Vic Rugby Hasn't Given Up All Hope

Sun Herald

Sunday December 12, 2004

By JAMES MacSMITH

THE Victorian Rugby Union has joined the campaign for a national club competition in a bid to keep the game relevant in the state after its bid for the fourth Australian franchise in the new Super 14 competition was rejected.

A national competition has been floated as one way Victoria, and more specifically Melbourne, can maintain an interest in high-level rugby.

Victorian Rugby Union general manager Ron Steiner has requested a meeting with ARU officials before Christmas in a bid to formulate a strategy to maintain the 15-a-side code's relevance in the AFL heartland.

The issue of a national club competition will be on the agenda and the regeneration of the idea, which has been bubbling along for several years, has been given a boost after it received the backing of the new Perth Super 14 side.

"A national club competition would represent a positive opportunity," Steiner said.

"We're in the same position as we were last week: we don't have a Super 14 side.

"But it doesn't mean rugby will lose the gains it has made in Victoria. We haven't gone backwards.

"We're disappointed with the outcome but we have to maintain the momentum we have in the coming years. And it's really important that we get together with the ARU and work out how we are going to do it and the goals we want to achieve.

"We need to do it as soon as possible and I would hope that it happens before the Christmas stockings are hung up. A team in the national competition would be a way of taking the game forward down here."

A Melbourne team would give local players a representative level to aim at but could struggle to lure new fans to the sport as the new Super 14 franchise would undoubtedly have done. "It would be a really good thing," Steiner said.

"It would provide players with the pathway that is lacking but I'm not sure how it would go with spectator numbers."

One of the great unanswered questions for the West Australian team is what its non-Wallabies players will do when the Super 14 competition concludes in June.

Most players will probably move to the west and the long flight would make it impossible for them to play in the Brisbane or Sydney club competitions. The Perth club competition is not of the standard of that in Brisbane or Sydney, which would present officials with a problem over player development outside the Super 14.

Rugby WA chief executive Rick Smith said Perth's involvement in a future national club competition was something that would strengthen the Super 14 side.

"It is something we would like to be involved with," he said.

"It would strengthen the game over here and would provide another stepping stone to the Super 14 side."

A national club competition was an ongoing issue, an ARU spokesman said yesterday.

RWA has been inundated with interest from fans since the announcement on Friday. Its membership base jumped from the 5000 submitted in documents to the ARU to 6500 by midday yesterday.

After original estimates of 4000 members, Smith said the franchise was expecting to have 10,000 paid-up members when the 2006 season kicks off at Subiaco Oval. They are hoping for an average crowd for the seven home games of about 25,000, with the bigger games attracting 32,000-35,000 fans.

Perth officials plan to have their playing list and coaching staff finalised by late February or early March. Players are expected to move to Perth in October next year.

While Perth officials were bunkered down yesterday formulating a game plan, Steiner was enjoying a game of backyard cricket with his children, planning his next move.