Australian Rugby struggling . . . ?

[Discreet Hooker]

Quickly read an article today in the Times (28.3 ) which suggested that Rugby Union was really struggling in terms of players available , some clubs actually closing down and poor attendances . We know that Union is always up agin League & Aussie Rules and I'm pretty sure that Televised Union is on PPV which of course some people won't bother with .

Not sure how much truth in the article or whether its total exaggeration .

Just wondered if any Aussie fans had any thoughts on this downbeat news .

[rowan]

Not according to World Rugby stats, which say Australia has more players than NZ. We know it's always been low profile, and confined largely to the east Coast, but as long as the private schools (they would be called public in Britain) aren't removing rugby from the curriculum they'll have a steady supply of talent coming through. That's never been the issue in Australia. & how quickly we've all forgotten who came second in the last World Cup - second to a truly great All Blacks team, that is . . .

[zer0]

If you're talking about the Ray-Morgan stats where rugby is supposedly has the similar participant numbers to ballroom dancing, then the numbers are very dodgy.

Where Queensland boasted around 21,000 female participants across all formats in 2015, this number is set to jump to more than 33,000 in 2016, my source told me. That number would include all club players, all Sevens and modified format players. And it’s worth remembering that half of the Australian Pearls, the Rio Olympic gold medallists, came from Queensland.

It’s not unreasonable to think that number will increase again in 2017.

But if the Roy Morgan Research is to be believed, as BIA would like you to, apparently there are only 18,000 other rugby players Australia-wide. That is, all males in Queensland, and all players in total in NSW, the ACT, Victoria, and Western Australia. And everywhere else in between. Eighteen thousand.

Now, even just some rudimentary maths tells me there is no way 55,000 can be right.

Premier Grade rugby in Sydney comprises four senior grades and three colts competitions, played by twelve clubs. That’s upwards of 2,000 players. The Sydney sub-district competition speaks of more than 50 clubs and somewhere near 6,000 players, with claims on being the biggest rugby competition in the world.

Brisbane’s Premier Grade competition requires more than 1200 players across nine clubs fielding four senior and two colts grades. ‘Subbies’ lifts that number again.

In the ACT, there’s upwards of 500 players across seven clubs, and two senior grades plus colts. Two further lower grades effectively act as ‘Subbies’, and include smaller clubs. In Melbourne, the number is more than a thousand, with nine clubs and five grades, and it’s more than 1100 in Perth, with ten clubs playing four senior grades plus colts.

That’s the best part of 12,000 of the remaining 18,000 players just there. And I haven’t counted juniors, women’s Sevens or XVs competitions outside Queensland, or any rugby played anywhere outside the five Super Rugby cities.

The ARU’s figures for 2016 are due in the next few weeks, but they reported a total of 267,463 regular participants in 2015, with more than 700,000 Australians having “rugby experiences” last year.

http://www.theroar.com.au/2017/03/28/ro ... fake-news/