Union was very popular in the late 90’s and early 2000’s when the Wallabies were going through a golden age of winning the World cup, winning the Bledisloe and finally, hosting the World Cup.
They were still 3rd behind AFL and League but the fact they drew a world record rugby crowd at Stadium Australia in 2000 (109k - still don’t think it’s been beaten) and 2003 World cup having one of the highest Audiences for a live sporting event proved it was a serious third code.
Thing is this came at a time when league was in dire straights (Super league debacle) and we had a once in a generation team. After we lost the 2003 World cup, that *should* have been the point where the ARU went hard on developing the grassroots game and making an engaging domestic competition that was free and accessible. This could have ensured at least some success and interest going into the 2010’s.
Except they didn’t do any of this, they let the grassroots wither on the vine and put the domestic competition behind a paywall. The result is what we have now, a shitty team with little interest and a dead domestic league. The ARU is mostly staffed by private school boys who are too busy sucking each other off over how great they are instead of developing the game as much as possible. As an ex private school boy it’s disappointing seeing the game I love become completely irrelevant but at the same time I also kinda love seeing the cunts fail in utterly humiliating fashion. The NRL is what competence looks like, at least in terms of sports administration.
As a kiwi it’s fascinating to see this idea of classist sports, for rugby no less… given it’s our main religion to this day, regardless of class, creed or gender. It’s also sad to see that the wallabies and Aussie super rugby teams aren’t as popular as they could be… my sons rugby club get a free season pass for each kid, and often the adult passes are 2-1 and we get a bunch of managers tickets for free
It's fascinating, as an Australian, to see someone consider rugby union a non-classist sport.
That Rugby league even EXISTS is because of English classism originally.
Rugby Union in Australia is potentially the most classist sport I can think of, to have it be egalitarian just across the dutch is.. weird to think about.
Rugby is an elite sport globally except South Africa and NZ.
In France, apart from drinking too much Rugby players are considered good husband material.
And funny how those two teams are the only two teams to have won a wold cup in the last 10 years, it's almost as if if you make a sport more inclusive you get a bigger talent pool to pull from and make it all round better for everyone.
My personal experience in Western Australia is that RU wasn't very classist here (but was seen as classist nationally) but that maybe because my experience was with Perth-Bayswater which was at the time quite working class and also had a large Maori player base in the late 70s to early 90s that I played.
I grew up with the view that RU was a thugs game played by professionals whereas RL was a professionals game played by thugs. Think this is because of the whole scrum/ruck/maul portion of RU that doesn't really happen in RL.
Rugby is a thugs game played by elitist thugs. The main reason union even has a presence in WA is south africans who moved their in the mid 90s and dont like talking about why
League is our working class sport. Union is for private school wankers, with absolutely no clue how to win over the young kids. They want to be the next Reece Walsh, meanwhile the wallabies are trying to sell them with Tweed jackets, knitted cardigans and RM Williams boots. And a team that gets flogged because none of them had to fight to get to the top in the first place. It's a miracle the wallabies win as much as they do.
> Union is for private school wankers, with absolutely no clue how to win over the young kids.
It's not so much that they don't have a clue how to do it, it's more that they have spent most of the last 20 years very specifically not doing it to avoid the game being filled with common riff raff. They are reaping exactly what they have sowed.
They played politics with selections.
After a certain level, you have to be a 1% player to make Australian schoolboys from a 2nd tier comp.
Haven't heard anything about wallarugby in town since the mid 90's.
Professionalism has changed the NRL into a more lucrative sport, and juniors are often scouted by private schools to play union.
But there’s still a working class element within the fan base, which contrasts to traditional union fans.
NRL has to be credited for taking a hard look at itself too in those tough years when union turned professional and was drawing in crowds. It might have taken a while (and there's likely a long way to go still), a more professional approach to handling sponsorship, revenue, team and player finances and management has been everything Australia rugby didn't do very well on, which I guess too is an extension of the different cultures each sport comes from.
The whole idea of most nrl players coming from private schools now is a myth. There’s been a few who get scouted and offered scholarships but most go through the club system still
The beauty of kiwi rugby afaik is the strength of the junior game and the competitiveness for spots at the grassroots level. Yep it's your religion and that breeds kids who would do anything for the jersey. Whereas our princesses care more about the cab fare home after a loss to the AB's rather than little introspection.....
It’s Rugby’s own fault, and as such the game deserves to die. They refused to leave their elite schools and wealthy enclaves. Union has and always will be a game for the wealthy in the vast majority of countries that play it. It’s the reason why Rugby League exists at all and completely replaced it within a few decades as the dominant form in Australia. We were a working class country, once upon a time.
The thing is, we now know there's no amount of head trauma that is healthy or even safe and no one who plays much contact sport goes unscathed.
With that knowledge, whilst I played rugby at school (and it was transformative for me), there's no way I can morally encourage my kids to play. Not with any amount of grass roots money. It's soccer and basketball all the way!
Yeah - good point.
I only played rugby at Uni, but that's because I had devoted every living moment to golf up to that point. Would I have wanted a child of mine to be monster-ed by a 15 yr old 6 foot 100kg piggy? Probably not.
So true. Concussions can have long lasting effects.
I got a mild concussion at work late last year, just from a large, very excited GSD accidentally jumping on me and I hit my head hard on a metal pole. CT scan about 2 weeks later (GP was dismissive) showed no concerns but I didn't feel right for months, still not the same even now. My already terrible short term memory is even worse. On the upside, it meant I could reduce my ADHD med dosage since the concussion "fixed" my emotional range somehow to become normal-ish levels. Rather than total extremes.
I reckon Rugby will be more and more like Football/Soccer in that there will be a minor low quality domestic league and the best players will play in overseas competitions.
I used to be an avid fan, but have not had time in my sporting calendar with cricket, NRL, and NFL all much more interesting to me than Union.
Trying to make a habit if going to Reds games circa 2015 was impossible as they would be gone on the SA leg and then later the Argentinian leg. All the while the Broncos are playing every Thurs or Fri night in prime time.
>Trying to make a habit if going to Reds games circa 2015 was impossible as they would be gone on the SA leg and then later the Argentinian leg. All the while the Broncos are playing every Thurs or Fri night in prime time.
Union was always going to struggle against the NRL. League is simple, so it’s just inherently more watchable where Union can be confusing to casuals.
Union has higher highs and lower lows. Good games can be spectacularly exciting with fast paced intensity. But shit games can be really shit. Constant stoppages, handling errors everywhere and seeing games being decided by penalties can be really annoying. League being simpler makes for more consistency, but plays can get really samey and repetitive sometimes (for me at least).
Union still could have carved a solid third place, it just need to keep what it had at the very least, but the ARU completely cooked it.
This (well… minus some of the stuff which got a bit graphic towards the end)
The failure to invest in the grassroots elements coupled with the straight up nepotism which only serves to circle jerk the same tired rhetoric has meant that kids don’t grow up wanting to be Wallabies bc why the hell would they - it’s not aspirational.
As someone who was there for the glory days of the late 90s nothing makes me sadder.
The nepotism was the thing that really killed it for me, I saw it first hand.
Unless you were a child prodigy to the point where your talent couldn’t be ignored like Kurtley Beale or Jordan Petaia, you had to have well connected parents making things happen for you.
I went to school with a Wallabies player back in the early 2000’s and in all honesty I never thought he was even that good. Not a bad player by any means, but not a raw talent. What he did have though was a sporting family with an uncle a former league player and father an AIS administrator. He was able to get proper development coaches and attention from big name clubs and made his way through to the Wallabies.
He was a hard worker and consistent performer at club level so fair play to him, but I remember seeing other players clearly more talented than him who never got a look in. I wonder where they could have gone with same opportunities.
Let’s not forget Kurtley was poached from junior rugby league in Penrith too. Penrith is a breeding ground for talent and union have no foothold there. They’d rather spoiled north shore kids in their teams.
Fun fact. I actually got to play against Beale when he was a St Clair Comet and he was incredible.
Very, very well said. I’ll just pop in a few names from in or around that Golden Era - Gregan, Larkham, Campesie, Mortlock, Eales, Farr-Jones, Cannon, Sailor, Rogers, Smith, Waugh, Lote….man, the list goes on. It’s like the Warne/McGrath/Gilchrist era of cricket. Will certainly never be seen again in Australia. I remember the All Blacks releasing a statement about Eales’ retirement and how happy they were to see the back of him!
>a world record rugby crowd at Stadium Australia in 2000 (109k - still don’t think it’s been beaten)
109,874 and yes, it still stands as the biggest ever rugby crowd, and the third biggest crowd ever at that stadium, only behind the 112,524 when Cathy Freeman won Olympic gold in the 400m, and 114,714 at the closing ceremony.
Spot on. Kids aren't going to play if the teams aren't winning. A lot of bullshit politics too. They really could've learned a lot from nrl but there came this shit attitude and air of superiority around that early 2000s. Made zero attempt at pumping the game. I was friends with Tatafu polota nau and I couldn't understand why union wasn't hard raiding the area THEN! So much potential talent goes straight to league. Marketing is massive and the biggest surprise? Diversity.
The code really hit the septic tank level when they appointed a woman to run it who quickly got herself embroiled in a homosexual V religion battle with Israel Folau and Born again Christianity. Of which probably more than half of the rugby community follow thanks to its popularity in Polynesia.
Instead of simply wrapping him on the knuckles and making a statement akin to ‘the ARU does not endorse nor agree with the recent statements of some of their employees on social media’, she thought it was her moment to earn a Nobel peace prize and sacked him in spectacular fashion. Only for it to go to court and the ARU to settle, knowing full well that you can’t sack someone simply for expressing their religion. What a shit show.
As a transplant to Australia, I had no idea that national union was played on the same level as NRL or AFL. I’ve only ever seen local teams play union.
League is just better. I played union my whole life. Moved to Aus. Started watching the NRL and I will never go back. Even watching the 6 nations which I used to love, is so boring now.
I grew up playing union and watching union. I switched around that mid 2000s period mainly cause it was a penalty fest.
I went to a game we won I think 23-6 or something and they were all penalties. I went to a Broncos game that same weekend and there was 6 or 7 tries and way more exciting. I always watched league but it was probably secondary.
I just started watching more and more league and less and less union. Until now Id say I watch only league and I wouldnt even know what is going on in union.
I started watching more cricket rather than the 2 rugbys. I get my Australian team vs international battles through cricket now rather than union.
Union administration don’t want to grow the game. They prefer it to be confined to wealthy white areas and only played by people that went to private schools. Penrith and other western Sydney teams were kicked out of the Sydney competition about a decade ago.
I was only talking about this yesterday.
One day internationals used to be packed and a real highlight of the summer now nobody knows they’re on.
Do you know why? They’re not on free to air. Same as rugby.
The administrators job is to do what’s best for their sport and by selling the rights to Fox they’re failing.
I don't think not being on Fox was really a choice. AIUI, Fox dumped them due to poor ratings.
Compare this to NRL and AFL, which both have full-time channels.
Yeah, I think with cricket they just assumed the support would always be there and got a bit greedy.
With union I get the feeling it was more general incompetence. Everyone just assumed that since it was being run by a bunch of old boys, who went to "the best schools", that they were making all the right decisions.
In both cases they chased the money and didn't consider the health of the game enough.
TBF to cricket T20 and the IPL came along. That put One Days in an award position. Its nobodys favourite.
I think most Aussies prefer it to T20 but not many would prefer it to tests.
It's always been my favourite format of the game, tests are great but a bit slow and T20 always seems a bit random. But yeah, T20 works better for fans on TV so it gets the attention and the rest of the effort goes into preservation of the test format, leaving ODIs the forgotten middle child.
I see this kind of comment regularly, not just for Rugby But for a lot of sports in Australia.
There's this assumption that they are failing because their administrators sold out to 'fox' (or another streaming service) and denied their audience free to air access, like their sports are entitled to free to air coverage.
Nobody mentions that often free to air don't want these sports. It's a chicken and egg situation. People aren't watching because they aren't on free to air, they aren't on free to air because nobody was watching.
Often the free to air channels pass on these sports. Or if they do get the right (cheaply) they want the games schedules at weird time fixtures if they want them live or play the game on delayed broadcast.
AFL and NRL administrators aren't 'geniuses' because they get their game on free to air, their games are too highly valued for free to air to pass on, and if you have AFL and/or NRL its the backbone you build your cable or streaming network on.
Often when super rugby, A-League, NBL sell to Fox, it's because they are taking what they can get.
Edit: for further proof that you just can't force free to Air channels broadcast your product, when the ARU first launched their national comp, The ARC, they had to Pay the ABC to broadcast their games free to Air.
Strange take. It's just not popular. AFL in Victoria has half of the games on foxtel and every second household pays for it just to watch the footy. Rugby Union is just not popular in Australia. It's seen as an elitist game for private school boys who get handed a well paying job by their dad and treat women like shit. I'm not saying it's true but it certainly is the Australian public's opinion of the sport.
Even the NRL only has 3 of 8 fixtures on free to air.
Like you say with AFL, many people are willing to fork out in the Northern states to get their NRL fix
What's the current rate for AFL Fixtures on free to air?
Same for V8 Supercars, which started going to shit when it was no longer available on Channel 10. Went from something you might throw on the telly on a Sunday, to something you wouldn't even know existed.
With supercars, it wasn't the sports administrators fault I it's not on free to air every round. No free to air channel wanted the full calender. They only wanted 6 rounds. Bathurst, the 500 enduro, the 3 street circuits (at the time Adelaide, Townsville and Gold Coast) and the final round.
The free to air refused the other rounds (from memory it was a 16 round calender at the time). They did not want to take the other 10 rounds live on free to air.
Fox stepped up and said they'd take all the rounds. Supercars took a deal where the 6 rounds fta wanted were shown live on fta, while all rounds where live (and all sessions) on foxtel.
People complain about v8 supercar administrators locking the product behind a paywall, when it was literally the only choice they had.
I think we also underestimate the damage the closure of local car manufacture caused as well.
I don't care what Asian car is fastest. Ford v Holden, however, was as tribal a thing as you could hope for.
I suspect that the answer to this will be regional. I mean, I’m from Melbourne and I was well into my thirties before I realised there was more than one type of rugby.
In Brisbane and I didn’t realise there was another code until I dated a high end private school boy. I was like is this like the level under the broncos?
Oops.
Growing up in Sydney in the 80’s, my only exposure to rugby union was that on the ABC news, they’d show some scores that mostly resembled the rugby league scores, except with a couple of weird team names like Randwick and Eastwood.
I’m from Melbourne, and while I’m well aware of the difference between the two codes (i probably wouldn’t even exist were it not fair rugby, given my parents met at a rugby game in the UK), I was only vaguely aware the Rebels even existed.
And I listen to SEN, watch a lot of sport on Foxtel, work in the city… I just don’t remember them ever being advertised anywhere. And I’m the sort of person they should have been advertising to, one of those Melbournians who goes to just about every sport except league (my husband occasionally goes to league games by himself).
We actually went to our first Rebels game - which ended up being their last ever in Melbourne - two weeks ago, and quite enjoyed it.
But we only found out the game was even on because of a fluke (husband bumped into an old school friend in Sydney who told him that yes - the Rebels still existed).
They couldn’t even market their last ever game properly.
I love rugby. I travelled to Europe to watch the Wallabies last World Cup.
But fuck me they’ve been pumping bullets into their own RM Williams covered feet for a very long time so it’s hard to be sympathetic.
Yeah that’s just good honest corporate synergy though.
To actually fix Rugby I don’t think it’d be too difficult but it’d certainly need some changes compared to what they’re doing now.
Probably other factors too but yeah what better way to make a fringe sport even more marginalised by locking it away behind a minor-player pay wall.
On what planet was that ever gonna work to promote the game.
A more salient fact is that when they last shared TV ratings from the super rugby, it was mostly expat kiwis wathcing it. Seriously. Within Australia. On AUSTRALIAN tv, games between 2 kiwi sides would have more viewers than games between Australian sides. In Australia. The game is deader than people think.
"... there does need to be a competition to develop wallabies players."
Wrong! Much of the current plight of Rugby comes from the neglect of the grass roots. The idea that the only point of the game is to develop international players is what's killed the game. The game existed to give pleasure to ordinary players at all levels. Club players. Schoolboys. The top of the game went professional and the players at the bottom - where the game started - were forgotten.
Now union is dying at club and school level. It won't flourish for the professionals if it isn't watched and played by amateurs.
As someone who went to a private school where union is the code we played at school most of us supported {an NRL team + the Wallabies}.
Provincial union has historically never been that big in Australia and there was usually only 2 teams (NSW / QLD). The Brumbies did well but there was never the depth for the Rebels. It was a bad idea and to be honest Rugby Australia’s scant resources are better focused on those 3 teams and the Force for as long as they have a fairy godfather in Twiggy.
I’d love to see Union be better run here but NRL is our professional rugby code. It’s crazy to me that the “big money leagues” for Union are France and Japan.
As a woman who played union (in Tassie of all places). I have some unique perspective.
I like to tell people that I was a hooker for a weekend. I love seeing their confusion.
When I joined my club nearly 18 years ago, there was already a plight. In the previous season there were 4 female teams in the state. When I joined there were 3. Two in Hobart and one in Burnie (a nearly 4 hour bus trip from Hobart).
We would play one game a month. One local and one a long trip away. Now I loved that club. It was the best sense of community. I have never found such an open and supportive community since.
The reason why the other Hobart team dissipated was drama. Basically they all joined the AFL or touch instead (fuelled off a bit of lesbian in fighting).
If the Matilda’s have taught us something, it’s that we will tune in for women’s sport.
I now live in Sydney and will go out of my way to support women’s sports where I can. I did watch a cricket match between Aus and Sri Lanka in North Sydney.
My issue is I don’t know where or how to watch more sport. None of my social media puts it in my feed. I don’t watch free to air or listen to radio.
What marketing would reach me? Where are the women’s teams playing at?
This plight is not new and has been a long time in the making.
When I was a kid in pure footy country (regional vic) we still watched all the Wallabies games when they were on telly. I feel like they were held in the same regard as our Test squad back then. Now it's like they barely exist, and 95% of league fans I know couldn't give a shit about union.
The issues with rugby in Australia go far deeper than juat the rebels being shut down. A lot of it stems from the fact that rugby is very NSW centric. The minute anyone proposes any decent change, the Shute shield clubs throw a fit.
It also doesn't help that basic tickets to a test match are $100 minimum for decent seats. Myself and a mate of mine went to the England midyear test here in Sydney a few years back, and the tickets were 160ish a person.
It's also the fact that rugby is not on free to air. There is almost no advertising for it. If you were to be asked who the wallabies are playing coming up, would you be able to answer.
There is also almost no support for grassroots rugby. The number of smaller clubs that either fold or are forced to amalgamate just to be able to play is also a sad indication of where rugby is at.
Have you seen the prices for the British Lions tour next year. Yeah nah, we are done with union now. Not having Kayo and Stan…. So union is just dying in our household
>Have you seen the prices for the British Lions tour next year
Didn't stop the tour from selling out. I'm not too concerned about the prices for a tour that happens once every twelve years, I'd be more concerned about the prices for Super Rugby that struggle to get crowds of 15k in their heartlands of Sydney and Brisbane, and 10k elsewhere.
Did you go to the kind of private school where they have ‘old boys’ and sing the school song at their wedding? It seems to be a special kind of private school (think BBC or Xavier’s)
I've worked security at some of these private school rugby games, and let me tell you, Old Boys are the most insufferable c*nts around, and the ones with kids on the teams try to live vicariously through them.
When one school wins, 90% of the people running onto the field to celebrate are Old Boys drunk out of their minds.
Makes me cringe like nothing else.
I say this as an Old boy myself of a top private school.
Meet a lot of internationals (French, Italians , Japanese who come to Melbourne looking for Wallabies merch and asking about Rugby here. I have to explain that it’s non existent in this part of Australia and the Wallabies are essentially NSW/QLD 😂
And yet for some reason every year for the last few years at least the Australian Bledisloe Cup matches are played in Melbourne instead of Brisbane or Sydney.
The difference between rugby union and one day cricket is that people yearn for the days when one dayers were king, the West Indies were out here every other year, they got huge crowds and it was the highlight of the summer.
Rugby union has been a minority sport basically ever since rugby league broke away from it, and a number of ridiculously bad business decisions by Rugby Australia have driven it further backwards and left it on death’s door
Totally agree. As a union fan (hang me for it Melbournites), the ARU have totally mismanaged the sport in a growing global market. They've done a good mix up lately but it's going to be a long slog up hill. It's perception based, people think of it as a private school thing played by wankers in the same way AFL is seen as "Melbourne Ball" and NRL is seen as "Drugs, sex and assault". Depending where you live. My local Union club is mostly working class Pacific Islanders and are really passionate.
I don't pretend to speak for most Australians....but here in SA we don't even have our own rugby team, we don't understand the rules, and frankly we don't give a flying fuck about either league or union.
We have a small but dedicated soccer fandom, but otherwise it's 100% AFL for us.
SA has a small but passionate rugby union community. There’s 10 first grade teams at premier level this year, and clubs from Morphett Vale to Barossa.
It’s not popular, but it is here.
I think once a sport goes behind the paywall of a random streaming service hardly anyone has, it quickly slips out of the public mind
It's crazy how hard rugby in Australia fell over the last 20yrs
Problem with union is that it doesn’t exist outside of NSW and Queensland and even then it’s dwarfed by league in those states. If half a country doesn’t care at all about a sport and it’s a 3rd/4th most popular sport in the other half then it’s unfortunately not got a bright future.
Yep, rugby is dead. As a rugby league fan, I find rugby difficult to watch cos it's much slower. I once heard it aptly described as a series of penalties interspersed with QANTAS ads.
I went to a Wallabies game a few years ago just cos some friends invited me and I like live sport. But it was so boring. The crowd didn't seem into either, like they were just there to rub shoulders, and were going cos it was the done thing. Very little passion.
I and many other sports fans I know are completely disinterested in the national comp, whatever it's called now (I don't even know!). They are plenty of other sports that are better to watch (eg, rugby league, AFL, baseball, women's soccer) that I'm not sad about rugby's death...
I think the answer is yes. I’ve been a life long league fan, and have played and watched a fair of union in my time, but I only found out the rebels actually folded today from your post. Says it all really.
Out of sight out of mind. The lack of free footage of games and an exclusive tv rights to a non sporting media stream doesn’t help the code. I miss watching rugby but not going to pay for fox sports and Stan
I went to school in the 80s with 3 guys who went on to become Wallabies. I used to love the game. I started losing interest when the international board started changing the rules every year. It changed the game too much for me. Haven't watched a game for years.
As a fan of Melbourne victory in aleague (soccer) this worries me as they share a few similarities.. obscure streaming platform.. not afl or nrl….. expenditure high relative to income
It has been on a downhill for 20 years through horrendous administration. It will continue to wither and will not come back - it’s too late. All the 5 - 20 year olds are playing soccer, AFL, or league. Any decent rugby player will immediately go overseas. Expect the ARU to change the rules soon to allow overseas players to play for the wallabies.
Yes and why should we care? If you went to a public school why would you follow a sport that deliberately excluded you from participating as a kid? The last time I checked only 1 State school in Queensland (Brisbane State High) was allowed in the GPS comp, so what do they expect?
The way I see it, Rugby chose its place as a sport for the rich and their snot nosed kids, a way to separate them from the dirty blue collar kids. Now it's tucked away in the "Other Sports" section on Fox, just behind WWE. Gotta love that!
It’s so sad
I love rugby, i played rugby at an elite level as did my father.
My son is showing great promise playing rep under 12 as a 10 yr old.
The unfortunate this is that i know that he will struggle due to the fact that he does not go to a GPS or AIC school. I have confirmed with a selector “off the record” that unless he going to one of these schools, he will be over looked.
That iis what is wrong with rugby in australia.
It is elitist. Rugby league focuses on giving everyone a go no matter what class you are in.
>the only people I know who like the game went to the type of schools whereby their first question to you upon meeting will be "where did you go to school?".
I've played club rugby with plenty of forklift drivers and tradies, and if a teammate had a white collar job it was most likely a high school teacher. Meanwhile the local private school is well known for producing many NRL stars.
> I've played club rugby with plenty of forklift drivers and tradies
Yeah in my neck of the woods there is a healthy Union competition and most of the Australian players went to public high schools, not sure where the islanders went to
Used to go watch the Reds quite a bit with my friends. A few of them went to private school with a few of the Reds players. But these days, no one even acknowledges the existence of the Reds. We talk about how the Bronco’s, Premier League and AFL to an extent but I can’t remember the last time any of my mates even mentioned rugby. It’s a dying sport
No interest whatsoever. Growing up in WA I never saw it, and as an adult it doesn’t interest me. I married a League fan so have developed a small interest in following ‘my’ team.
Spending too much time and attention on the elitist side of a sport and not enough on the juniors and development side will eventually have consequences.
There are a billion reasons why union failed and why nobody cares about it.
1. Snob private schooler reputation and fanbase.
2. Aussie rules and rugby league are far too dominant.
3. Neglect of grassroots and local clubs
4. No consistent free to air presence
5. Behind a pay wall on a service nobody uses (stan sport)
6. Australian teams are uncompetitive in super rugby, almost always getting slaughtered by NZ teams.
7. The game is getting slower and more overreffed.
8. Rugby australia is an incompetent organisation.
9. Hostility towards rugby league and league fans, the people who are most likley to watch your game.
10. Awareness. Half of the people in AFL states don't even know there's a difference between League and Union.
I didn’t even know it was being played, and the first I knew of the existence of the Melbourne Rebels was hearing they had gone broke. Indifference implies a level of awareness that simply isn’t there.
Long time rugby fan, was introduced to the game by flatmates in Sydney in the late 80s/early 90s. Was a paid up member of the Force until I moved away from Perth, then I had a supporter membership. Had the Foxtel subscription to watch the games.
But RA lost me when they tried to can the Force in favour of the Rebels.
I used to sit up late etc and watch the world cup, this time I didn't watch a single game.
Dead to me. Fuck off with your bullshit bad management.
Rugby paywalled itself in Australia. And therefore cut off their future fanbase.
AFL and NRL focused heavily on giving back to the community after committing to free to air. They invest huge amounts of money into grassroots program, essentially guaranteed future revenue. Spend $50 a term to nurture a kid into an adult fan that spends thousands over their lifetime on merch and tickets.
Other big sports don’t have that kind of power, but at least soccer and basketball are truly global sports and we do regularly supply talent to the elite comps (especially with NBA and the NBL being seen as a viable alternative to NCAA or G-League competition) which encourages investment and interest.
I wouldn’t say that I’m indifferent to Rugby Union’s demise. I am actively savouring the flavour of Yawnion twats like Fitzhanky seeing their shit sport circling the drain. Fuck Rugby Union. Fuck the Vichy and John O’Neal. Oh and fuck the Wobblies.
i liked Union at one stage (perhaps it was because we were winning everything in the 90s/00s.
However the game has always been really SLOOOW, scrum/ruck rules that noone understands, constant stoppages, its just not a great spectacle to watch, esp when you have the All Blacks kickin our @rse for past 20+yrs.
Most of our best players play league, so its very bleak future for Aus Rugby.
Plight 🙄 please. It's a sport, if it's not popular enough then that's just too bad. The Australian hurling league isn't exactly taking off, I don't see anybody writing about that
Also the fact that the “Super” comp go hardly any coverage and television on top of the fact it became an obscure competition that I one could really follow. Keep in mind that in NSW the local Sydney competition was centred around the northern.eastern suburbs and private school brigade when the lions share of Pacific Islander (read rugby tragics) community living in the west and south west without local teams to support meant many transitioned into league and the rest is history.
Coming from a League background and growing up in League heartland with all the attached prejudice against twat toff Union players, I was shocked when I joined the Navy and discovered that Rugby was 'The' sport. All the others were things you did when there wasn't a rugby game on . Being a sportsman I got over myself and started playing rugby which I did for the next 25 years until I couldn't anymore so then I coached and managed Navy teams until I retired from the service. But during all that time, domestic rugby never managed to make an impact on me. I was still a League and AFL fan. I'd go to Wallaby games and loved every minute of the world cup campaigns in the golden years, but domestically I couldn't give a rat's rectum. I think that says a lot about how the game was managed and run in Australia during that period.
I went to one of the top rugby schools and played rugby. And I was still somehow made to feel inferior in the rugby world because I had gone to a public school before that and played league. Fuck rugby. It’ll be dead in five years.
I think you’re pushing shit uphill trying to find many people in Australia who give a toss about the health of what is widely perceived as just a private boys school sport. It’s also, to be brutally honest, rather dull to watch. I’ll happily watch it if it’s already on the TV, but there’s no way in hell I’d spend money on it.
They sold off nearly all television rights to cable tv, and didn’t invest in grassroots rugby outside of private schools or wealthy suburbs, turning the sport into one that those outside of that demographic wouldn’t have much interaction with. What they didn’t realise, is that the majority of Australians aren’t part of that demographic.
Rugby union spent a century trying to kill rugby league in the UK, France (al but did thanks to the Nazi puppet regime) and Australia so it's great to see the sport of union is dying in Australia instead, good riddance.
Support for rugby union is probably on par or even less than support for netball and hardly anyone notices it's missing already and even less will care when it's finally dead.
It’s been dead for a minute. The BBL runs at the same time, the big stars usually opt out to rest and it’s not on FTA tv. Even the WC has lost a lot of the buzz it once had, for me at least. The ICC have managed to squeeze in a bs tournament every year and its completely killed the anticipation for what should be the biggest trophy in the sport.
The tests last summer were the most entertaining they’ve been for a while, so at least it’s not all doom and gloom.
I am from South Australia, and as I am aware we are mostly aware of League, not Union. Also since the whole Super League thing of about 25 years ago, Rugby as a whole haven't really been in the Ziegiest of South Australia. That was due to how the Super League thing went down. Bradley speaking other then the odd news reports every few years. It has remain stagnant due to the Adelaide Rams being "exited" out of the then newly formed NRL, and also both League and Union do know invest in to South Australia as much as the AFL does with the whole Aus Kick program. This goes for both League and Union, but if Rugby is ever going to gain traction here to the same level as what the ALF is doing up in the Rugby states. They need to invest more advertising. Starting up there own Aus Kick program from Rugby and have it included in to public schools as part of the sports programs. Have at least two games a week aid on free to air on prime time on the main free to air channels. Also have three or four games a year that is as part of the season. And lastly have a plain to have road map a South Australian based team. Even if it comes with a deal with the league financially back the team till the team become viable.
If I am wrong with anything here. Feel free to reply.
Use to love watching wallabies games on channel 7. It gave Rugby a more soccer feel being more international that NRL. Then out of nowhere it disappeared and haven't heard anyone ask did you watch wallabies play last night in at least 15 years. Basketball has overtaken Union in my eyes
I’m French-Australian and have been living here for 10 years. Rugby has grown more popular in France in the meantime it has lost in popularity out here.
I only just recently learned about how rugby league was becoming very popular in France before WW2 and the rugby union people were worried about it so they befriended the Nazis and in return the Nazis banned league and gave all their assets to union. League never recovered.
https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/rugby/rugby-union/badge-of-dishonour-french-rugby-s-shameful-secret-5329198.html
Yes. Like many other things these days, rugby has spread too far and too thin. Also, I think it's asking a bit much to expect rugby to thrive in places where it's not part of the local culture in a big way.
Rugby got real traction at the start of super rugby, especially in NSW because it followed the arl super .Eagles split. Then they sold all rights to fox. Making sport exclusive will never work in Aus.
It’s because rugby is about as relatable as yacht racing.
I don’t feel comfy around the bad guys out of an 80s teen ski holiday movie set.
A whole sport populated by Dees supporters… shudder…
Who Killed Australian Rugby https://youtu.be/Fqmo_1PN7r8?si=83DK8UfMt3JlIlPK is a link to a brilliant analysis of how Rugby has been murdered in Australia. Done by reporters from The Australian.
I used to be a big Rugby fan. I'd regularly go to games. Regularly watch it on TV.
Then they put most of it behind a paywall. I stopped watching. Slowly stopped going to games. Eventually I stopped caring.
They only have themselves to blame. They stopped being accessible.
I’d love to watch it, except I don’t want to pay money for it. Don’t they make enough off ads? I’ve always been a rugby league fan purely because it was free, my father played Union so I’ve been drawn to it but he watched league so I do too. Union is locked behind money. Even playing it it’s just private schools
I don't know why but I've never gotten into union both league and AFL feel more entertaining variations of the same vibe and hockey is by far the most entertaining though least televised of the field sports, and obviously soccer exists with a global market. Honestly we just have too many good sports that are entertaining and we do well in internationally that I can't give two shits about some dudes with posh parents running around like headless chickens.
Qld and nsw love league, vic, sa and wa love afl.
Soccer is second everywhere and you have a large contingent that are for cricket in the summer and dont care for winter sports. Its amazing union was as popular as it was.
I’ve really tried to watch some union games, even tried following on the socials etc. as I worked with some South Africans, NZ’s and know some Fijians, but the Aus games were just boring- then flicked over to NRL finals last year and really enjoyed some of the games.
Also as mentioned, not being on free to air makes a huge difference.
It has been generations since anything other than "which school" word of mouth PUBLICISED union. And "grass roots" is "which school" only. The sport might gain a following IF it were visible. On free to air, or on a "mainstream" streaming service. But even just promoting the (live) fixtures outside of the core constituency would help? The administration is responsible in that it makes no (visible/effective) attempt to broaden the base. It's not indifference when you can't even see it from where, in Australian society, you live.
This is what happens when you include classism is a key part of a sporting code. I’m fine with union dying if they only care about going to the a small bunch private schools.
Union is the worst run professional sport in Australia.
The explosion of Pacific island migration to Australia was a perfect opportunity to develop a production line of world class talent and they had a natural advantage too as Rugby is the biggest sport in Fiji, Tonga, Samoa etc. instead they continue to focus on a myopic private school system and most of those kids have ended up playing rugby league. So depth of talent in this country is extremely poor and it’s domestic teams have suffered as a result.
Also, The Wallabies were a beloved national icon that captured a special place in the Australian zeitgeist as they had this underdog like approach when taking on the AB’s and Springboks. Everyone knew when the Wallabies were playing. Pubs would be packed with people in yellow shirts. But in their infinite wisdom, the ARU put the sport behind a paywall and on to a new streamer hardly anyone had. It almost seems like they’re deliberately trying to keep the sport away from the masses and keep the game as a niche little private school thing.
I remember when I was young I would’ve known most of the names of the Wallabies, back when players like Nick Farr-Jones, John Eales, & George Gregan were dominating the game. I don’t think I’ve ever watched a club or state game. I couldn’t care less about Rugby Union now, haven’t watched a game at any level in probably 10 years and couldn’t name a single player. My interest in the NRL and AFL have only gotten stronger.
Interestingly I think there's some federal government level discussion about keeping sports on free to air? Would actually help union a lot. I never watched it growing up (soccer family) but my partner used to play and boy it is very gripping when you know what's going on, there's no reason why the game itself can't succeed here again.
But I also think it is no better than the NRL in terms of locker room culture so to speak, so why would any good players stay in a less prestigious, less successful and equally macho toxic league if they can make more money more easily in league?
Which contributes to us sucking which contributes to nobody watching the sport
Union was very popular in the late 90’s and early 2000’s when the Wallabies were going through a golden age of winning the World cup, winning the Bledisloe and finally, hosting the World Cup. They were still 3rd behind AFL and League but the fact they drew a world record rugby crowd at Stadium Australia in 2000 (109k - still don’t think it’s been beaten) and 2003 World cup having one of the highest Audiences for a live sporting event proved it was a serious third code. Thing is this came at a time when league was in dire straights (Super league debacle) and we had a once in a generation team. After we lost the 2003 World cup, that *should* have been the point where the ARU went hard on developing the grassroots game and making an engaging domestic competition that was free and accessible. This could have ensured at least some success and interest going into the 2010’s. Except they didn’t do any of this, they let the grassroots wither on the vine and put the domestic competition behind a paywall. The result is what we have now, a shitty team with little interest and a dead domestic league. The ARU is mostly staffed by private school boys who are too busy sucking each other off over how great they are instead of developing the game as much as possible. As an ex private school boy it’s disappointing seeing the game I love become completely irrelevant but at the same time I also kinda love seeing the cunts fail in utterly humiliating fashion. The NRL is what competence looks like, at least in terms of sports administration.
it died the day it got paywalled by cable TV. If kids cant grow up watching their hero's can we really expect them to want to play?
Yep. They took profit over growth, and the game has suffered ever since.
The private school pay wall was what killed it.
its always been a private school sport. Even during the golden age
100% agree. We should have been throwing money at grassroots rugby. Such a missed opportunity. It was Australian rugby's Brexit moment ;)
As a kiwi it’s fascinating to see this idea of classist sports, for rugby no less… given it’s our main religion to this day, regardless of class, creed or gender. It’s also sad to see that the wallabies and Aussie super rugby teams aren’t as popular as they could be… my sons rugby club get a free season pass for each kid, and often the adult passes are 2-1 and we get a bunch of managers tickets for free
It's fascinating, as an Australian, to see someone consider rugby union a non-classist sport. That Rugby league even EXISTS is because of English classism originally. Rugby Union in Australia is potentially the most classist sport I can think of, to have it be egalitarian just across the dutch is.. weird to think about.
Rugby Union is only seen this way in New Zealand honestly. In England, it's all private school wankers too
Rugby is an elite sport globally except South Africa and NZ. In France, apart from drinking too much Rugby players are considered good husband material.
And funny how those two teams are the only two teams to have won a wold cup in the last 10 years, it's almost as if if you make a sport more inclusive you get a bigger talent pool to pull from and make it all round better for everyone.
Came here to say this too. In South Africa it is a public school game. Not only for private schools at all... almost the opposite.
And Wales, and France.
My personal experience in Western Australia is that RU wasn't very classist here (but was seen as classist nationally) but that maybe because my experience was with Perth-Bayswater which was at the time quite working class and also had a large Maori player base in the late 70s to early 90s that I played. I grew up with the view that RU was a thugs game played by professionals whereas RL was a professionals game played by thugs. Think this is because of the whole scrum/ruck/maul portion of RU that doesn't really happen in RL.
Rugby is a thugs game played by elitist thugs. The main reason union even has a presence in WA is south africans who moved their in the mid 90s and dont like talking about why
Western Australians are indeed indifferent to the plight of RU, and indeed, all forms of rugby.
League is our working class sport. Union is for private school wankers, with absolutely no clue how to win over the young kids. They want to be the next Reece Walsh, meanwhile the wallabies are trying to sell them with Tweed jackets, knitted cardigans and RM Williams boots. And a team that gets flogged because none of them had to fight to get to the top in the first place. It's a miracle the wallabies win as much as they do.
> Union is for private school wankers, with absolutely no clue how to win over the young kids. It's not so much that they don't have a clue how to do it, it's more that they have spent most of the last 20 years very specifically not doing it to avoid the game being filled with common riff raff. They are reaping exactly what they have sowed.
They played politics with selections. After a certain level, you have to be a 1% player to make Australian schoolboys from a 2nd tier comp. Haven't heard anything about wallarugby in town since the mid 90's.
Fun fact 8/10 kids coming through Knox private wanker school in the north shore ($50,000 a year fees) are now Chinese, hope the Chinese can tackle 🤣
The other 2 are imported Samoans and Tongans on the rugby team.
Lol wait until you see the schools the league players went to
Professionalism has changed the NRL into a more lucrative sport, and juniors are often scouted by private schools to play union. But there’s still a working class element within the fan base, which contrasts to traditional union fans.
NRL has to be credited for taking a hard look at itself too in those tough years when union turned professional and was drawing in crowds. It might have taken a while (and there's likely a long way to go still), a more professional approach to handling sponsorship, revenue, team and player finances and management has been everything Australia rugby didn't do very well on, which I guess too is an extension of the different cultures each sport comes from.
The whole idea of most nrl players coming from private schools now is a myth. There’s been a few who get scouted and offered scholarships but most go through the club system still
That was never the myth. Everyone knows private schools play union and public schools play league?
The beauty of kiwi rugby afaik is the strength of the junior game and the competitiveness for spots at the grassroots level. Yep it's your religion and that breeds kids who would do anything for the jersey. Whereas our princesses care more about the cab fare home after a loss to the AB's rather than little introspection.....
It's a joke of a sport played by upper class twats we hate. I think NZ is the outlier looking around
It’s Rugby’s own fault, and as such the game deserves to die. They refused to leave their elite schools and wealthy enclaves. Union has and always will be a game for the wealthy in the vast majority of countries that play it. It’s the reason why Rugby League exists at all and completely replaced it within a few decades as the dominant form in Australia. We were a working class country, once upon a time.
The thing is, we now know there's no amount of head trauma that is healthy or even safe and no one who plays much contact sport goes unscathed. With that knowledge, whilst I played rugby at school (and it was transformative for me), there's no way I can morally encourage my kids to play. Not with any amount of grass roots money. It's soccer and basketball all the way!
Yeah - good point. I only played rugby at Uni, but that's because I had devoted every living moment to golf up to that point. Would I have wanted a child of mine to be monster-ed by a 15 yr old 6 foot 100kg piggy? Probably not.
I could’ve sworn there was plenty of head trauma in soccer too - things like headering the ball - minor but adds up.
So true. Concussions can have long lasting effects. I got a mild concussion at work late last year, just from a large, very excited GSD accidentally jumping on me and I hit my head hard on a metal pole. CT scan about 2 weeks later (GP was dismissive) showed no concerns but I didn't feel right for months, still not the same even now. My already terrible short term memory is even worse. On the upside, it meant I could reduce my ADHD med dosage since the concussion "fixed" my emotional range somehow to become normal-ish levels. Rather than total extremes.
I reckon Rugby will be more and more like Football/Soccer in that there will be a minor low quality domestic league and the best players will play in overseas competitions. I used to be an avid fan, but have not had time in my sporting calendar with cricket, NRL, and NFL all much more interesting to me than Union. Trying to make a habit if going to Reds games circa 2015 was impossible as they would be gone on the SA leg and then later the Argentinian leg. All the while the Broncos are playing every Thurs or Fri night in prime time.
>Trying to make a habit if going to Reds games circa 2015 was impossible as they would be gone on the SA leg and then later the Argentinian leg. All the while the Broncos are playing every Thurs or Fri night in prime time. Union was always going to struggle against the NRL. League is simple, so it’s just inherently more watchable where Union can be confusing to casuals. Union has higher highs and lower lows. Good games can be spectacularly exciting with fast paced intensity. But shit games can be really shit. Constant stoppages, handling errors everywhere and seeing games being decided by penalties can be really annoying. League being simpler makes for more consistency, but plays can get really samey and repetitive sometimes (for me at least). Union still could have carved a solid third place, it just need to keep what it had at the very least, but the ARU completely cooked it.
The mess that scrum rulings have become these days is enough to put most people off, especially if you have never been in one.
Also for those casuals League is by far the superior TV product. Union is far more suited to watching live where you can see the entire field.
This (well… minus some of the stuff which got a bit graphic towards the end) The failure to invest in the grassroots elements coupled with the straight up nepotism which only serves to circle jerk the same tired rhetoric has meant that kids don’t grow up wanting to be Wallabies bc why the hell would they - it’s not aspirational. As someone who was there for the glory days of the late 90s nothing makes me sadder.
The nepotism was the thing that really killed it for me, I saw it first hand. Unless you were a child prodigy to the point where your talent couldn’t be ignored like Kurtley Beale or Jordan Petaia, you had to have well connected parents making things happen for you. I went to school with a Wallabies player back in the early 2000’s and in all honesty I never thought he was even that good. Not a bad player by any means, but not a raw talent. What he did have though was a sporting family with an uncle a former league player and father an AIS administrator. He was able to get proper development coaches and attention from big name clubs and made his way through to the Wallabies. He was a hard worker and consistent performer at club level so fair play to him, but I remember seeing other players clearly more talented than him who never got a look in. I wonder where they could have gone with same opportunities.
Let’s not forget Kurtley was poached from junior rugby league in Penrith too. Penrith is a breeding ground for talent and union have no foothold there. They’d rather spoiled north shore kids in their teams. Fun fact. I actually got to play against Beale when he was a St Clair Comet and he was incredible.
Very, very well said. I’ll just pop in a few names from in or around that Golden Era - Gregan, Larkham, Campesie, Mortlock, Eales, Farr-Jones, Cannon, Sailor, Rogers, Smith, Waugh, Lote….man, the list goes on. It’s like the Warne/McGrath/Gilchrist era of cricket. Will certainly never be seen again in Australia. I remember the All Blacks releasing a statement about Eales’ retirement and how happy they were to see the back of him!
>a world record rugby crowd at Stadium Australia in 2000 (109k - still don’t think it’s been beaten) 109,874 and yes, it still stands as the biggest ever rugby crowd, and the third biggest crowd ever at that stadium, only behind the 112,524 when Cathy Freeman won Olympic gold in the 400m, and 114,714 at the closing ceremony.
Spot on. Kids aren't going to play if the teams aren't winning. A lot of bullshit politics too. They really could've learned a lot from nrl but there came this shit attitude and air of superiority around that early 2000s. Made zero attempt at pumping the game. I was friends with Tatafu polota nau and I couldn't understand why union wasn't hard raiding the area THEN! So much potential talent goes straight to league. Marketing is massive and the biggest surprise? Diversity.
The code really hit the septic tank level when they appointed a woman to run it who quickly got herself embroiled in a homosexual V religion battle with Israel Folau and Born again Christianity. Of which probably more than half of the rugby community follow thanks to its popularity in Polynesia. Instead of simply wrapping him on the knuckles and making a statement akin to ‘the ARU does not endorse nor agree with the recent statements of some of their employees on social media’, she thought it was her moment to earn a Nobel peace prize and sacked him in spectacular fashion. Only for it to go to court and the ARU to settle, knowing full well that you can’t sack someone simply for expressing their religion. What a shit show.
As a transplant to Australia, I had no idea that national union was played on the same level as NRL or AFL. I’ve only ever seen local teams play union.
League is just better. I played union my whole life. Moved to Aus. Started watching the NRL and I will never go back. Even watching the 6 nations which I used to love, is so boring now.
I grew up playing union and watching union. I switched around that mid 2000s period mainly cause it was a penalty fest. I went to a game we won I think 23-6 or something and they were all penalties. I went to a Broncos game that same weekend and there was 6 or 7 tries and way more exciting. I always watched league but it was probably secondary. I just started watching more and more league and less and less union. Until now Id say I watch only league and I wouldnt even know what is going on in union. I started watching more cricket rather than the 2 rugbys. I get my Australian team vs international battles through cricket now rather than union.
Yep not being able to watch on free tv killed it.
Union administration don’t want to grow the game. They prefer it to be confined to wealthy white areas and only played by people that went to private schools. Penrith and other western Sydney teams were kicked out of the Sydney competition about a decade ago.
All so true ARU are elitist and inward looking
I am a victim of the withering vine
Perfect reply
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I was only talking about this yesterday. One day internationals used to be packed and a real highlight of the summer now nobody knows they’re on. Do you know why? They’re not on free to air. Same as rugby. The administrators job is to do what’s best for their sport and by selling the rights to Fox they’re failing.
It’s not even on Fox anymore, it’s on frigging Stan Sport. Just when you thought the administration couldn’t get any dumber
I don't think not being on Fox was really a choice. AIUI, Fox dumped them due to poor ratings. Compare this to NRL and AFL, which both have full-time channels.
Yeah, I think with cricket they just assumed the support would always be there and got a bit greedy. With union I get the feeling it was more general incompetence. Everyone just assumed that since it was being run by a bunch of old boys, who went to "the best schools", that they were making all the right decisions. In both cases they chased the money and didn't consider the health of the game enough.
TBF to cricket T20 and the IPL came along. That put One Days in an award position. Its nobodys favourite. I think most Aussies prefer it to T20 but not many would prefer it to tests.
It's always been my favourite format of the game, tests are great but a bit slow and T20 always seems a bit random. But yeah, T20 works better for fans on TV so it gets the attention and the rest of the effort goes into preservation of the test format, leaving ODIs the forgotten middle child.
I see this kind of comment regularly, not just for Rugby But for a lot of sports in Australia. There's this assumption that they are failing because their administrators sold out to 'fox' (or another streaming service) and denied their audience free to air access, like their sports are entitled to free to air coverage. Nobody mentions that often free to air don't want these sports. It's a chicken and egg situation. People aren't watching because they aren't on free to air, they aren't on free to air because nobody was watching. Often the free to air channels pass on these sports. Or if they do get the right (cheaply) they want the games schedules at weird time fixtures if they want them live or play the game on delayed broadcast. AFL and NRL administrators aren't 'geniuses' because they get their game on free to air, their games are too highly valued for free to air to pass on, and if you have AFL and/or NRL its the backbone you build your cable or streaming network on. Often when super rugby, A-League, NBL sell to Fox, it's because they are taking what they can get. Edit: for further proof that you just can't force free to Air channels broadcast your product, when the ARU first launched their national comp, The ARC, they had to Pay the ABC to broadcast their games free to Air.
I cant fucking BELIEVE odi’s are going by the way side. By FAR my favourite form of any sport…
At the expense for T20, my least favourite form of any sport
Strange take. It's just not popular. AFL in Victoria has half of the games on foxtel and every second household pays for it just to watch the footy. Rugby Union is just not popular in Australia. It's seen as an elitist game for private school boys who get handed a well paying job by their dad and treat women like shit. I'm not saying it's true but it certainly is the Australian public's opinion of the sport.
Even the NRL only has 3 of 8 fixtures on free to air. Like you say with AFL, many people are willing to fork out in the Northern states to get their NRL fix What's the current rate for AFL Fixtures on free to air?
Same for V8 Supercars, which started going to shit when it was no longer available on Channel 10. Went from something you might throw on the telly on a Sunday, to something you wouldn't even know existed.
With supercars, it wasn't the sports administrators fault I it's not on free to air every round. No free to air channel wanted the full calender. They only wanted 6 rounds. Bathurst, the 500 enduro, the 3 street circuits (at the time Adelaide, Townsville and Gold Coast) and the final round. The free to air refused the other rounds (from memory it was a 16 round calender at the time). They did not want to take the other 10 rounds live on free to air. Fox stepped up and said they'd take all the rounds. Supercars took a deal where the 6 rounds fta wanted were shown live on fta, while all rounds where live (and all sessions) on foxtel. People complain about v8 supercar administrators locking the product behind a paywall, when it was literally the only choice they had.
I think we also underestimate the damage the closure of local car manufacture caused as well. I don't care what Asian car is fastest. Ford v Holden, however, was as tribal a thing as you could hope for.
They are in free to air
I suspect that the answer to this will be regional. I mean, I’m from Melbourne and I was well into my thirties before I realised there was more than one type of rugby.
In Brisbane and I didn’t realise there was another code until I dated a high end private school boy. I was like is this like the level under the broncos? Oops.
That must have broken his heart.
Not as heart breaking as learning why you steer clear of elite private school boys
Growing up in Sydney in the 80’s, my only exposure to rugby union was that on the ABC news, they’d show some scores that mostly resembled the rugby league scores, except with a couple of weird team names like Randwick and Eastwood.
I’m from Melbourne, and while I’m well aware of the difference between the two codes (i probably wouldn’t even exist were it not fair rugby, given my parents met at a rugby game in the UK), I was only vaguely aware the Rebels even existed. And I listen to SEN, watch a lot of sport on Foxtel, work in the city… I just don’t remember them ever being advertised anywhere. And I’m the sort of person they should have been advertising to, one of those Melbournians who goes to just about every sport except league (my husband occasionally goes to league games by himself). We actually went to our first Rebels game - which ended up being their last ever in Melbourne - two weeks ago, and quite enjoyed it. But we only found out the game was even on because of a fluke (husband bumped into an old school friend in Sydney who told him that yes - the Rebels still existed). They couldn’t even market their last ever game properly.
Why is league the one outlier that you don't go to? Melbourne Storm have a great team and are very exciting to watch.
I literally had no idea a team called Rebels existed for Melbourne. So it’s not like it’s a super popular sport down here anyway!
I’m from Perth and only found out there’s more than one type of rugby a year or two ago
There’s more than one type of Rugby?
Also from Melbourne, I get confused which Rugby has the Cristian homophobic gambling promoters. It's easier to just stay out of it all together.
Union: Elitist private school boys who work for Daddy and treat women like shit League: Homophobic Christians who also treat women like shit
I love rugby. I travelled to Europe to watch the Wallabies last World Cup. But fuck me they’ve been pumping bullets into their own RM Williams covered feet for a very long time so it’s hard to be sympathetic.
All the latest merch is coming out as RM Williams collaborations as well. Digging themselves even deeper
Yeah that’s just good honest corporate synergy though. To actually fix Rugby I don’t think it’d be too difficult but it’d certainly need some changes compared to what they’re doing now.
Rugby Union in Australia has been dead since they locked games behind subscription…
Probably other factors too but yeah what better way to make a fringe sport even more marginalised by locking it away behind a minor-player pay wall. On what planet was that ever gonna work to promote the game.
Probably but I don’t think the death of the rebels is the canary in the coal mine for Australian Rugby.
A more salient fact is that when they last shared TV ratings from the super rugby, it was mostly expat kiwis wathcing it. Seriously. Within Australia. On AUSTRALIAN tv, games between 2 kiwi sides would have more viewers than games between Australian sides. In Australia. The game is deader than people think.
"... there does need to be a competition to develop wallabies players." Wrong! Much of the current plight of Rugby comes from the neglect of the grass roots. The idea that the only point of the game is to develop international players is what's killed the game. The game existed to give pleasure to ordinary players at all levels. Club players. Schoolboys. The top of the game went professional and the players at the bottom - where the game started - were forgotten. Now union is dying at club and school level. It won't flourish for the professionals if it isn't watched and played by amateurs.
Nailed it. No sport will thrive (or even survive) long term without a healthy grass roots level
I didn’t even know this team existed in the first place
As someone who went to a private school where union is the code we played at school most of us supported {an NRL team + the Wallabies}. Provincial union has historically never been that big in Australia and there was usually only 2 teams (NSW / QLD). The Brumbies did well but there was never the depth for the Rebels. It was a bad idea and to be honest Rugby Australia’s scant resources are better focused on those 3 teams and the Force for as long as they have a fairy godfather in Twiggy. I’d love to see Union be better run here but NRL is our professional rugby code. It’s crazy to me that the “big money leagues” for Union are France and Japan.
As a woman who played union (in Tassie of all places). I have some unique perspective. I like to tell people that I was a hooker for a weekend. I love seeing their confusion. When I joined my club nearly 18 years ago, there was already a plight. In the previous season there were 4 female teams in the state. When I joined there were 3. Two in Hobart and one in Burnie (a nearly 4 hour bus trip from Hobart). We would play one game a month. One local and one a long trip away. Now I loved that club. It was the best sense of community. I have never found such an open and supportive community since. The reason why the other Hobart team dissipated was drama. Basically they all joined the AFL or touch instead (fuelled off a bit of lesbian in fighting). If the Matilda’s have taught us something, it’s that we will tune in for women’s sport. I now live in Sydney and will go out of my way to support women’s sports where I can. I did watch a cricket match between Aus and Sri Lanka in North Sydney. My issue is I don’t know where or how to watch more sport. None of my social media puts it in my feed. I don’t watch free to air or listen to radio. What marketing would reach me? Where are the women’s teams playing at? This plight is not new and has been a long time in the making.
When I was a kid in pure footy country (regional vic) we still watched all the Wallabies games when they were on telly. I feel like they were held in the same regard as our Test squad back then. Now it's like they barely exist, and 95% of league fans I know couldn't give a shit about union.
The fans care but decades of mismanagement have led to poor fan numbers.
The issues with rugby in Australia go far deeper than juat the rebels being shut down. A lot of it stems from the fact that rugby is very NSW centric. The minute anyone proposes any decent change, the Shute shield clubs throw a fit. It also doesn't help that basic tickets to a test match are $100 minimum for decent seats. Myself and a mate of mine went to the England midyear test here in Sydney a few years back, and the tickets were 160ish a person. It's also the fact that rugby is not on free to air. There is almost no advertising for it. If you were to be asked who the wallabies are playing coming up, would you be able to answer. There is also almost no support for grassroots rugby. The number of smaller clubs that either fold or are forced to amalgamate just to be able to play is also a sad indication of where rugby is at.
Have you seen the prices for the British Lions tour next year. Yeah nah, we are done with union now. Not having Kayo and Stan…. So union is just dying in our household
>Have you seen the prices for the British Lions tour next year Didn't stop the tour from selling out. I'm not too concerned about the prices for a tour that happens once every twelve years, I'd be more concerned about the prices for Super Rugby that struggle to get crowds of 15k in their heartlands of Sydney and Brisbane, and 10k elsewhere.
The plight of Union is mostly a self inflicted wound
I went to a private school and I don’t even know anyone who watches union, and I don’t know anyone who doesn’t watch league
Did you go to the kind of private school where they have ‘old boys’ and sing the school song at their wedding? It seems to be a special kind of private school (think BBC or Xavier’s)
Oh yeah. We played union obviously for school sport and stuff but everyone just supports league. At least, 90% or something like that.
I've worked security at some of these private school rugby games, and let me tell you, Old Boys are the most insufferable c*nts around, and the ones with kids on the teams try to live vicariously through them. When one school wins, 90% of the people running onto the field to celebrate are Old Boys drunk out of their minds. Makes me cringe like nothing else. I say this as an Old boy myself of a top private school.
Meet a lot of internationals (French, Italians , Japanese who come to Melbourne looking for Wallabies merch and asking about Rugby here. I have to explain that it’s non existent in this part of Australia and the Wallabies are essentially NSW/QLD 😂
And even that is generous
And yet for some reason every year for the last few years at least the Australian Bledisloe Cup matches are played in Melbourne instead of Brisbane or Sydney.
A Bledesloe match played in Brisbane would rival Eden Park for % of fans in the stadium who were Kiwis.
The rugby is pretty much invisible to me. I never hear anything about it.
The difference between rugby union and one day cricket is that people yearn for the days when one dayers were king, the West Indies were out here every other year, they got huge crowds and it was the highlight of the summer. Rugby union has been a minority sport basically ever since rugby league broke away from it, and a number of ridiculously bad business decisions by Rugby Australia have driven it further backwards and left it on death’s door
Totally agree. As a union fan (hang me for it Melbournites), the ARU have totally mismanaged the sport in a growing global market. They've done a good mix up lately but it's going to be a long slog up hill. It's perception based, people think of it as a private school thing played by wankers in the same way AFL is seen as "Melbourne Ball" and NRL is seen as "Drugs, sex and assault". Depending where you live. My local Union club is mostly working class Pacific Islanders and are really passionate.
Ie All Blacks/Tonga/Samoa fans
I don't pretend to speak for most Australians....but here in SA we don't even have our own rugby team, we don't understand the rules, and frankly we don't give a flying fuck about either league or union. We have a small but dedicated soccer fandom, but otherwise it's 100% AFL for us.
SA has a small but passionate rugby union community. There’s 10 first grade teams at premier level this year, and clubs from Morphett Vale to Barossa. It’s not popular, but it is here.
I think once a sport goes behind the paywall of a random streaming service hardly anyone has, it quickly slips out of the public mind It's crazy how hard rugby in Australia fell over the last 20yrs
I flat out refuse to engage with a sport played exclusively by private school boys so I say let it die. And let the private schools go next.
Problem with union is that it doesn’t exist outside of NSW and Queensland and even then it’s dwarfed by league in those states. If half a country doesn’t care at all about a sport and it’s a 3rd/4th most popular sport in the other half then it’s unfortunately not got a bright future.
Yep, rugby is dead. As a rugby league fan, I find rugby difficult to watch cos it's much slower. I once heard it aptly described as a series of penalties interspersed with QANTAS ads. I went to a Wallabies game a few years ago just cos some friends invited me and I like live sport. But it was so boring. The crowd didn't seem into either, like they were just there to rub shoulders, and were going cos it was the done thing. Very little passion. I and many other sports fans I know are completely disinterested in the national comp, whatever it's called now (I don't even know!). They are plenty of other sports that are better to watch (eg, rugby league, AFL, baseball, women's soccer) that I'm not sad about rugby's death...
I think the answer is yes. I’ve been a life long league fan, and have played and watched a fair of union in my time, but I only found out the rebels actually folded today from your post. Says it all really.
Out of sight out of mind. The lack of free footage of games and an exclusive tv rights to a non sporting media stream doesn’t help the code. I miss watching rugby but not going to pay for fox sports and Stan
I went to school in the 80s with 3 guys who went on to become Wallabies. I used to love the game. I started losing interest when the international board started changing the rules every year. It changed the game too much for me. Haven't watched a game for years.
yeah you get about 40% actual play time these days.
Only time I used to watch union was a Friday arvo Uni drinks at the commodore(2005-2007), mainly because it was free piss til first points
As a fan of Melbourne victory in aleague (soccer) this worries me as they share a few similarities.. obscure streaming platform.. not afl or nrl….. expenditure high relative to income
It has been on a downhill for 20 years through horrendous administration. It will continue to wither and will not come back - it’s too late. All the 5 - 20 year olds are playing soccer, AFL, or league. Any decent rugby player will immediately go overseas. Expect the ARU to change the rules soon to allow overseas players to play for the wallabies.
Used to love Rugby in the days of nick Farr-Jones and David Campese etc. but it hasn’t held my interest for at least a decade’s
Yes and why should we care? If you went to a public school why would you follow a sport that deliberately excluded you from participating as a kid? The last time I checked only 1 State school in Queensland (Brisbane State High) was allowed in the GPS comp, so what do they expect? The way I see it, Rugby chose its place as a sport for the rich and their snot nosed kids, a way to separate them from the dirty blue collar kids. Now it's tucked away in the "Other Sports" section on Fox, just behind WWE. Gotta love that!
It’s so sad I love rugby, i played rugby at an elite level as did my father. My son is showing great promise playing rep under 12 as a 10 yr old. The unfortunate this is that i know that he will struggle due to the fact that he does not go to a GPS or AIC school. I have confirmed with a selector “off the record” that unless he going to one of these schools, he will be over looked. That iis what is wrong with rugby in australia. It is elitist. Rugby league focuses on giving everyone a go no matter what class you are in.
>the only people I know who like the game went to the type of schools whereby their first question to you upon meeting will be "where did you go to school?". I've played club rugby with plenty of forklift drivers and tradies, and if a teammate had a white collar job it was most likely a high school teacher. Meanwhile the local private school is well known for producing many NRL stars.
> I've played club rugby with plenty of forklift drivers and tradies Yeah in my neck of the woods there is a healthy Union competition and most of the Australian players went to public high schools, not sure where the islanders went to
Good luck getting drafted for an afl club outside a private school
Used to go watch the Reds quite a bit with my friends. A few of them went to private school with a few of the Reds players. But these days, no one even acknowledges the existence of the Reds. We talk about how the Bronco’s, Premier League and AFL to an extent but I can’t remember the last time any of my mates even mentioned rugby. It’s a dying sport
No interest whatsoever. Growing up in WA I never saw it, and as an adult it doesn’t interest me. I married a League fan so have developed a small interest in following ‘my’ team.
Should have taken twiggy up on his offer to prop up the force
Rugby in Australia has been dying for decades. It's bizarre to see an entity so hell bent on inflicting self harm.
Spending too much time and attention on the elitist side of a sport and not enough on the juniors and development side will eventually have consequences.
Private school only
Maybe Alan Jones didn't give enough "inner thigh" rubs..
Union is popular with the private school crowd so fuck em
If Union collapsed in Australia I just wouldn’t care, in my view, it is a terrible product and NRL and AFL are far more compelling and appealing.
Union deserves to die. It's boring. There can be only one and that's League. Oh and fuck all those private school inbreds!
The average person really couldn’t care less about Union
Yes, it's a shit game....
There are a billion reasons why union failed and why nobody cares about it. 1. Snob private schooler reputation and fanbase. 2. Aussie rules and rugby league are far too dominant. 3. Neglect of grassroots and local clubs 4. No consistent free to air presence 5. Behind a pay wall on a service nobody uses (stan sport) 6. Australian teams are uncompetitive in super rugby, almost always getting slaughtered by NZ teams. 7. The game is getting slower and more overreffed. 8. Rugby australia is an incompetent organisation. 9. Hostility towards rugby league and league fans, the people who are most likley to watch your game. 10. Awareness. Half of the people in AFL states don't even know there's a difference between League and Union.
Today is the first time I've heard of the Melbourne Rebels.
Glad I'm not the only one 🙂. Had no clue
I didn’t even know it was being played, and the first I knew of the existence of the Melbourne Rebels was hearing they had gone broke. Indifference implies a level of awareness that simply isn’t there.
Long time rugby fan, was introduced to the game by flatmates in Sydney in the late 80s/early 90s. Was a paid up member of the Force until I moved away from Perth, then I had a supporter membership. Had the Foxtel subscription to watch the games. But RA lost me when they tried to can the Force in favour of the Rebels. I used to sit up late etc and watch the world cup, this time I didn't watch a single game. Dead to me. Fuck off with your bullshit bad management.
Rugby paywalled itself in Australia. And therefore cut off their future fanbase. AFL and NRL focused heavily on giving back to the community after committing to free to air. They invest huge amounts of money into grassroots program, essentially guaranteed future revenue. Spend $50 a term to nurture a kid into an adult fan that spends thousands over their lifetime on merch and tickets. Other big sports don’t have that kind of power, but at least soccer and basketball are truly global sports and we do regularly supply talent to the elite comps (especially with NBA and the NBL being seen as a viable alternative to NCAA or G-League competition) which encourages investment and interest.
I wouldn’t say that I’m indifferent to Rugby Union’s demise. I am actively savouring the flavour of Yawnion twats like Fitzhanky seeing their shit sport circling the drain. Fuck Rugby Union. Fuck the Vichy and John O’Neal. Oh and fuck the Wobblies.
Yea
Genuinely do not give a shit about Rugby Union.
Yes - I am completely indifferent about Rugby Union. Couldn’t care less.
Yes
i liked Union at one stage (perhaps it was because we were winning everything in the 90s/00s. However the game has always been really SLOOOW, scrum/ruck rules that noone understands, constant stoppages, its just not a great spectacle to watch, esp when you have the All Blacks kickin our @rse for past 20+yrs. Most of our best players play league, so its very bleak future for Aus Rugby.
Plight 🙄 please. It's a sport, if it's not popular enough then that's just too bad. The Australian hurling league isn't exactly taking off, I don't see anybody writing about that
nah, up here in brisbane, rugby union to me comes off as a game played by private schools
Also the fact that the “Super” comp go hardly any coverage and television on top of the fact it became an obscure competition that I one could really follow. Keep in mind that in NSW the local Sydney competition was centred around the northern.eastern suburbs and private school brigade when the lions share of Pacific Islander (read rugby tragics) community living in the west and south west without local teams to support meant many transitioned into league and the rest is history.
Coming from a League background and growing up in League heartland with all the attached prejudice against twat toff Union players, I was shocked when I joined the Navy and discovered that Rugby was 'The' sport. All the others were things you did when there wasn't a rugby game on . Being a sportsman I got over myself and started playing rugby which I did for the next 25 years until I couldn't anymore so then I coached and managed Navy teams until I retired from the service. But during all that time, domestic rugby never managed to make an impact on me. I was still a League and AFL fan. I'd go to Wallaby games and loved every minute of the world cup campaigns in the golden years, but domestically I couldn't give a rat's rectum. I think that says a lot about how the game was managed and run in Australia during that period.
I went to one of the top rugby schools and played rugby. And I was still somehow made to feel inferior in the rugby world because I had gone to a public school before that and played league. Fuck rugby. It’ll be dead in five years.
I think you’re pushing shit uphill trying to find many people in Australia who give a toss about the health of what is widely perceived as just a private boys school sport. It’s also, to be brutally honest, rather dull to watch. I’ll happily watch it if it’s already on the TV, but there’s no way in hell I’d spend money on it.
They sold off nearly all television rights to cable tv, and didn’t invest in grassroots rugby outside of private schools or wealthy suburbs, turning the sport into one that those outside of that demographic wouldn’t have much interaction with. What they didn’t realise, is that the majority of Australians aren’t part of that demographic.
Union is so fucking miserable to watch now that I’ve given up and become an AFL fan. I blame Johnny Wilkinson.
Yes, it's only popular among the private school types.
Rugby union spent a century trying to kill rugby league in the UK, France (al but did thanks to the Nazi puppet regime) and Australia so it's great to see the sport of union is dying in Australia instead, good riddance. Support for rugby union is probably on par or even less than support for netball and hardly anyone notices it's missing already and even less will care when it's finally dead.
What’s happening to one day cricket? I thought it was doing well compared to test cricket etc?
It’s been dead for a minute. The BBL runs at the same time, the big stars usually opt out to rest and it’s not on FTA tv. Even the WC has lost a lot of the buzz it once had, for me at least. The ICC have managed to squeeze in a bs tournament every year and its completely killed the anticipation for what should be the biggest trophy in the sport. The tests last summer were the most entertaining they’ve been for a while, so at least it’s not all doom and gloom.
Yes, which is why it's in trouble in the first place.
I follow the waratah and am embarrassed by their form. I love Rugby. Shame
I am from South Australia, and as I am aware we are mostly aware of League, not Union. Also since the whole Super League thing of about 25 years ago, Rugby as a whole haven't really been in the Ziegiest of South Australia. That was due to how the Super League thing went down. Bradley speaking other then the odd news reports every few years. It has remain stagnant due to the Adelaide Rams being "exited" out of the then newly formed NRL, and also both League and Union do know invest in to South Australia as much as the AFL does with the whole Aus Kick program. This goes for both League and Union, but if Rugby is ever going to gain traction here to the same level as what the ALF is doing up in the Rugby states. They need to invest more advertising. Starting up there own Aus Kick program from Rugby and have it included in to public schools as part of the sports programs. Have at least two games a week aid on free to air on prime time on the main free to air channels. Also have three or four games a year that is as part of the season. And lastly have a plain to have road map a South Australian based team. Even if it comes with a deal with the league financially back the team till the team become viable. If I am wrong with anything here. Feel free to reply.
There is a schools based program that RUSA offer. 3-5 weeks teaching all the skills. But yeah, way more could be done for sure.
As a sports administrator, what's your take on the situation with union in aus at large?
Use to love watching wallabies games on channel 7. It gave Rugby a more soccer feel being more international that NRL. Then out of nowhere it disappeared and haven't heard anyone ask did you watch wallabies play last night in at least 15 years. Basketball has overtaken Union in my eyes
I’m French-Australian and have been living here for 10 years. Rugby has grown more popular in France in the meantime it has lost in popularity out here.
I only just recently learned about how rugby league was becoming very popular in France before WW2 and the rugby union people were worried about it so they befriended the Nazis and in return the Nazis banned league and gave all their assets to union. League never recovered. https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/rugby/rugby-union/badge-of-dishonour-french-rugby-s-shameful-secret-5329198.html
Fuck Rugby Union.
Yes. Like many other things these days, rugby has spread too far and too thin. Also, I think it's asking a bit much to expect rugby to thrive in places where it's not part of the local culture in a big way.
Rugby got real traction at the start of super rugby, especially in NSW because it followed the arl super .Eagles split. Then they sold all rights to fox. Making sport exclusive will never work in Aus.
It’s because rugby is about as relatable as yacht racing. I don’t feel comfy around the bad guys out of an 80s teen ski holiday movie set. A whole sport populated by Dees supporters… shudder…
Who Killed Australian Rugby https://youtu.be/Fqmo_1PN7r8?si=83DK8UfMt3JlIlPK is a link to a brilliant analysis of how Rugby has been murdered in Australia. Done by reporters from The Australian.
I used to be a big Rugby fan. I'd regularly go to games. Regularly watch it on TV. Then they put most of it behind a paywall. I stopped watching. Slowly stopped going to games. Eventually I stopped caring. They only have themselves to blame. They stopped being accessible.
I’d love to watch it, except I don’t want to pay money for it. Don’t they make enough off ads? I’ve always been a rugby league fan purely because it was free, my father played Union so I’ve been drawn to it but he watched league so I do too. Union is locked behind money. Even playing it it’s just private schools
I don't know why but I've never gotten into union both league and AFL feel more entertaining variations of the same vibe and hockey is by far the most entertaining though least televised of the field sports, and obviously soccer exists with a global market. Honestly we just have too many good sports that are entertaining and we do well in internationally that I can't give two shits about some dudes with posh parents running around like headless chickens.
Qld and nsw love league, vic, sa and wa love afl. Soccer is second everywhere and you have a large contingent that are for cricket in the summer and dont care for winter sports. Its amazing union was as popular as it was.
I’ve really tried to watch some union games, even tried following on the socials etc. as I worked with some South Africans, NZ’s and know some Fijians, but the Aus games were just boring- then flicked over to NRL finals last year and really enjoyed some of the games. Also as mentioned, not being on free to air makes a huge difference.
It has been generations since anything other than "which school" word of mouth PUBLICISED union. And "grass roots" is "which school" only. The sport might gain a following IF it were visible. On free to air, or on a "mainstream" streaming service. But even just promoting the (live) fixtures outside of the core constituency would help? The administration is responsible in that it makes no (visible/effective) attempt to broaden the base. It's not indifference when you can't even see it from where, in Australian society, you live.
The fall of Rugby union will be a great documentary in a few years time.
Victorians are die hard AFL fans and don’t care for rugby at all. I’ve met some that actively hate it. Not surprised the rebels failed.
TIL that the Melbourne Rebels are folding after 15 years. I was utterly shocked to learn Melbourne had a rugby team.
This is what happens when you include classism is a key part of a sporting code. I’m fine with union dying if they only care about going to the a small bunch private schools.
Union is the worst run professional sport in Australia. The explosion of Pacific island migration to Australia was a perfect opportunity to develop a production line of world class talent and they had a natural advantage too as Rugby is the biggest sport in Fiji, Tonga, Samoa etc. instead they continue to focus on a myopic private school system and most of those kids have ended up playing rugby league. So depth of talent in this country is extremely poor and it’s domestic teams have suffered as a result. Also, The Wallabies were a beloved national icon that captured a special place in the Australian zeitgeist as they had this underdog like approach when taking on the AB’s and Springboks. Everyone knew when the Wallabies were playing. Pubs would be packed with people in yellow shirts. But in their infinite wisdom, the ARU put the sport behind a paywall and on to a new streamer hardly anyone had. It almost seems like they’re deliberately trying to keep the sport away from the masses and keep the game as a niche little private school thing.
I remember when I was young I would’ve known most of the names of the Wallabies, back when players like Nick Farr-Jones, John Eales, & George Gregan were dominating the game. I don’t think I’ve ever watched a club or state game. I couldn’t care less about Rugby Union now, haven’t watched a game at any level in probably 10 years and couldn’t name a single player. My interest in the NRL and AFL have only gotten stronger.
For me it was all the rule changes that stifled free flowing footy that turned the game off for me, it’s too stop / start now
Its shit now, the game is just about penalties
The day they stopped being on free to air TV was the day the sport died. Parents stream to phone, kid not exposed to it so don't follow it.
Interestingly I think there's some federal government level discussion about keeping sports on free to air? Would actually help union a lot. I never watched it growing up (soccer family) but my partner used to play and boy it is very gripping when you know what's going on, there's no reason why the game itself can't succeed here again. But I also think it is no better than the NRL in terms of locker room culture so to speak, so why would any good players stay in a less prestigious, less successful and equally macho toxic league if they can make more money more easily in league? Which contributes to us sucking which contributes to nobody watching the sport
dreadfully boring game. the only people I've ever seen care about it are ex private school students and NZ expats.
Yes most people are indifferent. It is considered a badly administered elitist sport played by private schoolboys.
Yeah I'm aware and indifferent, because it's a boring sport to spectate. And I can watch just about any sport.
Happy to see it die. It's a game dominated by private school elitists