O'Meara and Mitchell in the Media
In what could be seen as damage control or spin doctoring, O'Meara and Mitchell have both had interviews in the National Media in the last couple of days.
To me, they are just stating the obvious rather than trying to spin doctor anything.
2006 is destined to be an extended pre season for the Force and we will be all the richer for the experience next season.
Force 'here to stay'
By Peter Jenkins
March 17, 2006
WESTERN Force boss Peter O'Meara last night defended his battling Perth franchise and slammed the doomsayers wanting to bury it a month into Super 14.
"It took NSW 10 years to prove themselves," O'Meara said with a well-timed pop at the heavyweight Waratahs who the Force host at Subiaco tonight.
"This is a three-year plan, not three months. We took a decision to recruit younger people and to grow them over time.
"We've heard these sort of comments, that Australia never had the depth [to sustain a fourth team]. And that's pretty short-sighted. We're only four games into a new sports brand."
NSW coach Ewen McKenzie told The Daily Telegraph earlier this week he had no sympathy for the plight of the fledgling province.
The Force were rocked by injury in the opening week and have lost another two players to the Commonwealth Games Sevens team ahead of the clash with the Waratahs.
There was also a whisper from the NSW camp that the Force support must be slipping. While they boast more than 20,000 members, a luncheon function planned for yesterday was cancelled before the Tahs hit town.
The visitors sniffed a lack of interest.
O'Meara scoffed at the slight.
"We'll have 30,000 in the stadium [tonight] and we had a function a few weeks ago before the Brumbies game where we had 700 people," he said. "We auctioned three items that raised $94,000.
"We have another one planned in three weeks and just felt for this game we should pull back a little.
"We do have the biggest membership base and the strongest corporate portfolio of the Australian sides and have a massive public following for what we're doing.
"I don't think that support is going to fade. West Australians are very parochial about their teams."
O'Meara was speaking from the Force offices he established last year when the ARU gave Perth the nod ahead of Melbourne.
Before he arrived, the game in the west was run by a staff of five out of rented space in a rugby club. There are now more than 50 backroom employees - led by a man with a strong pedigree in administration.
O'Meara was a director on the boards of the Queensland and NSW rugby unions before moving out of the banking sector to take up the chief executive's job at the Force.
There have been, from his point of view, no special favours from the ARU. The Force have the least number of players contracted to the ARU as current or prospective Wallabies, meaning the degree of difficulty for instant success was always going to be high.
"People writing us off after four games," O'Meara said. "It took NSW 10 years to prove themselves, 10 years to make a final. They've been to the wall twice [financially]. Half of their backline come from rugby league.
"We get the least number of top-ups from the ARU of all the four teams. We get the least funding in terms of development. We received no seed funding, we borrowed all the dough.
"Even now, we haven't been touched up badly [on the field]. We lost a game last week we should have won. We were competitive against the Brumbies.
"We're still rigidly sticking to the proposition that we can build a successful side here."
McKenzie and others have argued the Force are in the same position as the ACT Brumbies when they were formed to play Super 12 in 1996. In their second year the Brumbies made a final.
But the Canberra franchise did have notable locals in the team, including three of Australia's most influential players of the professional era - George Gregan, Joe Roff and Stephen Larkham.
What the Force do have that the Brumbies took time to develop is booming supporter numbers. A survey of the Force membership has revealed that 20 per cent are expat Kiwis, 10 per cent expat Englishmen and 6 per cent expat South Africans.
The remaining 64 per cent are Australians. But even within that figure, many come from elsewhere in the country -- much like the players the Force have assembled.
Stars, fringe dwellers and little-known hopefuls were pulled together from Queensland, NSW, Canberra and overseas destinations.
"It's a goldmine of opportunity here for the ARU," said O'Meara.
But the Force, for the moment, would settle with finding one small nugget. That elusive first win in Super 14.
The Daily Telegraph
