Melbourne rebels got reamed hard by the crusaders tonight 55-10 in Melbourne

What’s happening over there? Aussie haven’t had a decent rugby team in a decade! Need to bring Gregan out of retirement!

Rugby has little following in Australia compared to other codes, probably one of the main reasons why we don't do so well in it and why many of us don't really care!

I think you'll find Netball is bigger than Rugby too. Each to their own though, and I must admit that Rubgy 7's isn't all that bad to watch.

When I played rugby league at school, our school fielded "55" that is fifty five teams against another school on the same day our rep teams were playing them. Got a 1/2 day holiday when "ALL" 55 teams beat their opponents, and that the rep teams were all successful helped. In the 90's coached baseball at a local club had 15 teams, now can only manage 8. the participation dynamic in sport has changed and is only getting worse. Just too many things to choose from for kids. It used to be how successful the national teams were and how strong the national competitions were that drew participation. Now its just a form of entertainment vying for viewers. I saw huge injuries to kids whose parents were rung and told to come and take their kid to hospital and wear the costs and inconvenience. Why would you encourage your kids to participate in a contact sport, that's why it is declining. My Saturday morning team was 3/4 full of eventual Souths and Easts players and most regret the injuries they are carrying in their 60's. I was at the Lewisham Institute for sports medicine in the late 80's for a sports related injury treatment. Sat next to Johnny Raper for 6 weeks of physio. What a bent broken old man he was, a very high price to pay even for one of the best. We can't all play marbles but there are smart choices.

I don't think the comparison was about the game itself. I do believe however that there are far more netball players in Aust. than there are Rugby Union players.

Dr Terry

Edited by user Sunday, 6 May 2018 9:55:26 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

You can’t put rugby league in the same class as AFL or Soccer I am afraid, when it comes to participation numbers.
623000 soccer players in 2016, up 46% from 2001. AFL 253000, a 1% decrease from 2001. Netball, 315000, a 24% drop from 2001.
League, 127000, a 27% drop from 175000 in 2001. Poor old Rugby, 55000, a massive drop of 63% from 148000 in 2001.
To say that either League or Union we’re heading in the right direction, or even started in a strong position in 2001, is stretching the facts.
Clearly League and Union were more or less level pegging in 2001.
Participation levels are more important than viewers on TV. After all, with falling participation levels, it doesn’t take long till there are no longer enough players in the future to select decent professional teams. This is fairly clearly displayed in Rugby these days.
One fact that seems to escape the league supporters though, a heck of a lot of players started in Rugby and were poached. That’s both big names and run of the mill players. This doesn’t really help Union.

True, I was talking mainly about audience in my original post but participation is extremely important too.

Netball is on the rise with regards to professionalism and TV audience even if the participation is down a bit, but that professionalism is a balancing act in this sport and I imagine it would be similar in other sports that are played more across the world than sports like League and AFL. In the elite level Australian Netball competition there are a lot of import players that purists whinge take away spots from local players, but without those imports the quality of the sport would be nowhere as high and training with those elite players does help the younger ones improve out of sight. You see the opposite in NZ where the number of elite players is too low that their National team struggles, and they have had to import elite players into their National side to compete. Plus they have recently made the stupid decision that their elite players are not eligible for National selection if they play overseas, and look what happened at the Commonwealth Games - they didn't even medal. Whereas the English team, virtually the whole team plays in the best completion (in Australia) and they won the Gold Medal match, they have never even made that match before in Commonwealth Games and only once in World Championship history.

Vice versa sometimes for League to Rugby as well (Israel Folau and Sonny Bill Williams for example) but you are right, a lot of quality league players started in Rugby, some really good ones like Ricky Stuart and Andrew Leeds just to name two.

The eligibility rule is similar in Rugby Union in Australia. It’s a stupid rule that tries to stop players chasing big coin overseas.
New Zealand does something right in Rugby though. Consistently a powerhouse on the world rugby stage. That is a big stage too.
Australian sport needs to be very careful chasing TV deals at the expense of grassroots support. We can see this clearly in League and Union. League is particularly bad, as they don’t seem to care that no one is signing their kids up, but more worryingly, that no one even goes to watch their best players live!
Imagine reaching the top level and playing in front of crowds smaller than when you were in under 6’s.

The family dynamic has changed, people used to get married when they had kids and that helped people stay together but now there’s solo mums pumping out kids to multiple fathers and often the father is unknown then there’s gays bringing up kids with different values again
Kids need the input from a father, this is basically where the desire to playcontact sport comes from

In my opinion that’s why this latest generation are a bunch of easily offended whining little shits because the parenting bias is heavily towards women now

Good point wbute, afl has for many years made out that if your not 6ft plus your to short. need to run 100m under certain time and if you can actually have footy skills it might help. their after athletes not footy players. the game is now more like soccer with the bullshit that goes on. when I played if you went further down the field than the next position you were in trouble and if you dared kicking backwards you were dragged. Bring back real footy!