But no experience of the ridiculous political environment in Rugby or professional sport in general . It takes special skills to manoeuvre your way through the minefield that is Australian Rugby . Cameron Clyne doesn't look like he can do it either .
See this is the thing: the political minefield IS THE ISSUE.
Too many people in rugby think that their idea is the one that should win. None of those ideas are particularly disruptive to the status quo, or even innovative for Australian Rugby.
GPS: WE ARE THE BREEDING GROUND FOR THE NEXT GENERATION!
Well, to a degree. In that you have money to throw at rugby and not many other people do. But to be a "competition" you have to be "competitive" and that means having more than 6 schools, and more than 1-2 of those being contenders in a given year.
GPS has also contracted since the golden days. And doesn't play regular fixtures against other schools competitions or even individuals.
Narrowing the base never helps.
Poido et al: PREMIER RUGBY MADE WALLABIES FOR DECADES SO IT MUST BE THE ANSWER!
Club rugby WAS good but it ignores the fact that Shute Shield in particular has suffered from contraction, and this ridiculous belief that NSW Rugby/Sydney Rugby is somehow helping Western Sydney by beating the shit out of Parramatta and Penrith every week (First Grade for both clubs shipped 130+ points to bugger all on the weekend).
Like the schools setup, senior club rugby has contracted sharply in terms of overall quality. And quite frankly, 4 Grades is ridiculous when you're also trying to support 3 Grades of Colts. Penrith can meet neither criteria.
What these two things have in common is a narrower base, and creation of a real haves/have nots scenario wherein the people in power build on it, and the people without simply suffer through it, then leave.
They're also self-serving, protectionist, and put the game of rugby behind other priorities.
That simply can't happen any more.
The Kiwis reformed their domestic comp, decided that the All Blacks were the top of the pile, and geared everything to success.
They also went through the financial realities of spraying money everywhere like a mad woman's shit, and made sure that couldn't happen any more.
The next CEO needs to be someone from Sports Administration, who wants to forge a career in this field and needs the salary it pays (oh and also not connected to the Shore School or wider Sydney GPS).
I agree wholeheartedly with this statement.
Except the bit about salary - one of the issues with rugby politics (like normal politics) is that a CEO has to be someone who already has success and therefore doesn't need the salary. Its how people at the "top" think.
