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TOCC
Guest
Yes i know its the COO of the Rebels, but he raises some interesting points about rugby in NSW(see bolded text), i have often noticed similar sentiments from NSW clubs towards the ARU and NSWRU, i think its rather interesting and goes along way to reaffirm the NSWRU decision to split the NSWRU and Tahs rugby.
In my opinion QLD doesnt have the same problem, whilst there is grassroot level frustration towards the ARU and QRU, i dont believe that any angst towards the QRU is reflected towards the Reds. In retrospect most clubs seem very supportive of the Reds regardless of the working relationship between the QRU and themselves.
In my opinion QLD doesnt have the same problem, whilst there is grassroot level frustration towards the ARU and QRU, i dont believe that any angst towards the QRU is reflected towards the Reds. In retrospect most clubs seem very supportive of the Reds regardless of the working relationship between the QRU and themselves.
As Chief Operating Officer of the RaboDirect Rebels, Steve Boland is responsible for the day-to-day management of the club and its business operations. An experienced executive, Boland brings not only his business acumen to the Rebels but also a lifelong passion for rugby. An example of this crossover is his presidency of the Parramatta Two Blues Rugby Club in Sydney.
With the majority of the Rebels squad away enjoying some well-earned time off during the bye-week, Boland took the opportunity to give his mid-term assessment of the club’s progression in its debut year.
“The absolute best thing, something none of us expected that’s been a great fillip for the whole club, has been the passionate nature of the support,” Boland began. “The crowds are about where we hoped they would be but it’s not so much the numbers but the nature of the support has just been phenomenal. Everybody in the organisation, from players, right through to the board members have just been so thrilled by how we’ve been accepted by the Victorian public.”
“The last home game, against the Hurricanes, we went up against St Kilda and Geelong at the MCG, and we had our best crowd since round one. That’s given us confidence that we’ve got a different type of support and we’ve done surveys and identified that the vast majority of these are genuine rugby people, so we’re confident that going up against the AFL on a Friday night doesn’t make much of a difference to us.”
Enthusiasm for the club’s development off the field has, in the last two weeks, been matched by performances on it, as the Rebels strive to achieve the consistency required to survive in Super Rugby.
“On the field, we’ve probably exceeded our expectations,” Boland explained. “We’re three wins from seven now so I think we’re probably slightly ahead and getting that first away win was a real monkey off our back. Everyone’s looking forward to the rest of the year with a lot of hope that we can really perform well.”
Hope may be one thing, but Boland is careful to temper expectations, just seven weeks into a gruelling first crack at the competition. “There’s been a bit of finals talk around the place but we really want to water that down at the moment. The old hackneyed cliché that you’re only as good as your last game is right,” Boland said.
“We’ve got a bye this week so we get points, then we have a really important match at home to the Highlanders, then we go to New Zealand for a really tough game against the Blues and we’ve still got a trip to South Africa ahead of us, so I think finals talk is premature but we’re in a great position.”
While the club has had notable success both on the pitch and in the stands, the message from the top remains one of ‘could do better,’ with Boland cautioning against complacency, particularly with regard to the fulfilment of the Rebels Creed and Five Star engagement policy.
“The absolute first thing we have to do is deliver on the promise of the pledge and the Five Star engagement programme. Otherwise it becomes something that was a really great idea, but sometimes, great ideas when they don’t quite work can have a negative influence because they become a millstone around your neck until you deliver on it. I know all the senior management, the players, the coaches and the board are committed, so we have to deliver. If we don’t, it will shake us out of our honeymoon period pretty quickly,” Boland warned
“There’s a huge intent from everybody in the organisation to live the pledge and also commit to the Five Star engagement strategy. I think we can do it better and I think we’re learning at the moment to be more proactive. The organisation realises there’s a fantastic promise out there and we’re committed to delivering on that promise and we’ve got a bit of work to do before we complete that,” Boland said. “But, nobody’s backing away from that promise and it is an important point of difference for the club.”
“We want to be part of the Victorian rugby community and to connect as well as we can in that area, we need to deliver on the promise of the pledge and also the Five Star engagement strategy.”
Much to Boland’s delight, one aspect of the club’s integration in the Victorian rugby community that has been a great success is the Rebel Rugby programme.
“The Rebel Rugby programme, from the top down, has been a huge success,” Boland enthused. “The Rebel Rising team did exactly what we wanted it to. We wanted to give our contracted players that weren’t playing in the 22 a game of rugby at a decent standard. We wanted to look at some guys out of Sydney and Brisbane who were on the cusp of being suitable for Super Rugby, and we’ve found a couple of guys out of that that we’re looking at seriously for the future. And we wanted to give the best players in the Victorian competition a taste of top class rugby, and we did that. And we won some games!”
“Josh Philpot, Matt Cockbain, Nick Ryan and all the guys involved in that programme have done a phenomenal job. The next step is to move from Rebel Rising mode into Victorian state team mode and then into junior rep team mode after that. We’re looking for the same level of success in those programmes that we’ve seen from Rebel Rising,” he said.
It’s clear that the success of Rebel Rising and the development of rugby throughout the state is critical to the success of the club in the long-term. As Boland explains: “I’ve spoken to different stakeholder groups in the last week about what the key indicators of success for the Rebels are. It’s not just about on field success, or financial success, which are both important, but it’s also about how many people are playing rugby in Victoria.”
“If we get more participation from juniors through to seniors throughout Melbourne and Victoria, it increases interest in the code, more people want to become members, more people want to come to the games and it makes the whole cycle more successful,” he said.
“If we won the competition and less people were playing rugby in Victoria I’d say it wouldn’t be a successful year. A successful year for us is to be really competitive on the field week in, week out, have a really solid financial base and for the whole code in Victoria to be in a healthier state for our presence. If we can do all of those things then we’ll be a sustainable, successful organisation.”
As an individual with detailed knowledge of rugby administration in both Sydney and Melbourne, Boland is a strong position to compare both markets.
“It’s clear that the major difference is that we’re being strongly willed to success by the Victorian rugby community. I know there were some competing bids for the license that was granted to the Melbourne Rebels originally but there are people that were involved in opposing bids that are absolutely right behind the Rebels now,” Boland explained.
“My experience in Sydney is that not everybody involved in club rugby is a passionate supporter of the Waratahs. In fact, unfortunately, it’s quite the reverse in some cases. Because of the way the NSW Rugby Union is viewed at grassroots level, some of that gets reflected on the professional team. That’s not the case down here. We get beaten by the Sharks and get a standing ovation!”
As the RaboDirect Rebels regroup in readiness for the second-half of an already momentous debut season, Boland had one last message for Rebels supporters.
“Thank you. Thank you for supporting us so strongly, as you already have. Everybody in the organisation, if you talk to players, coaches, staff, that’s the thing we’re really proud of and it keeps the thing going knowing how passionate our support is. We want to make sure we’re a team that justifies that level of support.”
http://www.melbournerebels.com.au/News/ArticleDetails/tabid/270/ArticleID/2064/Default.aspx
