On Friday morning Australian rugby union will hopefully come off life support and be placed into remission.
Rugby in Australia has been in decline for 20 years. This is despite the rise of the sport competing with the NRL and AFL consistently from 1995 to 2003. It’s fallen to fourth at best among the winter codes.
However, there is a light ahead that could potentially turn out to be a beacon.
The best thing coming out of Rugby Australia in the preceding two or three years is that they have at least acknowledged the demise, whereas in the past they would have attempted to sugar-coat it.
The first thing any person or business needs to do before fixing a problem is to acknowledge that it exists. If it’s not acknowledged, it’s not being addressed.
For Rugby Australia, that was step one in a long road ahead.
What Rugby Australia has done since the ‘amateurism’ was placed on the table in 2019-20 is to stop trying to appease every party and look for the long-term benefits.
The Lions were always on the agenda, but to toss in not one but two Rugby World Cup tournaments in a relatively short space of time would be remarkable. Let’s hope Friday morning goes our way.
But let’s also be appreciative of what is happening in the media in the past few weeks.
Ian Payten, Georgina Robinson and Wayne Smith have all published positive articles, and I think you can feel a sense of pride in the sport they are passionate about and covering.
The results of the Australian Super Rugby teams have been far better than expected, and the Shute Shield has delivered some of the best results from the Western Sydney catchment that we’ve seen in years.
This could all come undone, and possibly will, with poor results against England in July. Any good work could also come crashing down with the Rugby Championship and how the Wallabies can compete. But it appears that RA is still forging ahead with the right noises.
A result for the Brumbies in Super Rugby could be a massive hit for the code, as would be a home semi-final for the Tahs, but again, these are sugar hits.
The retention of talent has been great this year, and although the likes of Tom Banks and Angus Scott-Young are taking up lucrative offers, Noah Lolesio, Jordan Petaia, Andrew Kellaway, Lachlan and Ryan Lonergan, Darcy Swain and others are committed to getting this pre-marathon trial underway.
There appears to be a long-term plan, and perhaps we’re all not privy to it, but in the past we all thought RA – and ARU before it – was wasting its chances
As I have suggested in previous posts, I am a lover of all sports and codes, and despite some suggestions otherwise, I continue to write because the product that is rugby in Australia is good and well.
The management of the code has been lacklustre, to be honest, but the current skippers do appear to be maintaining a strong course.
With the windfalls that may be upon Australian rugby over the next ten or so years, let’s hope that same course continues doesn’t see us enter a storm that consigns it to the previous sewers that we’ve been through before.
I am not a journalist, but rugby needs promotion. The product is awesome; let people know about it. My articles are to create comments and let people talk.
Rugby is rising; how far it goes is up to the public.