In Crisis
I agree with my mate Bruce Holden from www.15manrugby.com that Rugby in Australia is in a real crisis. I sat and watched a great game of Rugby League on Friday night with the Broncos playing the Cowboys, it was a great game that you would pay money to see. Then I watched the garbage dished up by the Reds and the Waratahs, honestly you would not pay money to watch these games, schoolboy football is more entertaining and skilful.
The Reds are in a terrible position, they will probably get 10,000 or below for their next home game while the Broncos and the Titans will continue to pull 40,000 plus at the same venue. The Reds sponsors will be fuming and you know where their money will be going next year. The Reds unfortunately are locked into Suncorp Stadium and are losing a lot of dough at each match. They must rue the day they left Ballymore as every dollar that came through the gate went straight into their pocket, someone told me that you needed 15,000 plus just to pay for the hire fee for each match at Suncorp.
The Reds are looking at giving Ballymore back to the Queensland Government, giving all Community Rugby to the Australian Rugby Union and just keeping the Reds franchise operating. What a tragedy this would be for Queensand and Australian Rugby. A good friend of mine Captain Ron said that when Terry Doyle former Qld. CEO was ousted in a grimy boardroom deal that Queensland Rugby would be in decline for 10 years. How right he was, it is just over 10 years since Terry Doyle was shafted and the QRU are on the verge of a total collapse.
Even as an ex-player I used to be proud to say I was a former Queensland player, not anymore I am actually embarrassed to mention it. The QRU has been absolutely stuffed by successive inept administrations. Teams used to dread coming to Ballymore we would belt them from pillar to post. Now I watch a team of Reds comprised of fresh faced school boys run around the field and get bullied by the opposition. The Brisbane club competition is a farce and you can read Bruce's website to get an insite into the neglect of Queensland Country Rugby Union.
I just hope that someone with a love of Queensland Rugby actually gets control of the board and ousts all the wankers who are currently destroying the game. Leadership by the ARU is not helping it is also appalling, the 6 million contract given to Lote was a disgrace. Penrith Rugby Club is doing it really tough at the moment, they may not make it through the year. This is Rugby's only toehold in the Greater West of Sydney where a million people reside. The AFL are targetting 20,000 juniors in this area by 2015 and the League already have 15,000. Soccer's numbers are also huge but I don't have them to hand. It would take an injection of just 100K a year to keep Penrith operational. In my last year their coaching first grade in 2002 we had 20 new schools playing rugby with a further 100 to target. This has all fallen over due to lack of funding and the ARU wonder why their stakeholders are absolutey sickened and disgusted by the 6 million contract given to Tuqiri.
4 Comments:
Bubba,
I would have to agree with you 100%. I also think one of the main problems is that the state and national players do not play enough club rugby. They are treated as prima donnas; always in camps for this or that reason- too precious to play for their clubs. How many club games has Lote played?? I would love to see some of these precious players have a regular run against club players who i'm sure would give them a bloody good run for their money. It would also give the regular club player a chance to gauge their game against the so-called elite players.
Keep up the blog.
Hilly
Hilly
Mate certainly worked in my era, Club comp especially in Sydney was a very high standard. One of the reasons all the top clubs in Sydney are not happy with the APC as they no longer have access to their top players. Sydney Clubs used attract good sponsors and crowds when the have their Super 14 players back for the Tooheys New Cup. Unfortunately the club comps in the rest of the country are a farce and they desperately needed something like the APC. Sydney has paid the price even though they have really been the only comp powering the ARU, Sydney is supplying something close to 70% of the players for the four Super 14 provinces.
Anyway will be interesting to see what support the APC gets, I am guessing not much. The reality is if the 4 top Sydney clubs were allowed their best players and were allowed to play in the APC one of them would win it for sure.
Regards
Bubba
I see recently Bubba where the ARU has patted itself on the back for the AMOUNT OF MONEY SPENT ON JUNIOR DEVELOPMENT. Don't know where it goes, maybe into studies for consultants to give some report on something, who knows, but we don't see too much of it here, in one of the strongest junior rugby league zones on the planet.
Bubba, can't wait to see your resonse to the 92 to 3 hammering dished out to the Reds by the Bulls, not sure that Qld Rugby can recover from where it currently lies, it was quite depressing to getup and turn the TV on with about 5 minutes or so to go and witness three tries, glad I didn't sit up for it, and the Brumbies had finals aspirations riding on the Reds winning, all becoming a bit of a joke.
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