ARU set to take over Western Force

[Ham105]

Out of curiosity, why is it good enough for international rugby standards but not up to international soccer standards, I mean, just look at the last stadium the socceroos played at in Tajakistan, that made the old warm up track at Perry Lakes look like the Taj.

Fair question.

But I think it's a difference playing a two-legged home-and-away qualifier and actually hosting the big finals tournament.

I'd like to suggest Tajikistan wouldn't have a hope in hell of hosting an Asian Cup ... but with people like FIFA involved, you just never know.

[wholetruth]

Melbourne has a test quality ground

By ground I know you didn't mean surface. The way it cut up tonight was shocking

[wholetruth]

Just one thing that everyone seems to have forgotten among the E States hype is that the Force can't go anywhere for five years under the TV agreement so let's all take a deep breath.

[GAFFA]

Just one thing that everyone seems to have forgotten among the E States hype is that the Force can't go anywhere for five years under the TV agreement so let's all take a deep breath.

Not quite true the Aru are required to provide 5 teams nothing about where the could quite easily pick them up and drop them anywhere they want like say western Sydney.

[GIGS20]

Get the ARU involved now and make sure they bring a truckload of ARU contracted players with them. A creative backs coach wouldn't hurt either.

[chibi]

Jake White plus a creative backs coach...thoughts?

[whodunnit]

Jake White plus a creative backs coach...thoughts?

Nup sevenmile wants an Australian!!

[SNOB]

Nup sevenmile wants an Australian!!

And unproven at s15 level or any other lev l above (wa) club rugby!

[whodunnit]

"The time you worry is if the team is not performing well and those variable revenues that come from game attendance and the like has become in jeopardy.

From pulver!!!!

[Beliefs]

The ARU have made a big mistake just taking over some of the admin roles at Rugby WA. What's needed is a complete clean out of the Coaching Staff from U20's level up. Foley ( Stonefish ) and his sidekicks have never been sighted at a Community Rugby 1st Grade game since he's been here, whereas although they weren't overly liked as Coaches in RIchard Graham and JOhn MItchell, at least they attended those games and checked out the local talent. Rugby in W.A. lacks a profile, just as Soccer did in it's early days, until the Glory got Berndt Stanger in as a Coach who took every opportunity to maximise any media time he could get. Foley never gets out there on TV or other media to push the game of Rugby Union in this State and the Board seem to be happy to go from one season of mediocrity to another. I have been involved with Community Rugby in this State for 30 years and all I!ve heard from HQ down at Perry LAkes is " oh we got no money "", it's like a stuck record. Where Rugby goes from here without change who knows.

[chibi]

During the Qld-NSW game, I noticed that out-of-nowhere Greg Clark mentioned how Kurtley Beale was from Western Sydney and how Western Sydney just beat Brisbane City in the Junior Gold Cup grand final in the U-17s. "What a great victory it was!" No mention was made of how Western Australia were also winners in the U-15s. (Though admittedly, he segued into it via Beale)

I have become defeatist about this; I remember when the Western Reds were removed from the RL competition, there was no fanfare, just a small 5 minute report on the news about how the players would go elsewhere; it wasn't made into big headlines about WA losing a major sports team, it was treated similar to a run-of-the-mill report about a player injury or a fixture-change. And without a whimper, WA and it's booming rugby league scene were out of the highest level of the Australian rugby league mainstream, just like that.

I am concerned about the same thing happening to the Force as soon as the end of this season. I am sure now, that the wheels are already in motion behind the scenes; I don't think they would want Perth to be in the competition one more season, lest we turn this thing around, and with our youth team as champions, they are concerned we just might. A less-than-mediocre Australian Rugby, with our code slipping down to 4th or 5th place in Australia, with low skill-levels and attendances throughout it's under-performing Super Rugby teams, has still managed to make it to the world cup final; therefore expansion into new areas is not their priority anymore, otherwise Adelaide would be in the NRC.

"Everything's hunky-dory! Why, look what we did to the English! We're the winners of the Rugby Championship! We made a world cup final! I BELIEVE!"

As far as they are concerned, if guys like Adam Coleman, John Welborn or Ewen McKenzie can come through from outside the Australian East Coast Heartland, so likewise promising young WA players can do the same; they can play for the Spirit and be distributed elsewhere throughout Super Rugby. The ARU need five teams, it doesn't mean WA has to be one of them. They (SANZAR) have the SunWolves playing in our timeslot now and money coming in from Super Rugby's expansion, they (ARU) have their chardonnay/corporate big-city franchise team in Melbourne. Western Sydney will just involve a small shuffling about of players, just like the Brumbies. Plus, players are only a comparatively small distance away from their homes, friends and families.

I believe WA deserve to be involved in rugby at the highest level. I want a WA team in Super Rugby, whether it's the Force or someone new in Perth. I want us, as Australia's third major rugby city, to continue to expand and develop, to produce Wallabies off a long production line, just like Brisbane and Sydney. I want rugby to join Western Australia's points-of-difference, a strong hockey State, cricket State, soccer State, in becoming a strong rugby State. Abandoning Western Australia, to me, would be a big mistake for Australian rugby's future, especially as we aren't competing in a saturated market like the AFL in Melbourne or the NRL in Sydney. Plus, we have tremendous population growth in new geographical areas who aren't already ingrained with the Aussie Rules culture.

Handing another team to the NSWRU would be foolish. Western Sydney is already represented by the New South Wales Waratahs. Remember, this is the State union who were happy to lose the NSW Far South Coast Rugby Union and NSW Southern Inland Rugby Union to the Brumbies. Can you imagine allowing another, more successful union to take away parts of your territory and your players? Add this loss of territory to the fact that the NSWRU haven't developed the large western chunk of their own State capital city, and alarm bells should be ringing at the ARU. Western Sydney is already part of Super Rugby and the Shute Shield. Their Super Rugby team, the New South Wales Waratahs, should be playing games there. If the Japanese team can go all the way to Singapore to play home games, then the New South Welsh team can go all the way to, uhh, New South Wales, to play home games in Penrith, Parramatta, Campbelltown, Blacktown etc. I mean, these guys haven't even tried to go to Cronulla, Gosford or Newcastle. They used to have a presence out in Concord, what's happened to the NSWRU? Even their NRC teams are in crisis.

If they don't hand it to the NSWRU and start a new franchise who are a separate Western Sydney Union, why not just bring that investment and development here, to the already established and growing rugby community, the community who took to Subiaco Oval and spelled out "Super 14 for Perth" on WA's premiere AFL venue? There is a rugby community here, who can use the help in further establishing Perth and Western Australia on the international sporting stage. WA is a new frontier, which has already contributed home-grown players to European clubs, Super Rugby and to the Wallabies; it just needs the nurturing, guidance and professionalism that the Brumbies had in it's early years. Who would have thought that starting up a "spare-parts team" in the Canberra Raiders' RL stronghold would have yielded Australia our most successful professional province?* All in a city the size of a country town no less? We have 2 million people here! That, plus the Waratahs playing home games in other parts of New South Wales, would help cover two problems without a major Super Rugby overhaul. Removing WA and relocating the Force to an area already covered by a Super Rugby franchise will shrink Super Rugby's geographical reach in Australia, without breaking into new ones.

WA is Australia's one true new expansion area, it would be profligate to let it go.



*I admit that the Canberra establishment/media weren't as pro-Raiders and anti-rugby, as the Perth media is pro-AFL and anti-interloper

[Ham105]

Well said, Chibi.

[shasta]

At the risk of making Chibi's attitude more glum, the following article did not exactly fill me with optimism either. It seems the outcry from Shite Shield land has gained enough traction to get Pulver and Clyne to back track a little. It is not hard to imagine where Dwyer, Papworth & Co will be arguing that the necessary savings to accommodate them will come from. Papworth for one has been quite open about it. His strategy is that the ARU should circle the wagons and nurture the heartlands. They are in no position to waste money on expansion when the heartlands are shrinking.

Bob Dwyer thinks it's a great idea that half a million in development funds for Western Sydney should go via the clubs. Pulver "loved the idea". Buggered if I know why in light of their track record. I'd like to be a fly on the wall at next month's meeting to see which clubs Dwyer think should get that half mil. Parra and Penrith? No doubt Mr Papworth thinks Eastwood IS "Western Sydney". I suppose it is west of the bridge a bit, just like West Harbour.

http://www.theage.com.au/rugby-union...25-gnqxxl.html

[blueandblack]

....I want rugby to join Western Australia's points-of-difference, a strong hockey State, cricket State, soccer State, in becoming a strong rugby State. ....

and basketball and baseball.

[Cowboy]

One of the points that I would also make is that within the East Coast debate about our future there is the underlying sentiment that our existence is purely up to them. We apparently have no say/opinion within any of this.