Ten ways to save Australian rugby

But I want to share 10 of the many things I have recommended in order to secure the change we need.

Super Rugby AU teams are developing great young players such as Noah Lolesio

Rugby in Australia is in a tough place on many fronts. If there is a light at the end of the tunnel, it’s still merely a flicker.

I have tried in this column to acknowledge success, articulate frustration and, importantly, suggest better ways of running the game.

If you join the board of Rugby Australia, then you automatically accept the responsibility to grow our game and put in place strategies that will build participation and return us to where we belong, the best in the world.

We are a long way off any of that. But I wanted to share, today, 10 of the many things I have recommended in order to secure the change we need.

First up, I have always championed grassroots rugby. People in club rugby feel disconnected from the professional game.

In order to support our clubs, I called for the National Rugby Championship to be trashed, because NRC games dilute the importance of clubs.

Thankfully, the NRC has been kicked into touch. Let’s hope the clubs get to play in a national knockout cup competition, like the FA Cup, and soon.

Secondly, provincial rugby needs to be sustainable. I have argued for years that the cost of international flights and accommodation was taking money away from player development programs.

The old format has gone and Super Rugby AU is a breath of fresh air. Teams are developing young players.

Thirdly, Rugby Australia’s headquarters in Sydney’s Moore Park had become a bloated administration of over 150 staff. Doing what, I have no idea.

Most probably, largely due to the pandemic, there appears now to be a more streamlined and potentially efficient administration. We need to keep an eye on this.

Fourth, we need to increase ball-in-play time to make the game more entertaining. This season we are seeing some sensible measures put in place to speed up the game and increase ball-in-play time.

Our game should do what soccer did over 150 years ago. Professional games should be played over 90 minutes. The fans deserve more footy.

Fifth, Rugby Australia needs constitutional reform. I have called for the democratisation of Australian rugby. The chairman has too much control in the appointment of board members and supporters have too little say in who runs the game.

Why can’t the rugby family vote for a chairman or a president?

Sixth, the high-performance program under Scott Johnson is a disaster.

Wallabies coach Dave Rennie and Waratahs coach Rob Penney, and almost all of the Wallaby and Waratah coaches, are represented by the same agent who represents Johnson, the New Zealand based agency, Esportif.

RA must immediately dismantle this empire, built by Esportif and Johnson, at our expense.

Seventh, Rugby Australia must be responsible global citizens.

Are we going to stand by and let good people such as Agustin Pichot be pushed out of the game by shadowy figures such as Bernard Laporte.

We need to be a force for good in our dealings with World Rugby. At present, we are not asking enough questions of the Bill Beaumont and Laporte regime. I suspect our presence in those circles has little clout.

Eighth, we must embrace our friends in Japan at an international level. With the Japanese Test team so competitive, it makes sense to invite the Japanese to join the Rugby Championship.

The matches would all be played in the same time zone and there are 130 million potential Japanese viewers who are still keen to support their successful World Cup team.

It’s a big market for sponsors and the Japanese play up-tempo rugby. It’s a no-brainer.

Ninth, family is family and we must embrace the Western Force as equal partners on a provincial level.

If the Force are part of the Australian rugby family, they are entitled to be funded to the same level as other provincial unions. Whatever happens going forward, we can never sell out on any of our provincial teams.

Tenth, we must maintain our integrity, even if that puts us at odds with sponsors.

I called out RA for pandering to Alan Joyce and Qantas over the Israel Folau affair. Regardless of how much our commercial partners pay, it does not give them the right to call the shots.

But how can anyone justify the vilification of a devoted young Christian player for quoting scripture?

Let’s hope, as we start to dance with private equity partners, that we retain our integrity and dignity.

I could list more initiatives tabled in this column, especially offering membership to every member of the family, to give them voting power and to help fund a game so strapped for cash.

Your feedback suggests that you feel as strongly as I do about these issues.

And now to this fellow who had some convenient potshots at me last week, Rob Clarke. He now walks away from the game having had five big jobs for big money.

In his just released outstanding book The Descent of Australian Rugby, Dick Marks, one of the finest of Wallaby players and possessed of one of the finest minds, argues that, “When the ARU decided to cut one Super team, the candidates were listed as the Brumbies, Melbourne Rebels and the Western Force … as it transpired the consultation with the Western Force consisted simply of a visit of two senior executives, one Rob Clarke … where they outlined why the Western Force was to be removed – hardly consultation.”

Marks goes on: “Clarke was charged with leading the process to remove an Australian team. He had previously been the CEO of the Brumbies and then the CEO of the Melbourne Rebels, but this was not seen as a conflict of interest by the Australian Rugby Union.”

When a stack of carry-on took place over the future of the Melbourne franchise, two proposals were considered.

The ARU, that is, then CEO Bill Pulver and Clarke, recommended the Imperium bid.

Marks rightly reports: “There is no record of a rigorous due-diligence study … Imperium obtained the franchise shares for $1 and contributed no capital … Rugby Australia accepted responsibility for the accumulated debt. The Imperium Group was headed by one Andrew Cox …”

But as Dick Marks writes: “At the Senate Inquiry in 2017 (into what happened to the Western Force) Clarke was unable to remember details of the agreement … And Rob Clarke stated, in response to a question, that he had never met Andrew Cox.”

This was the bloke active in the sale of the franchise.

Former Rebels shareholder Alan Winney, submitted to the Senate Inquiry that the sale to Cox, 10 months after Winney’s offer was rejected, cost Australian Rugby around $12 million!

Goodbye Mr. Clarke.

Rarely has a sports administrator behaved with such a sense of entitlement and arrogance.

We have a long way to go to get Australian rugby back on top. I will continue to advocate for how that might happen.

The most important step is to democratise the game. Let in the winds of change.