Rugby Australia’s tent collapsing on itself with doors firmly bolted

Rugby Australia CEO Raelene Castle. Picture: Getty Images

The board of Rugby Australia can no longer hide from their appalling indifference to the wellbeing of the game. The anger at where our game is, and is heading, is palpable.

Last week I wrote that we were facing a rugby drought, the worst in rugby’s history. I’m grateful for one thing. Readers are writing to me and sharing their anger and disillusionment.

In the last weeks I have received a tsunami of correspondence from a group that could be called loosely, rugby volunteers. It is a veritable rugby army and they have had a gutful.

The chairman of Rugby Australia, the CEO and the board don’t seem to know these volunteers exist, let alone how to respond to their concerns.

Rugby’s problems right across the board — in the performance of the Wallabies, of the Super Rugby teams, of the senior coaches — these problems are worse than ever.

People are saying “how much further downhill do we have to go before the slide is arrested?”

It is depressingly clear that the board of Queensland Rugby and the board of New South Wales Rugby won’t do anything or are powerless to secure appropriate change.

The answer might be that the silent majority is not raising its voice, for as Tony Abbott said earlier this year: “When the silent majority remains silent, they’ll cease to be a majority.”

There is an army of volunteers everywhere and they are demanding to be heard.

If you just take Sydney alone, the statistics are staggering.

Fifty clubs, 174 teams and 5257 players.

Paid staff?

One.

An army of volunteers! But they will pay $180,000 in fees to the New South Wales Rugby Union. What the hell do they get for that? I venture to say not much. Think of it.

Suburban rugby clubs field 32 colts teams. They have made endless representations to New South Wales Rugby. They want the standard of refereeing to be improved. They want the coaching to be improved. They want to see something of a coaching plan, which will assist clubs to develop talent. They need help with administration.

And, of course, they need some money, call it grants, call it what you will.

The simplest word is “action”.

Surely there should be a website which can provide updated expertise for clubs to guide their players and their progress.

Why not a “subbies” round at every Waratahs game. In 2018, the Blue Mountains club won the second division of the subdistrict competition and have been promoted to first division for the first time ever. The Blue Mountains are not far from Penrith.

Those who run rugby, at state and national level, have abandoned Penrith and the west of Sydney. Andrew Forrest tried to give Penrith a life and incorporate them into his West Australian competition; Australian rugby knocked that on the head.

Yet, rugby in Western Sydney is alive at grassroots level.

When you have a competition, just in Sydney alone, suburban rugby, with over 5000 players, 174 teams, an army of volunteers and one paid employee and you compare this with the incompetence of the administration of the game at the Australian Rugby level with over 150 highly paid staff, you throw your arms up in dismay.

Readers are writing to me and saying this massive army of grassroots rugby volunteers needs a Facebook page where their voice can be seen and heard — a Facebook page to be the voice of Australian grassroots rugby and its volunteers.

Would that shake up the mob at headquarters? Consider this.

The board of Rugby Australia no longer includes a director with any experience in a non-heartland union. Indeed, there is only one director with experience in the administration and management of a member union or a Super Rugby team.

Why is it called Rugby Australia when seven directors are from Sydney and two are from Brisbane?

This hardly reflects the appropriate level of diversity that the game warrants if it is to survive; let alone the necessary level of diversity that should exist in the administration of a modern, relevant and national organisation.

Then you have this further nonsense, the Nominations Committee. This is shorthand language for saying put a system in place at head office so that head office can look after its mates and their hold on to power.

The revised Constitution states that a Nominations Committee “must be established to source, consider and nominate persons for consideration to a Rugby Australia board of directors”.

So, if you are committed, vastly experienced in the game as a former player with administrative experience and business acumen, what chance have you got of making it onto the board of Australian rugby?

Well, you have to jump through this hoop called the Nominations Committee.

Funny isn’t it that the chairman of that committee just happens to be the chairman of RA; and another person just happens to be someone elected by the directors of RA. Do you get the drift?

As I wrote last year, you can’t get inside the tent. It has locks on it.

The responsibilities of this committee include board appointments, reappointments and performance, together with the politically correct cultural and diversity obligations of the board.

These are difficult tasks given that both members are on the Rugby Australia board. It gets worse. There is no process for nominating someone to the Nominations Committee.

But as this committee is currently constituted, those who hold office on the board of Rugby Australia can prevent anyone with a differing viewpoint, or might I say with a viewpoint at all, from being elected to any position of influence or importance in Australian rugby.

The Nominations Committee was established to help facilitate independence. That seems its last consideration. Worse, it appears that its composition and its role are not a priority for Rugby Australia. Why would it be?

You have two of your own who can block anyone they don’t like and endorse those who commit to agree. The real rugby world is utterly disenfranchised.

As I write, I’m not aware of what director positions are becoming available at this year’s Annual General Meeting.

But if there are any, it is totally inappropriate that anyone wanting to nominate has to jump through this phony and unconstitutional Nominations Committee of two people, one being the chair of Rugby Australia whom most people in the game see as a rugby administrative eunuch.

I might add, the Constitution allows for the tenure of the chair to be extended for up to an additional three years.

Surely in the name of our game’s proud rugby history, we can start reform with one simple change: All members of the Nominations Committee must be independent of the board of Rugby Australia.

The wellbeing of the game, is at best, secondary.