Australian Rugby / RA

[Strewthcobber]

To a point, yes. But I’d question how much these guys are actually desperate to play for Australia. If you told an aspiring All Black he’d have to move from Auckland to Dunedin to play Super Rugby he’d bite your hand off for the opportunity

I'd say the 100+ NZ rugby players in Japan show that isn't universally true

 

[Tomthumb]

Stay in Brisbane and be with your family/support network

Unless any offer from overseas comes. I guess the need for a support system wanes with a few extra dollars in the bank account

 

[Wilson]

I posted it to the Reds thread - they put out a video celebrating Lynagh's re-signing. 1 minute of the least exciting highlights I've ever seen.

Is that because there are no good highlights from his season, or the media team don't know what rugby highlights look like? (hint - it's not knocking over a penalty from the 15m line)

Lynagh's value isn't necessarily highlight reel stuff, a lot of it is good tactical kicking and match control. That said slotting the winning penalty from 50 out is highlight reel worthy in my book.

Either way the work the Reds have been doing on socials this year is significantly better than what has been coming out of rugby in Australia in recent years, if anything it's closer to the solution than it is the problem. They're starting to really focus on the characters in the game and put them forward, particularly with guys like Toomaga-Allen and riding the Junkyard Dog wave. That's the path forward.

 

[Wilson]

I don’t get the attitude of wanting to play club footy instead of playing Super Rugby

Is it that hard to understand that players at a club that has just collapsed after financial mismanagement are holding out to go to one of the teams who are relatively stable on and off the field and investing in their player development outside the season?

Why after all they've been through would they want to go to a side with no money, no coach and no plan, where senior players are bailing and trying to get out of their contracts and there has been no investment in developing players outside the super rugby season?

Right now those players hold all the cards, their salaries are assured and they can wait it out while their agents shop them around overseas. Even if they really do want to be playing super rugby next year over club there's no point taking a contract at the tahs until they can put forward a compelling case, those squad spots aren't exactly filling up until the DoR and head coach are in place, and even then recruitment is going to be an uphill battle.

 

[Highlander35]

Quade Cooper did a 2 hour interview with YKTR on youtube concerning the state of Australian rugby and what needs to be done to fix it.

All of his points sound like things written here verbatim.

Uh oh. We're all wrong then

 

[Slayer!]

And broadcast revenue will decrease, both Stan and Fox sports wanted Australia having 5 teams in the negotiations. That was sent around from some pretty reliable sources.

Not if they expand the competition to full (or close to it) home-and-away. Same number of games, spread over more weeks (ie, more subscriptions).

Also more home games (at least two, maybe three) for the clubs, so more membership/ticketing revenue. Well, at least for the Reds. Brumbies struggled to pull more than 9000 for a home quarter final, let alone a round game. If the Reds had made it that would have gone near 40,000. (Which is more to do with the fact that Canberra needs a CBD stadium than anything else, to be honest).

 

[Slayer!]

Uh oh. We're all wrong then

Quade is a fast becoming the new Campo.

Someone who was once erratically good, but has shit on the liver and a fervent need to tell everyone about the slights he felt were given to him.

 

[LevitatingSocks]

Quade is a fast becoming the new Campo.

Someone who was once erratically good, but has shit on the liver and a fervent need to tell everyone about the slights he felt were given to him.

On the contrary, it was a thoughtful interview with heaps of constructive ideas.

Worth a listen even if you don't care for him as a person.

 

[Brumby Runner]

I posted it to the Reds thread - they put out a video celebrating Lynagh's re-signing. 1 minute of the least exciting highlights I've ever seen.

Is that because there are no good highlights from his season, or the media team don't know what rugby highlights look like? (hint - it's not knocking over a penalty from the 15m line)

It's a Tom Wright run from fullback linking with Corey Toole on the wing and Charlie Cale and Nick Frost looming up in support.

 

[Adam84]

Any insight into this? Is it because we don't have prominent players for marketing? Or are RA not wanting to spend money on it?

The unique thing about the NRL is the most popular players are pretty much all State of Origin players, so they are able to market across the entire fanbase (well majority of the fanbase support either NSW or QLD) and there will always be some players in form who they can rely on to give a good push.

Within rugby, the Wallabies have been crap for a long time. I am sure rugby australia are concious that trying to build a marketing campaign around a bunch of players who have been mediore for quite a while isn't exactly a receipe for success. Then of course you have guys like Nela who got some decent airtime, then got injured, lost interest and now is only one fast food bender away from losing his Wallabies spot.

My version of events goes back a few years now, around 2014 I was housemates with a Channel 9 sports reporter, this is when Waratahs in Sydney still warranted a headline; I asked why she didn't cover rugby union more often, and basically, she said teams like the Waratahs/RA were painful to work with as they(journalists) would be restricted from training, limited to the players they could interview and provided limited access to capture good content during media sessions. In contrast, NRL teams at the time had an open-door policy for journalists, were invited into changerooms, given informal access, etc.

So naturally, they went to NRL teams for content for the weekly news.

 

[Rebel man]

To a point, yes. But I’d question how much these guys are actually desperate to play for Australia. If you told an aspiring All Black he’d have to move from Auckland to Dunedin to play Super Rugby he’d bite your hand off for the opportunity

Why would you want to go to the Tahs?

 

[Tomthumb]

Why would you want to go to the Tahs?

Because it’s one of only 4 pro teams in the country that also give you the opportunity to play for your Nation

Why did anyone want to go the Rebels?

 

[KevinO]

Because it’s one of only 4 pro teams in the country that also give you the opportunity to play for your Nation

Why did anyone want to go the Rebels?

Because it's the best city in the country to live

 

[shaquille_oatmeal]

The instability with local teams is concerning, don't want to see burgeoning talent going elsewhere because of it.

 

[LeCheese]

Because it's the best city in the country to live

Awkward...

Some of the rebels players from Brisbane were being billoted during the week in Melbourne with rebels families whilst still living in Brisbane.

 

[shaquille_oatmeal]

Awkward...

Likely more a factor of cost of living, and remember they enjoy playing there enough to choose that rather than just playing in Brisbane.

 

[Rebel man]

Because it’s one of only 4 pro teams in the country that also give you the opportunity to play for your Nation

Why did anyone want to go the Rebels?

The Tahs are the definition of basket case right now. You’d avoid them like the plague

 

[Rebel man]

It may have sounded good in Waughs head to just move all the players to the Tahs but it was never going to be smooth sailing in reality. They have already lost players they wanted to keep.

The Tahs will be lucky to pick up a loosing bonus point next year

 

[Wallaby Man]

Because the contracts are guaranteed under RA agreement with RUPA, it nullifies the argument that RA had their hands tied and couldn’t negotiate earlier with players. They are the arbiters of the rules (salary cap, etc) it’s only there because they say so. They easily could have war gamed this much earlier but have completely fluffed this whole thing. The current admin is frugal (which might not be the worst thing) but so was Hamish originally when he cut tens of millions off RA admin during Covid to keep us afloat and reducing grants. The first 6 months of this admin is looking worse than the first 6 months of his. All this to me points to it been a governance issue or structure than the individuals, they can’t all be this incompetent one after another (Pulver, Castle, Hamish, now this lot)

 

[Tomthumb]

The Tahs will be lucky to pick up a loosing bonus point next year

Haha c'mon, now you're just being bitter