to rationalise and dismantle the various fiefdoms in junior rugby with the use of the HPU and its funding and organisational support (including tournaments) as the best crowbar to achieve this. George felt that that they were currently too focused on the B&I Lions tour to start this process too soon.

Go across to the National Club championships thread under schoolboy rugby for the full debate.

Huge,

The crowbar could be the perfect foil for this action but then i doubt whether the ARU are that strategic at the moment given the current B&ILTour etc.

Concur but in all reality the B&IL tour and 2013 TRC is a done deal strategically for ARU. These are in the tactical and operational domain.

Things that should be concerning ARU strategically:
- Long term sponsorship of all ARU teams
- Olympic Sevens - boys and girls
- Implementing the Arbib Report (wielding the crowbar)
- The Pathway to Gold (wielding the crowbar)
- Growing the game outside traditional geographic and School strongholds in Sydney and Brisbane
- FTA coverage
- Efficient use of limited resources
- 3rd Tier rugby
- RWC 2015 (coach esp)
- recruiting and retaining Referees, incl getting more Aust born and bred on the IRB Panel
- generating depth and resilience in Women's Rugby.
- funding Green and Gold Rugby web site

agree Huge, one of the biggest challenges in rugby at the moment is integrating women with the men! In that I mean the traditional unions seem to be leaving the women's program to the ARU rather than embracing it and organising teams and comps at the same time as the boys. In fact I have only seen a handful of girls play rugby with the boys upto 12 yrs. Some of these start refereeing aftr 12 as the traditional unions do not facilitate their development.

One of the great challenges is how best to develop sevens. Should we leave it to ARU to focus on the World Cup and Olympic Squads or should we fully integrate it into a primary & secondary school comp competing with AusKick etc. I have been asking for Clubland's policy within NSW for sevens as well as their women rugby policy over the past 2 years without any success. To date they don't have one and not sure how to! They seem to be focusing on how to cope with little boys rugby (6-18yrs) which they haven't got right after 120 years of trying.

It seems they subliminally discriminate on these issues.

Hugh,

I like Georges post/information it helps inform the debate well. I have a different view on the objectives of rugby development. Relative to you I place a much lower emphasis on winning teams and where the "talent" plays rugby.

My view is the first and formost the objective of the ARU and other levels should be that:

• Every boy and girl who wants to play rugby can and have a good time doing it, and get their fair share of time on the paddock no matter what level of skill they have.
• That they are safe doing it.
• Any one who wants to take it further can, and feel that they will be treated fairly and equally.

If you can get that bit right then the rest will follow, it doesn't particularly matter where they are playing thier rugby.


So the KPIs for the ARU should be how many people are playing rugby, really? and do those playing feel they are having a good time and are being treated fairly, will they be back next year?

Your points about school boys double dipping goes to the heart of fairness, they displace club players who must feel badly done by and hence head off to games where they feel they will be more fairly treated e.g. "our game".

 

[Hugh Jarse]

Is it time to investigate privatising the Wallabies?

Leave the ARU to run Australian Rugby (Grass Roots Rugby which is NRC and lower), and Wallabies Inc to run the Wobs, with the ARU receiving an annual dividend from Wallabies Inc.

 

[I like to watch]

Why would you trust the grass roots of the game with that mob?

 

[Hugh Jarse]

Not suggesting that the current mob would be around after Wallabies Inc are cut loose. Heaven help us if they were.

In that event, the beast running Australian Rugby would be fundamentally different from the mob currently in the Rugby Central bunker at St Leonards.

 

[I like to watch]

Why don't you address the real issues in this scenario big arse?





Who would get the wine cellar?

 

[rugbyskier]

Is it time to investigate privatising the Wallabies?

Leave the ARU to run Australian Rugby (Grass Roots Rugby which is NRC and lower), and Wallabies Inc to run the Wobs, with the ARU receiving an annual dividend from Wallabies Inc.

There are pitfalls with a corporate team. I made a comment on the NHL thread on the ski.com.au forums about the Toronto Maple Leafs fans having a dummy spit at the start of this year's season and an Aussie expat living in Canada offered this explanation, which illustrates the dangers of making a team a big business.

The Leafs are the prime example of the business of hockey taking precedence over producing winning teams. They're the sole NHL franchise in the largest city in hockey-mad Canada, with staggering TV revenue and the most expensive game tickets in the league. The hockey team is just part of a stable of sports franchises that includes a major league soccer team and an NBA team, plus the facilities in which said teams play. This is corporate sport to the hilt - former majority owners were the Ontario teachers union pension fund, they sold to a joint venture between Rogers and Bell the two biggest media and mobile phone providers in Canada. Clearly the bottom line comes first, with a winning season being a happy bonus. Ownership is very cynical, a take it or leave it approach that very well knows fans will keep watching no matter what. They keep promising 'this season will be different' but then trot out the same old bunch of overpaid guys who skate around trying to not get hurt. The big corporations keep paying mega bucks for boxes and tickets so the arena is typically loaded with corporate types whose team appreciation seems lukewarm at best. The genuine fans have long ago been priced out of the arena and are frustrated beyond belief.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

^^^ The Wallabies are displaying about 3/4 of the characteristics of the Maple Leafs without being privately owned.

 

[Braveheart81]

The opening paragraphs of Growden's column today is an absolute zinger.

For the sake of rugby, Australian Rugby Union chief executive and self-proclaimed "custodian of the game" Bill Pulver must go NOW.

And the woefully under-performing ARU board must not choose as Pulver's replacement someone with whom as kids they shared smoked salmon sandwiches with in a private school playground, anyone from the old boy's network, or someone who lives in the next door mansion, but actually someone with sporting administration credibility.

http://www.espnscrum.com/scrum/rugby/story/245505.html

 

[Train Without a Station]

Pulver has handled this Beale incident badly. But after RUPA pushing this new code of conduct stuff from Dublin last year, was the matter ever going to be resolved well?

But with regards to Pulver going from fuck up to fuck up, I'd love for the mighty Growden to point us in the direction of one of these great sporting administrators that would do better. David Smith? Not according to the media which slates the fuck out of him. David Gallop? The same bloke the media pissed and moaned about being reactive and bouncing from one controversy to the next? Andrew Demitreou? Copped an absolute hammering over the Essendon Supplement scandal. Was hammered for going to the Olympics in 2012. Maybe James Sutherland? Wasn't the media calling for his head over Pat Howard's role?

 

[Braveheart81]

Running a major sporting code is a tough job and there's a reason why many of them don't last a long time.

Andrew Demetriou and David Gallop both spent over a decade running the AFL and NRL respectively.

Bill Pulver has been in the job less than two years.

The fact that scandals happen in other codes involving other administrators (and sometimes those scandals bring those people down) doesn't really improve Pulver's position.

It probably just makes it more likely that he will go once all this unfolds. History would suggest that something this serious that has involved the CEO at multiple points is likely to result in their downfall.

 

[Train Without a Station]

I'm just wondering who this mythical perfect sports administrator they are comparing Pulver to, and ultimately marking him against, is. Surely they can't be Australian.

He must go. Whether there's a better option is irrelevant. It's the Australian way!

 

[Ruggo]

Running a major sporting code is a tough job and there's a reason why many of them don't last a long time.

Andrew Demetriou and David Gallop both spent over a decade running the AFL and NRL respectively.

Bill Pulver has been in the job less than two years.

The fact that scandals happen in other codes involving other administrators (and sometimes those scandals bring those people down) doesn't really improve Pulver's position.

It probably just makes it more likely that he will go once all this unfolds. History would suggest that something this serious that has involved the CEO at multiple points is likely to result in their downfall.

The Pulveriser up to this mess hasn't done a bad job, although I'm not happy with how he has handled this. Maybe he needs a temporary consultant with proven sports administration business just to help him bridge the gap between his business knowledge and sports admin. Somebody not in the inner sanctum who can broaden the codes horizon. Ross Oakley is the man in my view. His has a very proven legacy of taking a code out of it's niche and giving it a true national footprint. We have so many points of difference in rugby that we can market. The Wallaby jersey can easily become the winter baggy green with the right guidence at head office.

One thing is for sure and that is something positive needs to come from all this blood letting.

 

[Braveheart81]

I'm just wondering who this mythical perfect sports administrator they are comparing Pulver to, and ultimately marking him against, is. Surely they can't be Australian.

He must go. Whether there's a better option is irrelevant. It's the Australian way!

There doesn't need to be. A decision can be made that the current one isn't performing the job you want them to be performing and should be replaced.

The Pulveriser up to this mess hasn't done a bad job, although I'm not happy with how he has handled this. Maybe he needs a temporary consultant with proven sports administration business just to help him bridge the gap between his business knowledge and sports admin. Somebody not in the inner sanctum who can broaden the codes horizon. Ross Oakley is the man in my view. His has a very proven legacy of taking a code out of it's niche and giving it a true national footprint. We have so many points of difference in rugby that we can market. The Wallaby jersey can easily become the winter baggy green with the right guidence at head office.

One thing is for sure and that is something positive needs to come from all this blood letting.

Pulver hitched his wagon very much to McKenzie and McKenzie didn't work out. Deans was given almost no power outside of being head coach and Pulver then gave McKenzie the green light to do almost anything. Essentially Pulver tied his success to McKenzie and if McKenzie had come in and transformed the organisation and brought massive success to the Wallabies, Pulver would have come out smelling like roses.

That hasn't happened and Pulver should be responsible for much of that.

 

[Train Without a Station]

It's a rather pointless exercise Braveheart.

Call me crazy, but I've always thought that if you are to remove an employee, you do so on the basis of replacing them with somebody better at their job.

Otherwise it's just blind luck.

 

[It is what it is]

It's a rather pointless exercise Braveheart.

Call me crazy, but I've always thought that if you are to remove an employee, you do so on the basis of replacing them with somebody better at their job.

Otherwise it's just blind luck.

That's true but in other situations you just can't persevere with the incumbent through fear of what further damage they can cause if allowed to stay.
This guy's not exactly in good form.