Victorian rugby comes out in front with new state Centre

Despite the compelling evidence to the contrary, it was a pretty good weekend for Victorian rugby.

Matt Philip wins a lineout for the Melbourne Rebels against the Waratahs on Saturday night Picture: Getty Images

Despite the compelling evidence to the contrary, it was a pretty good weekend for Victorian rugby all around.

True, the Melbourne Rebels did lose to the Waratahs at Leichhardt Oval on Saturday but there was no lasting damage done.

When Matt Toomua secured a losing bonus point by kicking that late penalty goal to bring the Rebels to within seven points of NSW, he ensured the Rebels needed only to beat the Western Force by four points on Saturday to guarantee a historic place in the Super Rugby AU finals. So the Rebels’ future lies entirely within their own hands.

While all this was being enacted out Leichhardt way, phone calls were being made in Melbourne. For at least the last five years, Victorian Rugby officials have been lobbying the state government, then working with them to create a Centre of Excellence for rugby at Melbourne’s La Trobe University. More than just a high performance unit, it will also specifically provide for the Pasifika community, which makes up 68 per cent of the total Victorian playing numbers.

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From the perspective of the VRU, the centre will become a focal point for rugby and will help to attract international matches to the Victorian capital. Gone are the days when the visit of any international side to Melbourne caused officials to scurry around trying to find a suitable training ground with, you know, rugby posts in the ground. And from a government viewpoint, it is a very meaningful way to do something meaningful for an important and growing part of the community.

There is no question that Jordan Uelese, Trevor Hosea, Pone Fa’amausili and Rob Leota – the legendary “Burn Boyz” – are the public face of the Pasifika community in Victoria and by formally linking these players and their broader network with the project, it should ensure that the centre serves a host of overlapping rugby and social needs.

The centre will be part of a broader development project that will see two sports co-located at La Trobe. In an $80m complex, $20m of the funding will be rugby specific. It will also provide a headquarters for Melbourne City, Football Victoria and be a home for the Matildas. With that in mind, work must be finished by December 2022 in order for the facility to be considered as a base during the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup. Given that Victorian rugby has its own big events just peeking over the horizon – the 2025 British and Irish Lions tour and the proposed 2027 Rugby World Cup – it’s fair to say that a significant piece of the puzzle fell into place on Sunday.

“As we are coming out of COVID, it was one of those projects that the Premier (Dan Andrews), the Minister for Sport (Martin Paluka) and the Treasurer (Tim Pallas) said they wanted to find, projects that were shovel ready,” Melbourne Rebels chairman Paul Docherty said. “We have had this project on the go for five years, maybe longer, so we were ready to put our hand up. We are so grateful for the support of the Victorian government and those three men in particular.”

One can only hope that the Queensland government took note of the actions of a government in a state where rugby is somewhat down the pecking order. But Queensland is one of the heartland states of Australian rugby and at times has boasted of being one of the strongest provincial rugby centres in the world. Yet still the Ballymore redevelopment project remains in limbo, with the state government always promising that an announcement of support is just around the corner but never quite making it.

Certainly Kate Jones, the Minister for Innovation and Tourism Industry Development, is supportive of the project to convert Australia’s only major rugby-owned property into a national training base. In July she said on the Neil Breen 4BC show that it was “long overdue and will make such a big difference for rugby and the local community”.

But still nothing has happened, even as the Queensland Government is pursuing a second Bledisloe Cup Test and actively courting Rugby Australia. If all goes well, Queensland could be hosting the All Blacks for about a month while a state election campaign is being fought out, which presumably should play pretty well with Kiwi expats voters. Soon the government will be entering caretaker mode. As Churchill might have said, Action This Day!

Meanwhile, back on the field, it is all there for the Melbourne Rebels to do. Win on Saturday against the Force – by a minimum of four points, if you please – and the side will progress to its first-ever Super Rugby play-offs.

A win by three points would leave them equal on for-and-against differential with NSW which would then advance to the qualifying final against the Queensland Reds on September 12 on the next tie-breaker condition, the number of tries scored. The Tahs are five in front of the Rebels in the try-scoring department so, from a Melbourne perspective, a four-point win is the minimum acceptable.

It’s a make-or-break match for the Rebels but it could have been worse had captain Matt Toomua not had the icy nerves to nail an angled 30m kick for penalty goal four minutes from fulltime to seal a losing bonus point. Had he missed, the Rebels would have needed to score three more tries than the Force to equal the Tahs’ tally – and just beating the Force is going to be trouble enough on Saturday, let alone smashing them.

But it’s scary how often these two clubs, the Rebels and the Force, keep butting heads. They lived a common nightmare during the dark days of 2017 before fate determined that the Force would be the one sacrificed on the altar of rugby expediency.

This season they have been the two sides that have sacrificed the most to ensure the Super Rugby AU competition even got off the ground. While the Brumbies, the Reds and the Tahs have all slept in their own beds and had “real” home matches, the Rebels and the Force have known nothing but away games.

And now their match in Newcastle will decide the third side into the play-offs. Fierce rivals they might be, but there also is a curious affinity growing between the two sides.