....No excuses the Force should have put the Rebels away without question. Reds Happy....hard for members to get action taken at a board level to get the hard changes made to put the team on the right path. Yes I am sick of going nowhere after being a member 7 years.....
Moono, I sense and empathise with your pain and frustration, you come across as a great fan of your team and good on you. Believe me, in the 2007-2009 period I was aghast at the Reds' mediocrity and chronic failure despite the great rugby talent and local 'rugby feeder' systems in their midst. I soon identified the utter incompetence, strategic indolence, there-for-the-networking-gains-not-for-the-code's-health of most of the QRU board members of that period.
The governance and structural problem was that, although the QRU is/was in effect dependent upon the ARU's annual income support (as are all the Aus RUs), the ARU had no effective working executive model by which it would objectively measure the QRU's actual business and game performance over time and then, if manifestly inadequate, be able to intervene and enforce governance and board-level clean outs and upgrades (just as a business holding company typically would if one or more of its major divisions failed to perform and develop over time). Instead, the the then QRU bumbled along in protective delusional mode, took no honest self-corrective measures, and disaster ultimately struck in late 2009 as gate and sponsor income collapsed leading the QRU to admit it was de facto bankrupt. c.40% of Aus rugby nearly disappeared down the toilet...and it could be seen as coming for at least 2-3 years prior.
Sorry to repeat, but I honestly see a less severe, but sadly very similar, version of this same syndrome emerging wrt to Rugby WA and its Force.
What needs to urgently occur is either (a) for the ARU to reform the constitutional structure of Aus rugby (as the NRL has just admirably done and the far-better-managed AFL did years back), or (b) for it to have the testicular fortitude to simply enforce that, over time, if franchises do not comply with pre-determined medium term business performance and code developmental KPIs, then the ARU will insist on management/board changes, and/or withdraw its core financial support until such changes are made. These KPIs would likely be items such as: gradually improving annual moving average S15 w-l % ratios (
tailored fairly to any one RU's age and stage and rugby market size), average S15 final ladder position improvement over say 3 year periods, local rugby participation (or similar stat) % growth rates over time, development of local grade competition depth of teams/players, number of Wallabies developed over time from State RU sources, etc, etc. I'm not being prescriptive here (as the right KPIs would need careful formulation), but you get my general idea I'm sure.
All that local RU boards seem genuinely accountable (to the rugby public and ARU) for today are: (i) are my excuses for mediocrity going over OK in the rugby media (ii) are my 'blame external factors' lines in good enough shape and (iii) am I avoiding insolvency this year? That's about it, and as long as these 3 are in vaguely positive territory, nothing whatsoever changes, nothing, even if crowds are in real decline, and non-ARU-fed income as well. There is no genuine accountability for code-enhancing prosperity, there is no commonly defined set of central KPIs than can be objectively measured, there is no clear standard for background or competency types for board positions, there is no 'punishment' of any kind for years of poor code and/or S15 w-l mediocrity and general local RU business performance. It's as though these State RUs are effectively out-of orbit-sputniks coursing their own paths through an inaccessible galaxy....whilst we fans watch on in impotent dismay.
It's the whole rugby code and its Aussie sports market share that's the sad loser in all this. Let alone thousands of disillusioned fans that feel cheated of excellence in the game they love, and pay over and over again to watch and support.
