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The NSWRU and QRU do not trust each other and are always looking out for their own interests, a fact which the ARU/RA exploits to maintain the status quo in national rugby union. But one thing which is guaranteed to unite the NSWRU and QRU against the ARU/RA would be any move by the ARU/RA to reintroduce a professional provincial rugby team to WA. The two heartland unions fought for 12 years to shut down professional rugby in WA and they would not simply roll over and let the ARU/RA reintroduce professional rugby to WA. So in the unlikely event that SANZAAR agrees to a fifth Australian Super Rugby team at some time in the future, there's Buckley's of that team coming to WA (Western Sydney Force, anyone?).
The Queenslanders may be pissed off because the 2019 Bledisloe has gone to Perth (and the 2020 Bledisloe has gone to Melbourne) but the simple fact is that the ARU/RA could not find anyone else dumb enough to pay them $5 million for the "privilege" of hosting either test, especially no-one in Queensland.
The ARU/RA must love outfits like the WA Government/Tourism WA who appear to enthusiastically hand over millions of tax-payers' dollars in sponsorship of sporting events with questionable tourism value. I can't wait to see how much the ARU/RA will be able to squeeze out of the WA Government/Tourism WA in sponsorship of Wallabies vs Tier 2 union tests in Perth post 2019.
The new World Rugby global calendar for 2020-2032 has increased the number of games which Tier 1 unions must play against Tier 2 unions; there will be a minimum of 110 Tier 1 vs Tier 2 tests in the 13 year calendar period, and while a lot of those tests will be played when Tier 1 teams tour Tier 2 nations (e.g. England and France will be touring the Pacific Islands), the SANZAAR unions have committed to hosting Tier 2 teams in the July international window. This means the ARU/RA will have to find hosting stadiums and sponsors (i.e. gullible state governments) who are willing to pay for the privilege of hosting those Wallabies vs Tier 2 tests. I don't think Wallabies vs Georgia tests were quite what Victoria had in mind when it handed over x million dollars to the ARU/RA in return for 6 Wallabies tests in Melbourne during 2018-2025 (where "x" may be between 15 and 20).
So essentially NSWRU & QRU are shooting themselves in the foot/feet(?) - they're happy to see fans/players getting turned off rugby in droves due primarily to the crap mismanagement of Clyne & his buddies destroying the game if it means they can keep a team from being brought back in WA? How bitter & twisted is that! All the whinging & complaining on the forums about how bad everything is, and yet no real concerted effort by anyone to usurp the RA. Surely the unions should be more interested in saving rugby instead of watching it slowly suffocating - its almost medieval. Bout time the peasants got revolting.
And would like to know the reason for the big backflip on WA Gov giving money to RA after McGowans stance on the NIB costs last year.
Great post, Finger Tips
Proudly Western Australian; Proudly supporting Western Australian rugby
I presume the WA Govt is satisfied that the revenue generated from holding the Bled game here will outweigh the $4 or $5 million of taxpayer money they gave to RA for the privilege. I just hope they did their own sums and didn’t rely on figures given to them by RA as we all know how disingenuous RA can be.
Last edited by Alison; 03-08-18 at 13:44.
Proudly Western Australian; Proudly supporting Western Australian rugby
I'd like to see Tourism WA's audited calculation of return on investment for the Wallabies vs South Africa test played on 09 September 2017, when the attendance at nib was only 17,500. Given the apparently modest number of visitors from SA at that test, and the fact that the arse had fallen out of the ZAR-AUD exchange rate around that time because Zuma was having one of his turns, I'd wonder just how much money that event did bring into WA.
I expect that the numbers are buried impenetrably in Tourism WA's annual reports for 2016-2017. I can't find the amount which Tourism WA paid to the ARU/RA for the 2017 test against South Africa.
i am only guessing, but it sounds like that underneath the corrupt and dishonest group called the RA, there are 2 more groups that ought to be dismantled.
The NSWRU & QRU don't seem to have the best interest of rugby union at heart.
i feel sorry for any club members who do honest and unpaid work when there is this level of incompetence and egotistical nonsense in these organisations.
the whole thing needs a clean sweep in this country.
apart from wanting the guilty RA people brought to justice (not holding my breath there i'm afraid) i couldn't give a rats arse anymore until they are all culled.
i just want to be a part of the force and enjoy our WSR adventure.
cider my arse
Coaching and refereeing can help to reduce worrying schoolboy injuries
ALAN JONES
RADIO BROADCASTER
10 MINUTES AGO AUGUST 10, 2018
NO COMMENTS
A disturbing rugby story emerged this week that merits analysis and evaluation.
There have been four neck injuries to schoolboy rugby players in the past few weeks. And this leads to a sense of alarm. This is a major issue for parents but also, potentially, for the level of participation in our game.
Surprisingly, there is no meaningful Australian research around schoolboy rugby injuries, so we can only look at the 2016 study commissioned by the Irish Rugby Union and Ulster University that addresses this issue.
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COMMENT
Crime, punishment and anger
ROBERT GOTTLIEBSEN
To the question of who gets injured the most, the research establishes that it is older players who are heavier, playing in better teams, in fact, likely to be representative players. In relation to this schoolboy issue, I have asserted that there is a problem of coaching and refereeing.
On the coaching front, many scrum injuries are as a result of the bad positioning of the body in the scrum. A second-rower, for example, is likely, when forming a scrum, to bend and put his head into the front row, in which case his head will be below the level of his hips, so he is in trouble when weight is applied. He should be coached to squat before he enters the bind.
Then you have referees who determine when the scrum is to be set and when the ball is to be fed into the scrum.
My own view is that no referee should have the authority to determine when a scrum forms.
And I would assert most are least capable of determining when the scrum formation places players at risk. That should be determined by the players, as used to happen.
I always encouraged my forwards, if they were uncomfortable as they entered the scrum, to draw back and form up again. But no, the referee demands when the ball is put in and the rest is based on hope and good luck.
But back to the Irish Rugby Union research, to the question of what sort of injuries are occurring.
This should dispel some of the current alarm:
• 31 per cent are ligament injuries that often require surgery;
• 19 per cent are concussion;
• 23 per cent are facial or head cuts;
• 15 per cent are soft tissue tears and strains.
But no big numbers from the set-piece scrum.
In fact, 50 per cent of the injuries are in the tackle area. Yet injuries keep happening in our game while they don’t seem to happen, with such frequency in rugby league, AFL or soccer; although, the Rugby community has been saddened this week to learn of the serious injury to Wallaby No 698, Richard Tombs, incurred in a head clash in a social game of soccer.
Richard is currently conscious and stable at Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney and our thoughts are with his wife, Carissa and his children and extended family.
On the issue of coaching, though, we are back, again, to square one. New South Wales have moved Chris Malone on. He was head coach at Sydney University between 2013 and 2015. In fact, University won the Shute Shield in 2013. He has been the “attack coach” for New South Wales.
Mind you, I often wonder what the head coach does when we have attack coaches, defensive coaches, forward coaches, but that’s for another day.
If Malone was the “attack coach”, this season, New South Wales scored more points than any other team in Super Rugby, including the Canterbury Crusaders.
He is shafted and in comes Chris Whitaker. Who made that appointment? Was the job advertised? How much is he being paid?
Chris Whitaker is the brother of Rugby Australia’s high performance guru, Ben Whitaker. Where is the due process here?
Chris Whitaker, for the past decade, has bounced around Europe at a number of clubs, one of which was Stade Francais. They conceded well over 600 points each season throughout his tenure. And he comes to New South Wales having “coached” the French club Montauban. They are a second division outfit. Hardly a sparkling coaching CV, coaching in the lower divisions in Europe.
The coaching highlight of the week came from the Crusaders’ breakdancing coach, Scott Robertson, who must be congratulated on an outstanding achievement in coaching the Crusaders to their second successive Super Rugby title in the only two years he’s been in charge of the side; and polishing it all off with a magnificent and entertaining breakdance performance at the end.
Interestingly, Andrew Forrest’s Western Force recently hosted the Crusaders in Western Australia. Robertson was glowing in his praise of the rugby philanthropist Forrest and extremely supportive of his vision for the Force.
Forrest is clearly not finished with the chairman of Rugby Australia, Cameron Clyne.
You will recall that a Senate Inquiry into the farce by which the Western Force were ditched from Super Rugby handed down a 54 page report which argued, among its recommendations, that ASIC review Rugby Australia’s public financial figures and its transactions with the Melbourne Rebels. This is not going to go away.
The Western Force, as I’ve written before, were closed down last year, even though financial offers were made to keep them viable. Remember the argument. Break up the franchise, let other Super Rugby entities embrace the Western Force players and the standard of Australian Rugby will miraculously improve. Well, that hasn’t happened. But a subsequent series of articles, as a result of some forensic analysis by Nick Taylor and others among the Perth media, have raised real concerns about the integrity of the Board of Rugby Australia. It’s not a complicated story.
As part of the sale negotiation of the Melbourne Rebels, the ARU Board had been advised by its management that a sale condition was that any subsequent change of ownership required ARU approval, which would mean approval by the Board. The assumed merit of that was that you could not condone the franchise being on-sold to inappropriate organisations or individuals.
But the next we knew, the team was sold to the Victorian Rugby Union for a dollar. The argument volunteered was that the Board of the then-ARU had found a “loophole”.
One of the conditions of the sale to the VRU was that the Rebels had to be clear of any debt and a minimum of six months’ notice had to be given for the transfer of ownership.
Well the WA journalist, Nick Taylor, has received emails indicating that in relation to the six-month period of notice, the ARU had drastically reduced the period to enable the transaction to go forward quickly.
Then, to enable the Rebels to be debt free, another condition of the sale, the then-Australian Rugby Union, under chairman Clyne, agreed to pay the former Rebels owner, New Zealand businessman Andrew Cox, $300,000 and the then director, Peter Sidwell, $200,000 and that money was then paid to the Rebels. Two other directors reportedly gifted the Rebels $250,000 each. These amounts then cleared the Rebels of their debt, which allowed the sale of the Rebels to the Victorian Rugby Union for one dollar, under the conditions attached to the sale of the licence. Put simply, Clyne’s ARU was complicit in facilitating a situation in which the Rebels were sold to the VRU. It had nothing to do with a “loophole”.
But the $500,000 spent on the Rebels is not evident in the ARU’s 2017 financial results, yet this scenario proves that the Western Force were never in the race.
As I’ve said previously, add the $500,000 to the $10.2 million the Rebels received in 2017 and compare that with the $5.5 million to the other Super Rugby franchises combined — NSW, QLD and the ACT — and it beggars belief.
What further beggars belief is that the ARU, now Rugby Australia, seem to think they can get away with this duplicitous behaviour.
At the time, the then chief executive, Bill Pulver, feigned surprise at the transaction, when the reality is the ARU were up to their necks in removing the Western Force and dishing out money to enable the Rebels to be sold and stay alive. No wonder they rejected Forrest’s $50 million. It was never intended by the ARU that the Western Force remain. On this behaviour alone, the whole Board of Rugby Australia should go.
John Welborn, the former rugby international and business professional, told the Senate Inquiry: “I think they were shocked when Andrew Forrest turned up to make ... the largest philanthropic sporting donation of all time.”
We now know why. The Force were going to be axed, no matter what. And this from the crowd that continue to “run” Australian rugby.
Well may Forrest say that he wants the Senate Inquiry reopened.
And well may Senator Rachel Siewert, who chaired the Senate Inquiry, recommend that ASIC review Rugby Australia’s public financial figures and its transactions with the Rebels.
These goings-on do not pass the pub test.
'I may be a Senator but I am not stupid'
https://omny.fm/shows/the-alan-jones-breakfast-show/cameron-clyne
Link to Senate Report http://www.aph.gov.au/senate_ca
https://www.change.org/p/rugby-australia-petition-for-cameron-clyne-to-resign-as-chairman-of-the-rugby-australia-board
He’s a bit late to the party with the revelations about the ARU’s very crooked dealings. Good to see it still in the news though. With luck it’ll still be in the news by the time of the next ARU AGM when more questions can be asked of Clyne and his cronies. Duplicitous asshats.
Proudly Western Australian; Proudly supporting Western Australian rugby
Interesting (slightly indirect) news item here: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-0...-asic/10092864
"12 Years aSupporter" starring the #SeaOfBlue
All I can say is that if it keeps on getting press then all’s the better.
Generally speaking you aren’t learning much if your lips are moving!!!
Rugby in Australia is at the threshold. Alan is hugely concerned and sincerely believes the Chair, board and CEO must go. Total lack of transparency, communication and allegiance to grassroots.
Consider this as per Nick Taylor's article;
RWS clubs will have no salary cap. $1.0 million to winning club. Played in time zone of most populous third of the planet. Ask an advertiser or sponsor; " sir, would you like to sponsor Super Rugby? Viewership across 12 times zones, maybe getting up to 250,000 viewers per match and 10,000 punters at the stadium on a good day. " or would you like RWS? Viewership across 4 time zones, maybe getting 2.5 million per match and 20,000 punters at the stadium."
The likes of Izzy, Hoops, Dane, Beale will stay at Australian clubs for 2019 to play World Cup - but in 2020? No Salary Cap at World Series... what if these guys were offered 3 times as much?
Bye Bye Super Rugby...
Whilst this is all good for us and Minderoo, it will send Australian Rugby into apoplexy. Best Wallaby players all playing in their time zone and neighbourhood, ineligible for Wallaby selection and earning lots of $$$.
I continue to have difficulty reconciling the information presented in Nick Taylor's articles with the information presented under oath at the Senate Inquiry.