Gould debunks nrl claim of Jnr problems in western sydney

[TheFrog]

One thing the Americans know is how to take something British boring and make it way more interesting.

They should apply some big bash strategies to American football.

 

[adamkungl]

As for improvements to junior league

-Weight for age, but only in the lowest division.
As someone said above, div 1 is fine.
Where only 1 division exists in an age group, then weight restriction measures should be considered.

-Keep kids/teens involved year round with summer 9s/touch/tag options. Build skills, keep the enthusiasm and fitness up.

-Lower rego costs - already lower than soccer but some of the NRLs trillions and pokie money actually paying for kids to play the game can't hurt participation.

-Schools schools schools. Get players and development officers in schools promoting Auskick-style programs. Lobby and assist in running inter-school RL competitions. 2 of the 3 western sydney schools i went to as a kid did not play RL.

They pass down rules and strategies that seem to deny the fact that junior footy is run by volunteers, far too many restrictions and costs passed on to people who run the clubs Little or no understanding of the difficulties in getting volunteers, and then asking them to pay to pass tests and regulations prior to being allowed to help as a volunteer and give up their weekend

If anyone has had the misfortune to be present when they send out a messenger to address junior clubs, that will astound you how out of touch they are with what it takes to put teams on the field. It was embarrassing to listen to their address, no idea at all

This is not surprising at all and is relevant to Gould's points. No one in the new NRL knows anything about Rugby League as far as anyone can see.
But yay they're running it "as a business"

 

[T-Boon]

I just look up who the best Touch Footballer is in Australia. Its this guy called Dylan Hennessy. Look him up on Youtube, he is awesome but he says his body didn't develop enough to play top level league. He is described as the best right to left passer in any Rugby code in the world.

How good would a mixed Touch Footy match be between the best NRL touch footy players (Benji Marshall, Shaun Johnson, Bevan French etc get an old legend like Billy Slater in as well) and the best womens league players (Brianna Sims etc) on one team and the Australian mixed touch footy team (Dylan Hennessy etc) on the other.

Get more exposure to the link between Touch Footy and League. Get more women in. Get more kids in.

 

[Front-Rower]

Lower rego costs - already lower than soccer but some of the NRLs trillions and pokie money actually paying for kids to play the game can't hurt participation.

Come on dude, you know that money belongs to the self interested superstars who play first grade. Because if it wasn't for them no one would play the game /sarcasm

 

[adamkungl]

Come on dude, you know that money belongs to the self interested superstars who play first grade. Because if it wasn't for them no one would play the game /sarcasm

I lean towards Gould's opinion that the NRL pisses it away on silly projects and studies about reviews about strategies

 

[mistertaylor]

Come on dude, you know that money belongs to the self interested superstars who play first grade. Because if it wasn't for them no one would play the game /sarcasm

It's the player agents driving player wages up.

 

[Front-Rower]

It's the player agents driving player wages up.

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/05/06/rlpa-demand-more-money-2018-nrl-cap

 

[AlwaysGreen]

f**k up t boon

 

[T-Boon]

I lean towards Gould's opinion that the NRL pisses it away on silly projects and studies about reviews about strategies

The less money the NRL spends on things like promotion, grass roots, digital, research the more it gets to give to NRL Clubs who then get to spend it on things like general managers and their great ideas like 5/6 year plans and $25m gymnasiums.

 

[Perth Red]

There is some significant Govt money up for grabs for school touch footy, why the NRL hasn't grabbed a load of it and touch isn't in every school across the country is a mystery to me. I am not sure what the Touch/NRL link up is besides a badge change but in touch footy we have the perfect medium to get every boy and girl in Australia playing a form of league. I wonder how hard the connection between touch and NRL is rammed home and if kids/schools taking up touch get anything that links them to the NRL?


http://websites.sportstg.com/assoc_...D=380596&&news_task=DETAIL&articleID=44401860

 

[adamkungl]

There is some significant Govt money up for grabs for school touch footy, why the NRL hasn't grabbed a load of it and touch isn't in every school across the country is a mystery to me. I am not sure what the Touch/NRL link up is besides a badge change but in touch footy we have the perfect medium to get every boy and girl in Australia playing a form of league. I wonder how hard the connection between touch and NRL is rammed home and if kids/schools taking up touch get anything that links them to the NRL?

This doesn't help the decline in real RL players in certain regions though - it's already been established that an increase in touch and female RL players is helping to mask a decline in male RL players.

 

[Perth Red]

The less money the NRL spends on things like promotion, grass roots, digital, research the more it gets to give to NRL Clubs who then get to spend it on things like general managers and their great ideas like 5/6 year plans and $25m gymnasiums.

Don't forget bunkers, where would the game be without 64 TV replay screens and General Patton?

 

[Perth Red]

This doesn't help the decline in real RL players in certain regions though - it's already been established that an increase in touch and female RL players is helping to mask a decline in male RL players.

Possibly but the law of stats say if 1million kids play touch footy at school and are linked into the glamour of the NRL some of them will go on to play full contact and some of them will stick it out to snrs. Otherwise what will reverse it? We know people are more sedentary have much greater leisure time options and are becoming increasingly aware of the dangers of playing high contact sport. Giving local clubs more money doesn't seem like it will address any of these key issues, maybe only solution is to start at the bottom with more kids playing?

 

[adamkungl]

Possibly but the law of stats say if 1million kids play touch footy at school and are linked into the glamour of the NRL some of them will go on to play full contact and some of them will stick it out to snrs. Otherwise what will reverse it? We know people are more sedentary have much greater leisure time options and are becoming increasingly aware of the dangers of playing high contact sport. Giving local clubs more money doesn't seem like it will address any of these key issues, maybe only solution is to start at the bottom with more kids playing?

I think the best on-field change that can be made is a wider spread of divisions that caters to different talent levels (which can take into account size).

If you've got 30 teams in your age/region,
perhaps it's better to have 5 divisions of 6 teams than 3 divisions of 10 teams.

 

[Perth Red]

Again Id like to know if the NRL has done research into the drop in Snr players and its possible causes. this is the first year the NRL has come out and send there has been a drop in snr regos, is it a blip, is it that not enough U18's moved up, is it that more Snr rego players have left the game last year than ever before? What is the actual evidence telling us? In WA snr numbers were down last year for first time in years but that would have been down to number of East coasters who left Perth after the mining boom was over. I'd suggest the reasons might be multi factorial and probably too complicated for the numb skulls at NRLHQ to get their heads around!
Them coming out last year and saying we needed to throw $100mill at the problem doesn't fill me with much confidence they have really worked this through and will once again try to throw money at the symptom rather than look at the real problems.

 

[T-Boon]

If you had a mixed touch footy comp with the best ball players from the NRL (Cam Smith, Thurston, Marshall, Hayne, Slater etc, the women stars from the ANZAC test, the best mens and womens touch footy players in the country (Dylan Hennessy etc) plus NZ it would whip the womens AFL comp into submission.

In the inaugural game on Fox/ten I would stage an exchange where Rhiana Sims puts and illegal shoulder charge on say Benji Marshall or some jerk like Mick Ennis who goes heads up and gets up dusty and needs to be taken off to recover. That would go viral on the Tube.

 

[unforgiven]

If you had a mixed touch footy comp with the best ball players from the NRL (Cam Smith, Thurston, Marshall, Hayne, Slater etc, the women stars from the ANZAC test, the best mens and womens touch footy players in the country (Dylan Hennessy etc) plus NZ it would whip the womens AFL comp into submission.

In the inaugural game on Fox/ten I would stage an exchange where Rhiana Sims puts and illegal shoulder charge on say Benji Marshall or some jerk like Mick Ennis who goes heads up and gets up dusty and needs to be taken off to recover. That would go viral on the Tube.

I do like the idea of a touch footy vs NRL game but I play touch so it probably interests me more than most people. You would have to be very careful who you pick in the NRL team because if you choose players with little experience playing touch, the touch team will run rings around them. In saying that, personally I would find that a lot more entertaining than the 9's, but I'm probably in the minority.

 

[unforgiven]

As for improvements to junior league

-Weight for age, but only in the lowest division.
As someone said above, div 1 is fine.
Where only 1 division exists in an age group, then weight restriction measures should be considered.

-Keep kids/teens involved year round with summer 9s/touch/tag options. Build skills, keep the enthusiasm and fitness up.

-Lower rego costs - already lower than soccer but some of the NRLs trillions and pokie money actually paying for kids to play the game can't hurt participation.

-Schools schools schools. Get players and development officers in schools promoting Auskick-style programs. Lobby and assist in running inter-school RL competitions. 2 of the 3 western sydney schools i went to as a kid did not play RL.



This is not surprising at all and is relevant to Gould's points. No one in the new NRL knows anything about Rugby League as far as anyone can see.
But yay they're running it "as a business"

I agree about schools being important part to this. I teach in Western Sydney and the ARLC is doing a decent job getting schools involved. This year we have already had a visit from the Panthers, development officers come out and run the backyard league program, they provide the referees for our weekly PSSA competition (this is massive in getting schools involved as it has led to a rise in female coaches as they now don't have to worry about coaching and refereeing at the same time as we have had to in the past), today we were presented with our new jerseys for the year provided by one of the local clubs. All other sports we field teams in have not had one of these things provided. The NRL/ARLC can take credit for most of those.

We will go out and get beaten most weeks but it is about introducing new players to the game at our school, our experienced players take pride in supporting and introducing new kids to the game they love.

 

[Perth Red]

I agree about schools being important part to this. I teach in Western Sydney and the ARLC is doing a decent job getting schools involved. This year we have already had a visit from the Panthers, development officers come out and run the backyard league program, they provide the referees for our weekly PSSA competition (this is massive in getting schools involved as it has led to a rise in female coaches as they now don't have to worry about coaching and refereeing as we have had to in the past), today we were presented with our new jerseys for the year provided by one of the local clubs. All other sports we field teams in have not had one of these things provided. The NRL/ARLC can take credit for most of those.

We will go out and get beaten most weeks but it is about introducing new players to the game at our school, our experienced players take pride in supporting and introducing new kids to the game they love.

Great to hear, is this an nrl initiative or leagues club initiative?

 

[unforgiven]

Great to hear, is this an nrl initiative or leagues club initiative?

Everything apart from the Jerseys has come from the ARLC development officers/ Penrith Panthers, the jerseys came from the St Mary's Junior League which is funded from the St Mary's Leagues Club