There are two topics of conversation that have been repeated ad infinitum over the last couple of years: the unfair dominance of the Sydney club competitions by Sydney University and the need for a new third tier national competition.
In both cases, it is rare for anyone to address the major problems facing the future of rugby in Australia and that’s the grass roots foundations of the code. It seems pointless to me to talk about a third tier when there just isn’t the quality and quantity coming through.
I don’t claim to have all the answers, or to even have a complete understanding of the numbers involved at junior and school level, however I’ll at least attempt to provide an overview of the general situation as I see it and hopefully contributors to this discussion can actually contribute “facts” rather than “assumptions” and we might build a clearer picture of where we are at.
For the last 17 years, I have been involved with the Sydney University Colts programme as a volunteer coach, colts coordinator and most recently 1st colts manager. Prior to that I coached Gordon 2nd Grade Colts, various HKJRU rep teams and subbies teams.
I don’t know that there are any less players involved with junior village clubs, but that has always a small base anyway. District clubs support of these cubs has been mixed over the years. Some clubs fund the gear for the representative teams attending the various age group state carnivals, other provide coaches for the rep teams, some provide very little. Then there are some of the district clubs that recruit private school players to make up their representative teams, so the strength of village clubs is hard to assess.
The next level is schoolboy rugby. Someone else may have the exact figures here, but my impression is that the numbers playing at state high schools has fluctuated over the last 20 years. It seems dependent upon which schools have staff interested in coaching rugby and I haven’t seen any evidence of the code being promoted or any sort of development plan being applied.
Private school rugby appears to be in decline. I only mean this in the sense that there are fewer players rather than fewer quality teams at the top of each age group. NSW and Australian schoolboys teams appear to be as strong as ever, and it is this group that currently provide the vast majority of players graduating to senior rugby. The question is, where are they going to?
Up until around ten years ago, all district clubs, with the exception of Penrith fielded 4 colts teams; 3 Under 20’s and one under 19’s. When I played colts in the early 60’s, there were 3 Under 21’s and one under 18 team at most district clubs. For forty years or more, there were 80 or so players in colts graduating to grade over a three year period, so a steady flow.
Over the last ten years, the colts competition has been reduced to three teams. This year Gordon only fielded a 1st colts team, Penrith 1st’s and 2nds and several clubs forfeited the odd 3rd grade game for lack of numbers. By my reckoning, that means there are more than 300 fewer players involved in colts now than there were 10 years ago.
Where have all these colts players gone?
Well, Subbies now have colts in 1st, 2nd and 3rd division, a total of 25 teams and therefore possibly around 500 players of whom 300 or so would be under 20 and therefore eligible for District colts teams.
Of the schoolboys graduating to district colts teams, how many of them played in the NSW schoolboys representative teams? Even forgetting the total number of players selected in GPS, CAS, ISA and CHS teams, there are 46 players each year selected in NSW 1sts and 2nds. Of this number, probably 30+ will be final year students.
For the last ten years, Sydney University has recruited a total of 46 NSW schoolboy reps. That’s the total. Of those, maybe half also played for Australian schoolboys. That’s an average of 4 players per year.
Where have the other 26 to 42 players per year gone? I honestly don’t know how many have gone on to play colts or straight to grade, but what I do know is that 460 plus or minus players have represented NSW at schoolboy representative level in the last ten years and the majority should still be involved in club rugby, super 15 or wallabies.
There is a significant leakage of players to overseas clubs on a semi-professional level or better. Sydney University has had at various times, up to 20 ex-players playing in Europe. I’d love to know exactly how many Australians are playing overseas and how many of them would find a 3rd tier competition in Australia more attractive. I suspect of 50 or more, and the majority would prefer to stay where they are.
The only conclusion I can draw form what I know or have speculated above is that there is no stable foundation on which to build a third tier. I suspect it will be suggested that if there was a third tier, the foundations would strengthen because young players would see a future other than just Super 15 and beyond. For many, the opportunity to earn an income from playing at an intermediate level would be enough to keep them in the game. I still think it’s a chicken and egg scenario.
The ARU and state unions would be better served in investing in club rugby. They should develop a strategic plan for all clubs and provide the funding for each to employ full time coaches and coaching directors. As I have written elsewhere, the ARU is marketing and generating all it’s revenue from one product; “The Wallabies”. They are spending nothing or precious little on product development and taking little responsibility for managing the components of their future product
