Wallabies 2024

[Braveheart81]

Let's get a bottom-up system going that we can be proud of, is sustainable and will (eventually) lead us to our natural position on the world rankings - hopefully near the top

What does this even mean?

The ability to play the sport professionally and earn a good income is a major driver in attracting top end talent.

Participation at a grassroots level is driven strongly by the success of the sport at a national/international level.

Are there any sports that thrive at a grassroots level despite little success or interest at the top level?

 

[Jimmy_Crouch]

I would love to have Lancaster - being at Leinster he’s the head of one of the best talent pipelines in world rugby

Check the news he joined Racing 92 a year ago mate

 

[shanky]

What does this even mean?

The ability to play the sport professionally and earn a good income is a major driver in attracting top end talent.

Participation at a grassroots level is driven strongly by the success of the sport at a national/international level.

Are there any sports that thrive at a grassroots level despite little success or interest at the top level?

What do I mean?

I mean a thriving club scene that reaches out from the heartland and has involvement elsewhere.

In my example, I pointed out the support at Penrith. Of those players on the touchlines, many I recognised from Junior rugby. Blacktown (in particular) has a team in every junior age group and a full complement of girls' teams as well. They've made a lie out of the notion that there's no interest in rugby 'out west'.

So, keeping some of those juniors inside Union by offering a semi-professional pathway will (in my opinion) work wonders for retention and broader interest.

This means diverting resources away from competing for elite athletes. I recognise that. However, as I said, I don't think the current system has worked and certainly is not sustainable. It is axiomatic that the best players make a decision to stay not solely based on money, but also rep honours, national/state pride etc. Exhibit A: any TH prop playing for the WBs.

Having said that, your second and third sentences merely highlight that you have a different opinion on the above. I don't see much support offered for the notion that the current system (albeit 'reality') is worth pursuing further at the expense of considering alternatives.

Your last sentence is the closest thing offered to a rebuttal, but you've misquoted me in doing so. I want success as well, and nothing I've said suggests otherwise. Thriving grassroots leads (ipso facto) to high-level success, even without 'lots' of money for the top athletes.

e.g. Hockey, Netball, Women's football, surfing, any number of Olympic sports..

 

[Braveheart81]

What do I mean?

I mean a thriving club scene that reaches out from the heartland and has involvement elsewhere.

In my example, I pointed out the support at Penrith. Of those players on the touchlines, many I recognised from Junior rugby. Blacktown (in particular) has a team in every junior age group and a full complement of girls' teams as well. They've made a lie out of the notion that there's no interest in rugby 'out west'.

So, keeping some of those juniors inside Union by offering a semi-professional pathway will (in my opinion) work wonders for retention and broader interest.

This means diverting resources away from competing for elite athletes. I recognise that. However, as I said, I don't think the current system has worked and certainly is not sustainable. It is axiomatic that the best players make a decision to stay not solely based on money, but also rep honours, national pride etc. Exhibit A: any TH prop playing for the WBs

Having said that, your second and third sentences merely highlight that you have a different opinion on the above. I don't see much support for the notion that the system (albeit 'reality') is worth pursuing further and the expense of considering alternatives.

Your last sentence is the closest thing offered to a rebuttal, but you've misquoted me in doing so. I want success as well, and nothing I've said suggests otherwise. Thriving grassroots leads (ipso facto) to high-level success, even without 'lots' of money for the top athletes.

e.g. Hockey, Netball, Women's football, surfing, any number of Olympic sports..

I'm not in any way saying that grassroots participation isn't critical to the future success of rugby. I am saying that there is a strong link between participation there from success at the highest level. Whether or not there's a strong professional pathway isn't necessarily the key but hockey and other predominantly Olympic sports thrive when we have a superstar team or individual winnings medals. Park cricket registrations have a surge when the Ashes are on or Australia wins World Cups etc. Exposure of women's football drives participation by kids etc.

I am questioning how you put a whole lot more money into those grassroots levels. The only part of the sport with excess revenue is the pointy end of the professional game. People talk about the bottom up notion and the game being a pyramid and essentially the wider you can make that base, the higher the peak is and I agree that it's true but the funding to widen that base comes from the top in pretty much every sport.

The one major exception to that is rugby league which has a substantial amount of funding from poker machine profits. Formerly this was also the case in Victoria with AFL clubs but they have largely divested to my knowledge.

It is very much a chicken and egg situation because the health of the game at the bottom of the sport dictates heavily how successful and sustainable you can be at the peak of the sport but likewise, the only way you can really fund the investment in the base is from the professional game at the top that generates revenue.

It's a really complex situation to fix and I don't have the answer. I have spent a lot of time thinking about it and analyzing the financials of rugby in Australia and discussing it on these forums and the same arguments keep coming around that this is the way to fix it but the thing no one can answer is how you fund it.

 

[shanky]

Thank you

I agree the issue is complex and the problems severe, possibly even intractable.

However, this being an internet forum and us not having to actually deliver anything, we can speculate on our preferred approaches given we all have a common love for the welfare of the game.

My view on the most practicable approach is to extend 'some' existing funding towards a national club competition (not an NRC/ARC) with the sole intention of building that into something of a semi-professional nature in time. I know we tied it before (sorry Vikings) but it was half-assed.

 

[Froggy]

I can see both the above points, and unfortunately I don't have the answer either. However, what we are currently doing is clearly not working, and that is really at pretty much any level you want to look at, being the Wallabies, the Super rugby teams, grassroots participation, media audience, ground attendance, finances, any measure of the health of the game you want to take. And BH while I certainly understand your somewhat resigned defence of the current system, it is clearly failing and we are heading towards becoming a sport with the broad popular appeal of archery! Many attribute it to Einstein, but whoever said it continuing to do the same thing and expecting a different result is madness.

We really need to step outside the current paradigm, despite the risks involved, have a real crack at something different. I don't mean crazy stuff, do the due diligence, plan as carefully as possible, then take the great leap out of the comfort zone and do something to re-invigorate our sport.

 

[Braveheart81]

And BH while I certainly understand your somewhat resigned defence of the current system, it is clearly failing and we are heading towards becoming a sport with the broad popular appeal of archery! Many attribute it to Einstein, but whoever said it continuing to do the same thing and expecting a different result is madness.

We really need to step outside the current paradigm, despite the risks involved, have a real crack at something different. I don't mean crazy stuff, do the due diligence, plan as carefully as possible, then take the great leap out of the comfort zone and do something to re-invigorate our sport.

It's not a defence of the current system. It's not seeing a viable pathway to turning everything on its head.

Let's say you were going to draw a line in the sand and say that from 2028 or whatever year you're doing something totally different. There's going to be a new domestic competition that includes current teams and adds new teams and the teams will split whatever that new broadcast agreement can generate. There's also a distribution from Rugby Australia to each team of some component of the RWC surplus.

I'd expect that each of those teams needs a runway of $50m over a decade in terms of someone being willing to fund their losses to think there's a reasonable prospect of success. It's a huge amount of money.

 

[dru]

What does this even mean?

The ability to play the sport professionally and earn a good income is a major driver in attracting top end talent.

Participation at a grassroots level is driven strongly by the success of the sport at a national/international level.

Are there any sports that thrive at a grassroots level despite little success or interest at the top level?

How do we think that is going as with our recent success rate and dumped out of the RWC in the group stage? How do we think it will pan out as we settle into closer to a ranking of 10 that away from it?

On the back of the coming BIL and RWC better income is anticipated at any rate, the real question in the real world over the next couple/few years is how to invest that income.

 

[Derpus]

What does this even mean?

The ability to play the sport professionally and earn a good income is a major driver in attracting top end talent.

Participation at a grassroots level is driven strongly by the success of the sport at a national/international level.

Are there any sports that thrive at a grassroots level despite little success or interest at the top level?

Football?

 

[Adam84]

Football gets a lot of interest at top level, it’s the mid level(pro club level) that it struggles. But this is somewhat backfilled by some of the overseas leagues

 

[Wilson]

Field hockey is probably a classic for strong grass roots and amatuer participation with absolutely nothing going on at the professional level. They do go very well at the highest level of competition though, they've just never been able to convert it to any sort of commercial success.

 

[Linerunner2023]

How do we build up a comp quickly - had a chat to a mate and he mentioned the only way to start up a decent comp and not teams from scratch is you need teams who allready have a supporting and junior base
So bacially club rugby sides to push from ammatuer ot semi pro to full pro with juniors, under 20s and the 1st grade
How you would do it not sure but would say have sides merge or only the stronger clubs take on
1 side from Perth
1 side from Melbourne - harlequins
1 or 2 Canberra sides - Vikings
3-4 Qld sides so may need to bring clubs together or run only with stronger clubs
5-6 sides from Sydney
Club rugby gets 7-10K to some games so base allready there just need to market and promote the bell out of it to expand the supporter base
Only other way they can look into this is a schools system where schools then pump in money to have pro teams affiliated with them - Leichhardt oval packed for Riverview and joeys game - there is a supporter base and atmosphere - schools align with a side to work together for school and for pro side
Hard to compare afl and nrl as afl have no other comps in the world to compare takent with, nrl only super leave which is weaker but what works for rugby?
French have too 14 and pro D2 so 28 sides
England have 12
Japan have 24 with top league and div 2 ans 3
While SA, Ireland and wales etc only have 4 each
The larger comps have many internationals
If Aus rugby got all the Aus overseas talent back, some internationals and also players not going to league we could have more teams and need more competitive teams otherwise juniors will pick other codes due to opportunity

 

[shanky]

I agree that we need to build on existing clubs scenes. There’s plenty of them knocking about and all have history and a junior (village) club underpinning

could add in subbies clubs also, if they wanted

if we’re doing it via the existing premiership scene (i.e Shute in Sydney, Vikings, Brothers etc) i think we’d need two divisions to get past the floggings

As I said, I’d be aiming for semi-pro. How much do you have to pay a talented young bloke who can’t get a State gig?
answer? Dunno. I’d guess 12-15k a season at most?
if there’s 200 players on that top rate, we’ve got a wage bill of $3m per year. About what we currently pay to rotate Wallaby coaches and sundry god botherers in any given year…

 

[Tomthumb]

What does this even mean?

The ability to play the sport professionally and earn a good income is a major driver in attracting top end talent.

Participation at a grassroots level is driven strongly by the success of the sport at a national/international level.

Are there any sports that thrive at a grassroots level despite little success or interest at the top level?

I feel you're putting the cart before the horse

We need a sustainable pathway from grassroots up. If that is strong odds are the Wallabies will be too

Hoping the Wallabies will be good in order to afford to pay Super Rugby players is not a successful business model. Again, its building the roof before the foundations

 

[Tomikin]

I feel you're putting the cart before the horse

We need a sustainable pathway from grassroots up. If that is strong odds are the Wallabies will be too

Hoping the Wallabies will be good in order to afford to pay Super Rugby players is not a successful business model. Again, its building the roof before the foundations

I think BH agrees, but you have to fund it.. to fund it we need the Wallabies making money.

 

[Tomthumb]

I think BH agrees, but you have to fund it.. to fund it we need the Wallabies making money.

If we keep going this way, the Wallabies wont be making any money as they continue to sink

It's not an easy solution, granted, but this attitude of "it is what is it" just baffles me. If we keep the status quo we are doomed

 

[dru]

I think BH agrees, but you have to fund it.. to fund it we need the Wallabies making money.

We need someone making enough money and some control over cost. Note that the Wallabies are a key contributor to rugby funds but not a sole contributor. Broadcast revenue has been limited by having enough content. It would also contribute to have better audience capture which can be targeted.

Savings comes from thinking through actually how much the Wallabies and top up fees require given current results. Purchasing League players is mostly, but not I suspect wholly, funded by third parties. So savings are available through redirecting to pathways.

Running a domestic comp still has travel costs but would they be greater overall than Super with its international element?

Finally, the BIL and RWC are a gimme, what we need is a rationale around how to spend it. My answer is invest.

 

[HogansHeros]

We should centralise under the reign of King Twiggy and the Force can represent us at the next RWC.

He bank rolled a Global Rapid Rugby when the force were kicked out... surely can bank roll a domestic comp here?

 

[HooperPocockSmith]

We should centralise under the reign of King Twiggy and the Force can represent us at the next RWC.

He bank rolled a Global Rapid Rugby when the force were kicked out... surely can bank roll a domestic comp here?

Haha it would be a pretty interesting thought experiment. The force buy/pay the best eligible wallaby players. Play them together week in, week out. Pay an absolute fortune for someone like Andy Farrell and his coaching staff. The best S&C money can buy.

 

[noscrumnolife]

He bank rolled a Global Rapid Rugby when the force were kicked out... surely can bank roll a domestic comp here?

Pre-divorce perhaps. Wallet might feel 50% tighter these days...