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Thursday 31 January 2008

Battle of the Codes: Union takes a hit or two.

Can O'Neill save Rugby?
When I see Union Chief John O'Neill. revealing the astonishing decline of Union I took it, of course, as another win for football....in the short-term.

The battle of the codes in Australia, has always intrigued me, and for the moment football is in the ascendancy, while Rugby Union seems to have taken a king hit...or two!

And is now by any measure the fourth code, but in John O'Neill, Union has a fair chance of recovery....but with a new player, football in the game, it may be too late even for the mercurial O'Neill.


Clearly as football boomed post-World Cup, participation rates, A-League viewer and attendance figures are all up, the other codes would have been worried.

Football's rise is in direct contrast to Union's decline it would seem. But in the extraordinarily talented businessman John O'Neill, Union may have it's last hurrah before the code is set back permanently.
Our TV ratings are falling, while broadcasting revenue has declined substantially.



When the fans start booing at half-time in a Test match it is worrying. And it was certainly happening during Super 14 games as well
.


it was hard to find any of the ARU's key performance indicators over the last four years that was heading in the right direction.



"Participation.... went down by 1.8 per cent...it is declining."


And let me state, I have no problem with other codes growing or succeeding,(as they say some of my best friends are Brumbies, St Kilda or Raiders fans), but of course in the old days football, or soccer, wasn't always given the Aussie "fair go" was it? And, of course, you don't write a football blog hoping for your code to come in last, do you?

So now the playing field has become a little fairer it's always interesting to see how the four codes react to the changes that are occurring particularly now that football or Tim Cahill has nicked the Wallabies and George Gregan's Weetbix deal:)

And of course, in Union, our beloved John O'Neill, having now recovered from his operation (welcome back John) has started to stir.

Firstly state how the game is in such poor shape. The only way is up. Then O'Neill a master of the media (how football misses him) will slowly but surely produce little gems for the Rugby fans to renew their hope.

The Rugby season is too short. Football has filled the airwaves in between the short (thirteen) game Union Super 14 season. O'Neill knows his code/clubs lose any momentum from year to year to other codes like AFL or League which have a longer club season, and a National competition Grand Final, and can fill the airwaves any day of any year.


What can Union offer. Thirteen games for the passionate Waratahs fan, only maybe six or even five at home! And let's face it, the Wallabies Internationals are dull and repetitive. Tri-nations, Bledisloe or a second team from Europe to play a friendly, sorry test, which has nothing at stake bar a little national pride. Year after year, same old same old.

And if the All Blacks fans didn't turn up, how many Australians would really be in attendance? A sell-out? Hmmmn don't think so.

O'Neill will have many strategies. Bring in a Pacific team to the Super 14, but this risks losing future Wallabies and All Black players.

The ARU chief suggested the Super competition could be expanded to one and a
half or even two full rounds.


But players will complain, clubs will complain, and as injuries mount up The Wallabies will inevitably suffer. The travel for club sides to NZ and South Africa is already a constant complaint. And don't expect South Africa or NZ to agree to this overnight.

Reinvent the Test matches with Argentina coming in, or even Japan. But most Argentinians play in Europe so this is not really feasible.

And of course don't be surprised to see the Wallabies heading off to England earlier in their careers, like the football players, as player wages in England start to entice them.

Aussie Rules has massive amounts of revenue from TV and the least associated costs. No international teams, or international camps to prepare for. So AFL can pour millions into the Union heartlands to further grow its game. And it has. Can anyone see AFL getting smaller in Sydney, Union's heartland, over the next ten years?

And League can nibble away at Union, it's players, and it's sponsors. It offers a game to TV viewers, and there are millions, on Free To Air and in key economic markets. Union offers sponsors, very wealthy fans I'm told, and the rather boutique Foxtel viewer. But even these viewers, according to O'Neill, are disappearing!

Keeping young players in the game is perhaps the long term key.

O'Neill will reinvigorate the code don't worry about that. But keeping young players in the game is perhaps the long term key.

When AFL and Football are making such huge inroads to player participation in the Private Schools Rugby traditional heartland (1), O'Neill and Rugby clearly has a long-term problem.

Of course Union can steal the odd League player but long-term you can jazz up the Super 14 or Internationals but if you don't have enough young players your teams aren't going to succeed.

And all codes/teams need to succeed to attract the fans. That is the one thing common across all codes.

Good luck John O'Neill, this time, I think you're going to need it.

(1)note: There are now more football teams at Kings School Sydney than there are Rugby teams

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