Australian Rugby / RA

[Pfitzy]

So with this whole of sport review of the game the Captains 10 want, I assume they are paying for it considering they also know of the sports dire financial status?

Well, Mortlock hasn't gotten back to me yet, Reg.

But given "they were talking behind the scenes for a while" I'm sure the review is just a rubber stamp for all the ideas they've got.

lolz.

 

[Rugbynutter39]

Problem with the review is rugby is disfunctional in this country by virtue of all the competing factions with own agendas so putting these same stakeholder groups in yet another review means you just get the same crap without real innovative and disruptive solutions.

Hence why keen for twiggy and his team involved and maybe other outsiders like a gallop or Greenberg on this review as they are more likely to challenge the traditional thinking that comes with rugby types who have never quite make the leap in thinking from the amateur era to what pro sport is really about and needs...

 

[Derpus]

What are some things that might actually help improve rugby, besides cycling through CEO's and coaches and the endless infighting?

Some random things we could try and address:

• Modernizing the laws: red and yellow cards galore, 5 minutes of scrum resets and thigh massages, mauls (period), extended video reviews, etc.
• Refereeing consistency.
• Youth engagement (there is none at all): no high quality, appropriately funded video games like Fifa, Madden, NBA2k, hell even Cricket has a game out; no social media presence; no FTA presence; no marketing to speak of at all; no School presence outside GPS (rapidly losing ground to Football and AFL) and the odd catholic school.
• Do something about crowds at test level - $100 a ticket in this economic climate is far too much for a relatively unpopular product; never ever have another test at ANZ (or whatever it's called) ever again ever.

 

[Rugbynutter39]

What are some things that might actually help improve rugby, besides cycling through CEO's and coaches and the endless infighting?

Some random things we could try and address:

• Modernizing the laws: red and yellow cards galore, 5 minutes of scrum resets and thigh massages, mauls (period), extended video reviews, etc.
• Refereeing consistency.
• Youth engagement (there is none at all): no high quality, appropriately funded video games like Fifa, Madden, NBA2k, hell even Cricket has a game out; no social media presence; no FTA presence; no marketing to speak of at all; no School presence outside GPS (rapidly losing ground to Football and AFL) and the odd catholic school.
• Do something about crowds at test level - $100 a ticket in this economic climate is far too much for a relatively unpopular product; never ever have another test at ANZ (or whatever it's called) ever again ever.

I think you sharing some left field ideas highlight the problem that a lot of the key rugby stakeholders at middle age private school traditionalists who would be dismissive of any such brainstorming and are too tarnished by most of their rugby experience from the amateur era and just can’t make the leap to more modern innovative thinking modern professional sport in what is a ever highly competitive market for sports fans and eyeballs needs.

Will give twiggy and his team credit - whether agree with their ideas or not - they at least recognised this and were trying to do something different. Most of the knockers are those same middle age private school rugby traditionalists with thinking that has not moved much beyond that they thought from the amateur era.

 

[Rugbynutter39]

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/rugby-...caused-castle-to-crumble-20200424-p54n2u.html

Pretty dissappointed by RA board if what article above says is true. Everything I read just tells me Castle was really putting in the hard yards. I think she will get another gig somewhere as this was an incredibly tough gig with a pretty crap board behind her and unparalleled bullying behaviour towards her played out in the public domain.

I am a tough critic but Raelene has my respect for the effort she put in to try and fix oz rugby and anyone thinking she was not putting in 110% to try and do so regardless of views of whether she was effective is pretty harsh critic in my view.

Thanks for your efforts Raelene as no doubt you have grown in one of the toughest gigs in oz sport, that will be invaluable for your next employer.

 

[Quick Hands]

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/rugby-...caused-castle-to-crumble-20200424-p54n2u.html

Pretty dissappointed by RA board if what article above says is true. Everything I read just tells me Castle was really putting in the hard yards. I think she will get another gig somewhere as this was an incredibly tough gig with a pretty crap board behind her and unparalleled bullying behaviour towards her played out in the public domain.

I am a tough critic but Raelene has my respect for the effort she put in to try and fix oz rugby and anyone thinking she was not putting in 110% to try and do so regardless of views of whether she was effective is pretty harsh critic in my view.

Thanks for your efforts Raelene as no doubt you have grown in one of the toughest gigs in oz sport, that will be invaluable for your next employer.

While I'm not a huge Castle fan, there's no doubt that she was thrown under the bus by the board. There can be no doubt that all of the big calls that she made were made either with the approval of the board or at the direction of the board. The board should have all announced that they were stepping down at the same time that they accepted her resignation.

 

[cyclopath]

What are some things that might actually help improve rugby, besides cycling through CEO's and coaches and the endless infighting?

Some random things we could try and address:

• • • Modernizing the laws: red and yellow cards galore, 5 minutes of scrum resets and thigh massages, mauls (period), extended video reviews, etc.
    • Refereeing consistency.
    • Youth engagement (there is none at all): no high quality, appropriately funded video games like Fifa, Madden, NBA2k, hell even Cricket has a game out; no social media presence; no FTA presence; no marketing to speak of at all; no School presence outside GPS (rapidly losing ground to Football and AFL) and the odd catholic school.
    • Do something about crowds at test level - $100 a ticket in this economic climate is far too much for a relatively unpopular product; never ever have another test at ANZ (or whatever it's called) ever again ever.

The issue with changing the laws is that Rugby is a global sport, and there does not seem to be much appetite elsewhere for the laws to be changed to make it more like, say, rugby league. Doesn't really work if we play a game by different laws in some low level pro comp locally (probably all we'll have) then try to adapt to play against teams playing under the existing laws. Low / nil interest in NH powerhouses for this. As for modernising - red and yellow cards are a fairly modern change. The current implementation of those is problematic. But they're not archaic. Needs some work, I agree. Like the idea that a red card means player gone for game but can be replaced after 10 mins, hence penalty harsher than yellow (and should be) as reduced subbing flexibility.
Refereeing consistency - massive issue, but something World Rugby seems paralysed about.
Youth engagement - yes; needs money, but yes. Massive dropped ball here. Not sure we can match the coin AFL throw at it - from first hand discussion with someone paid by AFL to get it into rugby heartland schools (who had a strong rugby background!!).
Tests - yep - when you could sell out 100K easily for a Bled - fine, charge what you want. But who wants to pay Porsche money for a Hyundai. Cheaper family packages etc would be a start.

 

[Froggy]

The problem with all that Derpus, is the whole chicken/egg thing. Throwing money at grassroots is all fine, but without success at the top level we don't have any money to direct there. Conversely, without spending the money to bring the grassroots and the youth along, how are we ever going to have success at the top end. Agree with you re refereeing, but don't know how you fix it. Also agree re pricing, tickets must be priced where people will buy them. As the airlines worked out long ago, a plane full of people paying $100/seat beats a plane full of empty $250 seats.

As you can see, I'm pretty light on for solutions, which is why I'm clearly not the man for the job . However, it just outlines how important it is for whoever is going to run RA has a very clear plan, that is realistically workable, affordable and has a very clear set of objectives so that we can monitor it's progress and adjust where necessary. And of course, the right people to implement that.

'I used to be a good player, rugby is not going well, so everybody piss off' is not a plan! Nor is 'my employer wants cheap broadcast rights to help save his ailing Pay TV network, so make me CEO' a plan!!

 

[Derpus]

^^^
Cyclo - i reckon WR (World Rugby) could be convinced to fix scrum resets. There seemed to be grumblings coming out of Europe about the extent of it's abuse during the WC.

 

[Braveheart81]

^^^
Cyclo - i reckon WR (World Rugby) could be convinced to fix scrum resets. There seemed to be grumblings coming out of Europe about the extent of it's abuse during the WC.

I think this is the biggest one. It's a simple fix and I think just by stopping the clock for scrum resets you'd get rid of some of the resets (because the time wasting incentive would disappear).

 

[Dismal Pillock]

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/rugby-...caused-castle-to-crumble-20200424-p54n2u.html

haha, bung-eyed kid with the Sky mic is TOTALLY mailing it in, he just couldnt give a shit, "oh hi, can I get a word, oh well, can't say I didn't try, hey look, I'm on tv."

that plus the bloke having a luxurious sniff of Raelene's hair, what the fuck is going on in Australia?

 

[Caputo]

There is a two point plan

Rugby 2088 and is Shute is good.

 

[Derpus]

The problem with all that Derpus, is the whole chicken/egg thing. Throwing money at grassroots is all fine, but without success at the top level we don't have any money to direct there. Conversely, without spending the money to bring the grassroots and the youth along, how are we ever going to have success at the top end. Agree with you re refereeing, but don't know how you fix it. Also agree re pricing, tickets must be priced where people will buy them. As the airlines worked out long ago, a plane full of people paying $100/seat beats a plane full of empty $250 seats.

As you can see, I'm pretty light on for solutions, which is why I'm clearly not the man for the job . However, it just outlines how important it is for whoever is going to run RA has a very clear plan, that is realistically workable, affordable and has a very clear set of objectives so that we can monitor it's progress and adjust where necessary. And of course, the right people to implement that.

'I used to be a good player, rugby is not going well, so everybody piss off' is not a plan! Nor is 'my employer wants cheap broadcast rights to help save his ailing Pay TV network, so make me CEO' a plan!!

So find a way to break the cycle. I don't know how exactly. Maybe we take on obscene amounts of debt? it's an Australian pastime after all.

We could even put together a list of suggestions and mail it to whichever group of dumb fucks are running the game. We are basically the only stakeholders left besides the players and RA staff anyway.

 

[KOB1987]

haha, bung-eyed kid with the Sky mic is TOTALLY mailing it in, he just couldnt give a shit, "oh hi, can I get a word, oh well, can't say I didn't try, hey look, I'm on tv."

that plus the bloke having a luxurious sniff of Raelene's hair, what the fuck is going on in Australia?

I think that bloke is the remnants of the Fox rugby staff.

 

[Rugbynutter39]

The issue with changing the laws is that Rugby is a global sport, and there does not seem to be much appetite elsewhere for the laws to be changed to make it more like, say, rugby league. Doesn't really work if we play a game by different laws in some low level pro comp locally (probably all we'll have) then try to adapt to play against teams playing under the existing laws. Low / nil interest in NH powerhouses for this. As for modernising - red and yellow cards are a fairly modern change. The current implementation of those is problematic. But they're not archaic. Needs some work, I agree. Like the idea that a red card means player gone for game but can be replaced after 10 mins, hence penalty harsher than yellow (and should be) as reduced subbing flexibility.
Refereeing consistency - massive issue, but something World Rugby seems paralysed about.
Youth engagement - yes; needs money, but yes. Massive dropped ball here. Not sure we can match the coin AFL throw at it - from first hand discussion with someone paid by AFL to get it into rugby heartland schools (who had a strong rugby background!!).
Tests - yep - when you could sell out 100K easily for a Bled - fine, charge what you want. But who wants to pay Porsche money for a Hyundai. Cheaper family packages etc would be a start.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought rapid rugby made rule changes with World Rugby approval in line with their trial of various new laws in different competitions. Contrary to some traditionalists world rugby also recognises need to review and trial new potential variations of currrent laws

 

[Joe King]

Can anyone see the RA board NOT accepting the captains idea of a review board?

It just feels like there's no other option. If they don't go for it, then it just feels like something could snap this time. Can't see them moving on from this one. And it just seems like the only option with the potential to heal the game.

If they do go for it, then as has been suggested, the key will be in the make-up of the review board.

 

[Rugbynutter39]

Can anyone see the RA board NOT accepting the captains idea of a review board?

It just feels like there's no other option. If they don't go for it, then it just feels like something could snap this time. Can't see them moving on from this one. And it just seems like the only option with the potential to heal the game.

If they do go for it, then as has been suggested, the key will be in the make-up of the review board.

If made up of same existing traditional rugby stakeholder groups involved in past reviews will be another review document drawing cobwebs with the rest of the past many reviews. We need some outsiders injected to shake this up and Challenge amateur era views not much moved forward hence the twiggys, gallops etc who can offer views that challenge the status quo

 

[cyclopath]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought rapid rugby made rule changes with World Rugby approval in line with their trial of various new laws in different competitions. Contrary to some traditionalists world rugby also recognises need to review and trial new potential variations of currrent laws

It did, but I don't think it would be workable on a wider scale if you want to continue to compete internationally (trans-Tasman and Tests). Within a comp like GRR, no problem at all and a good place to try things. As they did with NRC at times.

 

[cyclopath]

^^^
Cyclo - i reckon WR (World Rugby) could be convinced to fix scrum resets. There seemed to be grumblings coming out of Europe about the extent of it's abuse during the WC.

I think WR (World Rugby) is even more pre-occupied with the dining arrangements at an unfeasibly large trough. Makes RA's look like Macca's drive-through. Without ScoMo's shart stains, obvs.

 

[KOB1987]

^^^
Cyclo - i reckon WR (World Rugby) could be convinced to fix scrum resets. There seemed to be grumblings coming out of Europe about the extent of it's abuse during the WC.

Presumably not from Wales?