Flowers Hits Back At Wa Cash Claims

Sun Herald

Sunday January 15, 2006

By JAMES MacSMITH

ARU boss Gary Flowers says his organisation is dedicated to making rugby union a national game and to spreading the code in the west, despite assertions to the contrary.

Last week, Western Force chief executive Peter O'Meara said the ARU had done little to help Australia's newest team and questioned whether it was serious about expanding the code. Flowers denied this assertion.

"I don't want to get in a slanging match with Peter O'Meara in the media," Flowers said. "Obviously we're delighted with the success of the new side. It has exceeded expectations tenfold, and it is critical how that team performs for the growth of the game.

"The Force is one of the great success stories and we have put a lot of time, money and effort into that."

O'Meara said the way in which the Force had been greeted by fans in the west - they have more than 20,000 members - was a huge boost for rugby but the ARU should be doing more to help promote the game. He claimed that the ARU's cutting back of its annual grant to RugbyWA from $300,000 to $200,000 was evidence of that, and that the AFL did far more to get established in areas outside its traditional heartlands.

But Flowers hit back by saying the ARU had invested around $5 million in helping the Western Force get up and running.

"When we awarded the bid to WA, we were clear about the amount of support for the game over there," Flowers said.

"We are putting resources into the new team but we don't have a bottomless pit of money. We wish that was the case but it isn't. We are contributing to the new team and the new start around $4.5m to $5m. In an ideal world there could be more resources applied but we don't have them.

"I have had a number of discussions with Peter O'Meara and they are always open and honest. We want to have a very open decision- making relationship between the ARU and RugbyWA.

"There has been extensive interest in rugby at the provincial and international level in WA. That is only going to get bigger and better before the Force's first game against the Brumbies on February 10."