The State of Bush Footy part 1: after Covid-19 and floods, are we seeing a revival across NSW?
After three years of Covid-19 and floods, rugby league in regional NSW, like sport everywhere, has had tough few years. But with numbers up and iconic clubs returning, are we seeing a revival?
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On the back of two years disrupted by Covid-19 and one season of heavy rains and floods, it’s fair to say that grassroots rugby league clubs in regional NSW have had a pretty tough run of it of late.
From challenges attracting players, to financial strains and simply being able to run competitions, to say the past few seasons have been a challenge is an understatement.
And while many clubs in many regions are still doing it tough, with the pandemic and the rains exacerbating long-term difficulties, in some parts of the state there is a sense of cautious optimism that things are looking up.
“Things are definitely more positive,” says Al Petty, the president of Lismore-based club Marist Brothers.
Indeed, perhaps nowhere have the challenges and emotions of the past few years been so pronounced as in Lismore, where local senior clubs kicked off their seasons in the Northern Rivers Regional Rugby League (NRRRL) competition two weeks ago.
“I think there’s definitely a more positive feel around the place,” says Petty.
“We’re looking forward to having a home ground with actual facilities: hot water, electricity – that sort of stuff.”
The club’s seemingly modest goals – a shower, power and shelter – are a direct reflection of the absolute devastation that those in Lismore have had to endure over the past couple of years.
While a $600,000 flood relief package from NSWRL was a huge help to clubs like Marist Brothers and their Lismore neighbours Northern United, as it helped purchase playing uniforms, balls, goalposts and player insurance, the sheer scale of the flood damage last year meant that even doing something seemingly as simple as hosting a home game became incredibly difficult.
“Last year, for our first two home games, we actually didn’t have any dressing sheds, no running water, no toilets,” says Petty.
“Our home and away sheds were basically a couple of QuikShades that we put up and walled in.
“As the year went on we were using one of those camp showers that you can hook up to your gas bottle and use that way, so the blokes could have a quick shower to tub after the game, but that was about it.”
While having a shower was an issue at times, it certainly wasn’t the club’s most pressing concern in what was an incredibly tough 2022.
With large parts of Lismore completely devastated by flood damage, many of the Marist Brothers’ sponsors were no longer trading, let alone able to provide financial support, while the tangible and emotional impact of the disaster badly affected player numbers, with the club failing to field an under-18s team for the first time in a long time.
But fast-forward a year, and while much of the city’s recovery remains slow and frustrating, highlighted by the fact that the club’s proper home ground, Crozier Field, is still out of use, those involved with Marist Brothers are confident of a much more positive 2023 – not in the least due to the Rams winning two from two to kick off the year.
And they certainly aren’t the only local club raising a glass to a brighter season, with the Casino Cougars and Lower Clarence Magpies both returning to the NRRRL first grade competition after either failing to field a team or pulling out midway through 2022.
Super Spuds’ super revival
While it might be a more extreme example, the state of rugby league in the Northern Rivers – with its sense of cautious optimism after a few very difficult years – is somewhat symbolic of large parts of regional NSW.
About 300 km to the southwest, perched upon the Great Dividing Range, football fans in the Northern Tablelands town of Guyra are also gearing up for a bumper 2023.
After being forced to pull out of the local Group 19 competition on the eve of last season, their beloved local team – the brilliantly named Guyra Super Spuds – also kicked off their season a fortnight ago.
Just like in Lismore, the Super Spuds’ story is one of the more heartwarming in grassroots rugby league.
Established in 1922, Guyra – which proudly claims to be the highest-altitude rugby league club in the country – was set to celebrate its 100th anniversary last year, before it was met with a rude shock.
“We were supposed to have our centenary last year and the players just didn’t support it and we folded,” said club president Grant Robertson. “To say it was a crushing blow is an understatement. Without senior footy the town is definitely missing something.”
With both the A-grade and ladies league tag sides failing to field teams, there were genuine concerns that this proud club would go the way of too many now-extinct bush footy clubs before it. However a player-driven campaign in the off-season has seen a super revival for the Super Spuds.
“The only reason we’re trying again this year is because we have a group of young blokes who are really keen. The committee is working hard to support them,” said Robertson.
More than just simply existing, the club has remarkably gone from more or less folding to being in its strongest position in decades.
Guyra will not only field A-grade and league tag teams this season, but also its first under-18s side in 14 years – all of which means the club will get to celebrate its 100th (+1) birthday party after all.
“We are looking at a big reunion at the end of the year,” said Robertson.
And while they’re getting ready for a belated anniversary party in Guyra, the Super Spuds aren’t the only club in Group 19 popping the cork to celebrate a comeback.
In fact, Guyra will be joined by the Glen Innes Magpies and Bingara Bullets as clubs re-joining the local first grade competition this season in what is quite the renaissance in Group 19, which has experienced a difficult few years.
“It’s all shaping up very well this year. We’ve had an increase in team numbers and our rego numbers have gone through the roof,” said Group 19 president Terry Carson, who noted that more than 50 additional A-grade and league tag players had signed up for the current season.
“This is actually the first year in about seven or eight seasons that we’ve had every team come back and play, and then to pick up three extra clubs has been a real bonus to us,” he added.
In even more positive news, the group will also be running its first under-18s competition in four years, with five teams entering, while Carson says junior numbers are at their healthiest in decades.
“It’s always been every second age group, but we’ve got every age group up to under 12s this year for the first time in at least 25 years, I’d say. Our numbers are tracking really well.”
And just what is behind the rapid rise? Carson puts it down to a mix of enthusiasm and administration.
“I think everyone has just got keen again, more than anything. The biggest issue we’ve had round the clubs, mainly from a senior point of view, is that they actually haven’t been able to form committees.
“There’s been an appetite for footy but there’s not been anyone willing to put their hand up to form committees. But the clubs have formed committees this year and the players have turned up.”
The positive developments in Group 19 echo similar encouraging developments in other parts of the state.
For example, the Hunter Valley Group 21 division has seen a return of its under-18 competition this year after clubs failed to field teams in 2022, while senior clubs Bellingen (Group 2) and Cooma (Group 16) have also returned to either senior football after going into recess last year.
Bush footy: dying or thriving?
While a few positive stories don’t necessarily paint a picture of the whole state, and there are numerous examples of clubs pulling out of senior competitions or going into recess in 2023, participation rates across regional NSW suggest that bush footy, in broad terms, is on the up.
As of early March, NSWRL figures showed that player registrations in regional NSW were up 17.7 per cent compared to last year.
Meanwhile, updated statewide figures from mid-April showed that NSW was on track for its best year on record when it comes to player numbers, with registrations up 14 per cent on a year-to-date basis, driven by a 12 per cent increase in males and 22 per cent jump in females playing the game.
And while Covid-19 had a huge impact on grassroots sport of all kinds, especially in 2020, one of the unexpected and interesting developments of the past couple of years has been how rugby league participation has actually increased and gone on to eclipse pre-pandemic levels.
For example, in 2021 – the second Covid-19-affected year in which most winter sporting competitions across the state were abandoned before the finals series – the number of people playing the game rose to 107,980 in NSW as a whole, up an impressive 5.1 per cent on the pre-pandemic year of 2019 and well above the rate of population growth.
While the expansion of the women’s game – a relatively new, growing rugby league market – admittedly accounted for a significant proportion of this growth, with female participation jumping by 20 per cent to 22,810, male participation also increased over the period, edging up 1.7 per cent to 85,170. It might sound modest, but it was the highest rate of growth since 2015 and reversed a trend that had seen male registrations fall over the preceding decade.
More specifically, between 2019 and 2021 there was also plenty of growth in various regional areas.
For example, junior player numbers rose in Group 10 (Central West) by 16.1 per cent, Canberra by 14.7 per cent, Central Coast by 14 per cent, Group 11 (Dubbo and Orana region) by 11 per cent, Newcastle by 5 per cent and Maitland by 2.3 per cent.
Meanwhile senior participation rates skyrocketed on the Central Coast (33.1 per cent) and enjoyed solid growth in places like Newcastle and Hunter (5.1 per cent). In the East Coast Region, which incorporates both junior and senior football on the coastal strip from Forster all the way to the Queensland border, the number of registrations went up by 4.5 per cent.
Given the incredible disruption Covid-19 had on grassroots sporting competitions, not to mention the various government restrictions and concern it raised among sections of the population with regard to engaging in public activities, the fact that overall numbers went up seems like a huge victory in itself.
“You always get ‘bush footy is dying’ and this and that, but that’s not the case in northern NSW,” says Wayde Kelly, the Northern Region zone manager at NSWRL, who’s role covers a large swathe of the state, including Group 1, 2, 3, 4, 18, 19, 21 and the NRRRL.
Indeed, despite the impact of Covid-19 and last year’s floods in the region, Kelly says that player registrations increased in 2022.
“We were actually up as a zone last year,” he said. “The East Coast Region is up massively. When I started in this role we had 7000 players and now we’re up over 10,000. That’s really significant growth.
“Sometimes people will talk about those one or two teams that are struggling, but obviously there’s a fluctuation from year to year. Casino didn’t have a (first grade) team last year but they’ll roll out a really good side this year. It’s off the back of a couple of people and a couple of players doing the right thing. Their junior set-up is really good, so it was more just a cultural challenge they had, in the front office as well.”
Indeed, the ‘bush footy is dying’ narrative went into overdrive last year after it was revealed that one of the state’s most iconic clubs – the Junee Diesels – was kicked out of the Group 9 competition after forfeiting its first game of the season and indicating its intention to forfeit its second, citing a lack of players.
There were significant concerns that the loss of a club like Junee – the junior home of rugby league legend Laurie Daley, as well as former NRL players Adam Perry and Michael Dobson – was a sign that the game was dying in a traditional heartland like the Riverina.
While certainly acknowledging the various challenges it was facing, the club noted that there were unique social and economic factors behind last season’s lack of numbers.
“You can’t just put your finger on one thing and say that that’s the cause of it,” said president David Holt.
“Junee itself has got a lot of shift workers, and the difference between when I was a young fella and now is that everything used to shut down on a Sunday – the railway included, and the railway has always been a big employer.
“Now railways run seven days a week, so you’ve got a bit of a challenge there. Some age groups end up with more builders and some age groups end up with more shift workers.”
With the support of Group 9, the club fielded teams in the under-16, under-18, reserve grade and league tag competitions, while it set about getting back into first grade.
“Our biggest challenge was to find a first grade coach prepared to say, ‘Ok, you’re in a tough spot, I’ll help you out,’” said Holt. “We looked for two years, everybody we rang up wanted to see what players we had, and then when we rang the players up they wanted to know what coach we had, so it was the chicken-and-egg kind of thing,” he added.
The club eventually signed coach Damion Fraser and then set about building a roster. And just like in Group 19, Casino and elsewhere, having a dedicated committee and shrewd administration was key.
“We got a great bunch of blokes together and formed a recruitment committee. There were seven blokes, ex-footballers, who started scouting around to see what players we could get. We put together a competitive squad. A competitive squad that’s got depth… That was the way we approached that,” said Holt.
“We also had to get ourselves in a position where we could prove that we were going to be competitive, as in winning a reserve grade premiership. That was one thing we thought that we had to do to be a serious team going into the 2023 season.”
The club well and truly managed that, with both the Diesels’ reserve grade and under-18s sides winning their respective grand finals in September.
And now two weeks into the 2023 season, Junee has got a full complement of five teams and looking forward to a bumper year.
Shining lights
While much of the discussion revolves around senior men’s and A-grade football, there is far more to bush footy than just the blokes, with women’s and junior rugby league also among the positive areas heading into the 2023 season.
As seen in Group 19 and others parts of the state, junior participation has increased significantly in certain parts of regional NSW.
On the state’s south coast, the Moruya Sharks are one club with a very healthy junior base – even if their senior numbers have been an issue in recent years.
“Our junior club has never been stronger,” said Moruya president Matt Irving. “We’ve never had as many numbers, we’ve never had to cap off sides as early as we have this year.”
Elsewhere, one of the standout regions has been the Central Coast, which has continued to build even after witnessing junior participation grow by 14 per cent between 2019 and 2021.
For example, the Berkeley Vale Panthers have their highest number of players in nearly a decade, while the Umina Beach Bunnies have between 70 and 80 more junior footballers this season compared to 2022.
Another club that is experiencing a rise in junior participation is the Kincumber Colts.
“The numbers were seeing at Kincumber Colts coming through are, I wouldn’t say exploding, but increasing significantly, which is fantastic to see,” said Lyndon Duncan, the president of the Colts’ senior arm of the club.
While a rebound from Covid-19 and good administration are undoubtedly playing a role in this, Duncan says the game appears to be in somewhat of a sweet spot in terms of winning over the hearts and minds of juniors.
“I think just the popularity with it is back at the moment too,” he said.
When it comes to junior players, the club is also seeing a huge increase in young girls taking up league, with the Colts running out female tackle teams in the under-13s, under-15s and under-17s competitions for the first time ever this season.
Indeed, the growth of women’s rugby league – in the form of both league tag and tackle – has undoubtedly been one of the game’s biggest highlights in recent times.
The number of female players has grown significantly from 18,915 in 2019 to 23,109 last year – a rise of 22 per cent in just three years, with preliminary 2023 figures suggesting that there could be another double-digit increase again this year.
While league tag competitions have grown over the past 10 to 15 years, the rise of women’s tackle league participation – on the back of the establishment and expansion of the NRLW – has been one of the more promising developments of more recent years.
On top of junior tackle options, senior women’s tackle competitions have sprung up all over regional NSW in the past few years, including in the Northern Rivers, Mid-North Coast, Western Riverina, Canberra, Newcastle and Group 4 (New England and north-west NSW).
Heading into 2023, many of the competitions have been expanded, while the Central Coast will run its first women’s tackle competition this season featuring six teams.
One of those competitions enjoying expansion is the Northern Rivers’ women’s tackle premiership, which has gone from four teams in its inaugural season last year to six this year.
“I think it’s really inspiring,” said Karri Williams, the captain of Lismore-based team Northern United.
“I think it gives a lot of girls in our area hope, especially now that we have a comp. There is so much talent in this area and before we didn’t have the comps for the scouters to find the players, so it’s a step in the right direction.”
While some players might be reasonably new to the game, for others like Williams, who has previously represented the Northern Rivers Titans and Indigenous Gems representative teams, the establishment and expansion of the competition has provided her with an opportunity to play tackle league on a regular basis.
“I’ve always played it. I grew up with two brothers and always wanted to play with the boys, so I played backyard footy. I obviously couldn’t play a tackle comp in my teenage years but I’d play it whenever I’d get the chance with school, playing touch or rep carnivals,” she said.
When looking for explanations behind the trend, there’s no doubt that the establishment of the NRLW, the NSW Women’s Premiership and Tarsha Gale (under-19) competitions has undoubtedly been an inspiration for both newcomers and some of the more talented female footballers across the state to continue to pursue the sport.
“It’s been massive,” said Tarah Smith, a Northern Rivers Titans representative and captain of the Tweed Coast Raiders women’s tackle side in the Northern Rivers competition. “Bringing the four new teams this year into the NRLW is a huge step, which means there are a lot more positions to be filled, a lot more pathways and they’re looking for a lot more girls, so it’s really exciting.”
It’s a sentiment that is felt across the board.
A little further south on the NSW Mid-North Coast, the North Coast Women’s Tackle Premiership is set for a bumper season with seven clubs lining up for a tilt at the trophy, up from the six who entered in last year’s inaugural season.
On overseeing the launch and growth of this premiership and other female competitions, Dan Tempest, the League and Club Support Coordinator for Groups 2 and 3, says that the women’s game is in an extremely healthy place.
“There’s a line I’ve heard: ‘You can’t be what you can’t see.’ And women’s footy is being seen a lot more, so there’s more of an attraction to that, now that there’s a genuine pathway,” he said.
“It’s awesome to see that the girls are getting a fair crack and it’s almost the perfect time to be a junior rugby league player in the girls’ game, because there are opportunities opening up everywhere.”
So, after three years of disruptions, is rugby league enjoying a revival in the bush? Well, it appears so – but it’s complicated.
While there are undoubtedly plenty of positive developments as we head into season 2023, there is much more to the story.
Just as some clubs have returned to football and statewide registration numbers are on track for a record year, there are others going in the opposite direction, unable in some cases to field teams at all. And even for some clubs who have returned or continue to play in 2023, long-term challenges make it a year-to-year struggle to remain on the park.
In part two of our series on the State of Bush Footy, we’ll take a look at some of the main challenges affecting regional rugby league clubs and grassroots participation across the state.
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