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As you are all aware a meeting was held at rugby HQ last night that was organised by Hertryk and David Redpath to which you were all invited, unfortunately not too many were able to attend. So I have taken the liberty of trying to summarise what took place.
The scope of the meeting was of an exploratory nature for both ourselves as members of the TWF, the board of Rugby WA and the Western Force to see how a possible Force Fan club may come into existence and potentially play an important part in the rugby landscape going forward.
The meeting was attended by Mark Sinderberry (Force CEO), David Redpath (Member of the Rugby WA board), Liz Manawaiti (Fan engagement and brand manager), four TWF members and a staff member from the Force marketing team (my apologies I forgot her name).
Between great rugby chatter that showed that the core factor that has brought us all together is rugby itself, some the important points were raised and discussed:
• The survival of the Western Force beyond 2020 is the driving factor behind all parties involved at the Force and represented at the meeting.
• Mark strongly believes that as part of this survival the current arrangement with the ARU is a good outcome based on the Western Force’s current predicaments.
• Despite perceptions out there, the ARU is and continues to be fully supportive and is starting to understand the situation the Force is faced with. The Rugby WA board has and will continue to play an integral role going forward, as the connection between the WA rugby community, politicians and sponsors needs to continue to be fostered and nurtured at a state level.
• All parties realise that the overriding factor to survival is that the Western Force as a professional sporting body has to become competitive, and we as fans as well as the other stakeholders need to be at least given “Hope” at this stage that this journey is going to have a positive outcome, so that we remain on-board.
• With the finalisation of the ARU arrangements now out the way, contract finalisations should start to materialise in the next few weeks.
• Limitations and lack of depth within the current player roster is of concern and they realise that it requires fixing in a professional sporting environment. To this end no magic wand can be waved to fix it. Realistically no player in the current environment where good dollars are being offered overseas is going to see Perth as an option to ply his trade, unless they were born or grew up in Perth. Therefore, the most sustainable plan is to grow the talent base here and to this end the Future Force program is seen as a crucial and vital component. Added to this it is hoped the ARU will help steer players with potential and unable to get sufficient game time elsewhere towards us. 2018 is seen as crucial year for potential returning Australian rugby players hoping to get a chance at 2019 Rugby World Cup.
• The board of Rugby WA despite some misgivings from posters on this site, has and will always act in the best interest of rugby in WA.
• We as supporters of the clubs have to also realise that like with any organisation we cannot be privy to every negotiation and decision, however they do realise that ongoing communication within accepted parameters needs to happen. To this end they will look at starting a possible monthly informal members get together, so that others can have an opportunity like we had last night to talk to Mark face to face and understand that all parties at the end of the day are looking to get the same end result.
In the end we all in this together and as a group (one of many stakeholders) we need to decide moving forward whether we want to remain informal and give feedback behind keyboards as and when needed or do we want to create a more formal fan base community that may at some time lead to us becoming a body that may even get a voting right at meetings.
I and the other TWF members that attended last night would like to sincerely thank David, Mark and their team for making the time to talk to us and give us hope that there is a future for rugby in WA. I hope that this is the start of something productive and constructive and look forward to many more joining us for that first informal session.