Penrith axed from Shute Shield as rugby folk prepare to make a stand

The resolve of rugby folk is hardening, but that won’t help Penrith, axed from the Shute Shield yesterday.

Penrith Rugby Club players Adam Mackenzie, Rock Paulo, Willie Tooala, Campbell Hislop, Matthew Faoagali and Barry Scanlan yesterday. Picture: Britta Campion

The resolve of rugby folk is hardening. For the past two years, the code has been in full retreat but the headlong flight is starting to slow and any day now someone in authority is going to cry out: “Thus far and no further.”

The problem yesterday was that the Penrith Rugby Club was not seen as the place to draw the line in the sand to make a stand. Vital as western Sydney is to Australian rugby — it has even been touted as a logical place for a second NSW-based Super Rugby side should the game ever decide to get back on the front foot again — the Penrith club itself was not seen as defensible.

As the Sydney Rugby Union put it yesterday in announcing why Penrith had been cut from the Shute Shield competition with immediate effect, the club was seen as pretty much deficient and dysfunctional in every area.

“The SRU board has taken comprehensive steps to provide every available opportunity for Penrith … to remain in the Sydney premiership competition,” SRU president David Begg said.

“The longstanding issues around governance, safety and wellbeing of players, financial viability, qualified coaching and support personnel had forced the board to withdraw the club.”

That might be but it didn’t stop the Penrith Emus players from going through precisely the same emotions that the Western Force players experienced last year when their Super Rugby franchise was axed by Rugby Australia. Betrayal. Isolation. A feeling they were set up to fail. And uncertainty about the future. Grown men were reduced to tears.

Billy Tooala, the 32-year-old first grade No 8, admitted he felt “gutted” by the SRU decision. “Penrith is my first Shute Shield club and I want to stay here,” Tooala said. “It will be very hard to go to another team. You just can’t walk into another team at this stage of the season.”

Lots of reasons were given for Penrith’s demise. Tooala felt the real reason was left unsaid. All the red cards.

“Most clubs don’t like our style of play,” he said. “We’re too rough for them. They don’t like coming here. It’s rugby. We’re not playing touch.”

First grade fullback Campbell Hislop admitted everyone at the club was devastated.

“Some are quite visibly upset,” he said. “There’s a feeling we weren’t supported by the SRU and a lot of people are wondering what happens to us now. Personally, it’s too early for me to tell what I’ll do. I’m trying to organise the boys to get together to support each other. Hopefully we’ll be able to continue playing together, though I suppose some will go their separate ways.”

The disgruntlement all very much has a Force feel to it. Players are hurt and lashing out blindly. There is an emotive element to the culling of a Shute Shield club of 27 years standing and all of Sydney rugby was feeling it yesterday.

Small wonder, too, that Penrith reached out to Perth billionaire and Force saviour Andrew Forrest in the hope he might lend a hand.

Unlike the Force who were pretty much cut off in their prime, at least as far as on-field performances are concerned, Penrith have been seen as a failed experiment across the board. They had not won a match in four seasons and rival teams in recent weeks have been pressing to post 100 points on them in first grade. New South Wales Rugby reluctantly endorsed the SRU’s decision, with executive director Andrew Hore insisting that help was on its way, even if it would not be channelled through Penrith.

“While we are disappointed for the club and players, we support the SRU’s decision on this matter given the issues that have been raised around governance, safety of players and financial viability and more,” Hore said.

“It doesn’t mean we have given up on western Sydney. If anything we are probably more committed. But the Penrith club is not the answer. It (the commitment to western Sydney) will be across the board and we will be rolling out a series of interventions, be it with development officers and schools persons and the hub model (first trialled on the northern beaches) in an attempt to identify the issues on the ground. From there we will try to put the support around those people to make them as successful as we can. But there is no magic bullet that will fix this.”

Rugby Australia’s chief executive Raelene Castle questioned whether the game was, indeed, in full retreat and pointed to the fact that 56,000 kids had experienced the “Get into Rugby” program for the first time nationally last year, while the program had been delivered directly to 48 schools in the western Sydney area.

“There are small but positive things happening,” Castle said. “But we’ve got a long way to go.

“Whilst we see western Sydney as an enormous frontier opportunity for rugby, we also have to be sure that in allocating our funds that we do not forget the challenges that Melbourne or Queensland face in their markets, or the Northern Territory. We’re working with NSW because they have a plan and they know how they’re going to attack it. If they ask us for extra investment because they can see that making a difference, then we would certainly be considering that additional investment.”

As for Penrith, there is an appeals process it can enter into in the hope of persuading the SRU to readmit it to the Shute Shield. But at this point, there is little hope of that succeeding and certainly not in 2018. It may well be that the club has to suck up its pride and join the other 17 sub-district sides in the region.

Penrith president Jim Hook has no idea what would happen to the club’s council-supplied grounds and facilities. His fear is that they will fall into the hands of rugby league.

Thus far and no further.