Is union really that strong worldwide?

[zulu]

A couple of interesting quotes by a fella called grayham taken from another thread.

The only way the All Blacks would slip off the radar is if RU took off globally leaving small nations like NZ behind. After this WC that possibility looks extremely remote.

New Zealand is a small country of nearly 4 million, yet it has the third highest number of registered rugby players in the world behind Japan and Australia. In fact it is only 10,000 players behind Aus - a country of 20 million.

This does not say much for playing numbers worldwide and probably explains the All Blacks dominance of the game for such a long time. Australia has it's highest number of union players in it's history (which isn't much at 140,000) and is now competitive with the All Blacks. If Australia could break through the private school barrier and double their playing numbers, the All Blacks would never win another Bledisloe.

Therefore the All Black's success isn't that phenomenal when the real facts are looked at. They are the only true rugby-crazed country of a decent size in the world. God help them if a country such as Australia had AFL or league-type playing numbers.

Worldwide rugby playing numbers were in the SMH today.

To finish another interesting comment by grayham.

The only reason RU is competitive between the two countries is that "Australia" is really "NSW/QLD private schools united")

Any comments ?

 

[bazza]

I go these figures for total player numbers from the IRB web site (this includes men, women and children)

England: 634460
South Africa: 361302
France: 252638
Australia: 140000 (nice round number)
Japan: 129626
NZ: 121928
Wales: 59900
Irelan: 53500

Didn't look at many others but it would appear that NZ would have the 6th highest playing numbers.

Perhaps there is some sort of critical mass after 100,000 players that enables more competition (with Japan the obvious exeption)

But ignoring the numbers, I would say competition for places in the NZ side is much higher than competition for places in the Australian side and the domestic competition in NZ is larger than any domestic competition in Australia

Perhaps the Australian figures are full of social rugby playes and retired league players

Also - I would say that in NZ RU would be the number 1 sport of choice in that country. So if you were good at both RU and league you would most likely choose to go pro in union. Similarly, there would be more opportunities to to play RU in NZ than RL.

In Australia, if you live in NSW or Qld and are good at RU and RL - you would most likely go pro in RL. If you lived elsewhere in Australia and you were good at one of the rugby codes and AFL then you would most likely pursue playing AFL

 

[Te Kaha]

Quality will always win over quantity when you only have to put 13 or 15 on a field.

If your theory holds true, given that the NZRl has barely 30K registered players in all grades, then NZ should always be beaten by GB and Aus.

This of course is not the case as they are trained and taught well.

 

[Rustay]

I wouldn't say the All Blacks have dominated either. They are the most consistent side, that never really seems to go through long bad spells, they are always very good, but how can you say they have dominated when they have one of four world cups? Yes i know that is only recent times and is only used as a example.

I agree with Te Kaha, quality over quantity.

 

[Te Kaha]

I wouldn't say the All Blacks have dominated either. They are the most consistent side, that never really seems to go through long bad spells, they are always very good, but how can you say they have dominated when they have one of four world cups? Yes i know that is only recent times and is only used as a example.

I agree with Te Kaha, quality over quantity.

Not dominated????????? You might want to check out the various wininng percentages of international teams.

 

[grayham]

I'm famous!.

But seriously, NZ is 'usually' the best RU country despite not having the raw numbers of some others simply because its the only country where RU is the No.1 sport. In Australia RL and AFL are the No.1's therefore take the cream atheletes instead of RU. Soccer is the same in the other countries.

As an aside, RU is not very global as this world cup has shown. Australian rules, a code which never claims globility in any sence of the word, would have around 7 countries with more clubs/players than WC invites Georgia, Namibia and Romania have of rugby clubs/players.

 

[Te Kaha]

As an aside, RU is not very global as this world cup has shown. Australian rules, a code which never claims globility in any sence of the word, would have around 7 countries with more clubs/players than WC invites Georgia, Namibia and Romania have of rugby clubs/players.

As I know this is a blatent lie I wonder if you can provide any proof of this statement.

 

[grayham]

As I know this is a blatent lie I wonder if you can provide any proof of this statement.

No Lie. All the relevant stats were posted on bigfooty a few days go.
Check them out.

Got any proof that its incorrect. ?

 

[Auckland4ever]

I wouldn't say the All Blacks have dominated either. They are the most consistent side, that never really seems to go through long bad spells, they are always very good, but how can you say they have dominated when they have one of four world cups? Yes i know that is only recent times and is only used as a example.

I agree with Te Kaha, quality over quantity.

Not dominated????????? You might want to check out the various wininng percentages of international teams.

Youre right, but I think over recent years we have had problems winning the games that really count, which is probably what Rustay was really getting at. There have been some lean periods over AB history, especially against SA in SA(not that their refs were biased or anything :roll: )

The reason NZ has had the success it has isnt just down to player numbers, which are nothing compared to England, SA & France anyway, its also down to the ability of a lot of astute people over a long stretch of time in areas of admin & coaching to innovate & take the game to new levels. Many of the great players of the past fall into this category as well. Smarts as well as skills.

If you take any sport on numbers alone, Australia would not dominate anything other than Aussie Rules, which no other country gives a damn about anyway. Australia does so well because of people with the same traits as I mentioned above who are able to work within well funded, well run systems.

As far as Union being strong goes, it depends on what you call strong? It has a strong foothold in a number of nations, but is still very much a minority sport worldwide. It can get stronger, but that will rely on the IRB spending some of the hundreds of millions of dollars theyre sitting on & spending wisely. I'm not going to hold my breath.

 

[Auckland4ever]

As I know this is a blatent lie I wonder if you can provide any proof of this statement.

No Lie. All the relevant stats were posted on bigfooty a few days go.
Check them out.

Got any proof that its incorrect. ?

Thats the beauty of stats. Thats why so many are trotted out so often.

 

[russ13]

Be very wary of any of these stats that RU produces. In Queensland in the last 2 years they (RU) say they have had an extra 10000 player increase in the last two years. If you have a look at how they arrive at those numbers you will see a category called schools.

What is apparent that they are including the total school enrollment if RU is played at the school-happens all over the RU world this type of bogus accounting.

In the last two years playing numbers in NZ, SA & England have been falling-the only increase is the bullship they portray in the bogus numbers.

See here:
http://www.grcnet.20m.com/custom2.html

 

[AuckMel]

I found these stats which have the numbers playing Union , and the % of the population.

They make interesting reading.

COUNTRY POPULATION REG.PLAYERS % IRB RANKING
Tonga 108,749 15,000 13.79% 15
Samoa 185,400 14,263 7.69% 9
Fiji 879,296 60,000 6.82% 11
New Zealand 3,895,798 121,928 3.13% 2
Wales 2,918,700 59,900 2.05% 8
Ireland 3,867,242 53,500 1.38% 4
England 49,536,600 634,460 1.28% 1
SouthAfrica 43,191,348 361,302 0.84% 6
Australia 19,545,279 140,000 0.72% 3
Namibia 1,952,814 11,500 0.59% 25
France 60,167,522 252,638 0.42% 5
Scotland 5,054,800 13,721 0.27% 10
Argentina 38,738,083 57,000 0.15% 7
Japan 127,538,014 129,626 0.10% 18
Uruguay 3,422,206 2,692 0.08% 19
Italy 57,528,119 39,856 0.07% 12
Canada 31,691,754 16,500 0.05% 16
Georgia 4,953,594 1,410 0.03% 17
Romania 22,377,750 4,500 0.02% 13
USA 287,007,588 37,429 0.01% 14

 

[zulu]

As an aside, RU is not very global as this world cup has shown. Australian rules, a code which never claims globility in any sence of the word, would have around 7 countries with more clubs/players than WC invites Georgia, Namibia and Romania have of rugby clubs/players.

As I know this is a blatent lie I wonder if you can provide any proof of this statement.

Uruguay only have 2,000 registered players and Namibia 600. It wouldn't take much to top those numbers.

How ordinary must all those other countries that missed out on the world cup be?

Zimbabwe 10 registered players? :lol:

 

[zulu]

I found these stats which have the numbers playing Union , and the % of the population.

They make interesting reading.

COUNTRY POPULATION REG.PLAYERS % IRB RANKING
Tonga 108,749 15,000 13.79% 15
Samoa 185,400 14,263 7.69% 9
Fiji 879,296 60,000 6.82% 11
New Zealand 3,895,798 121,928 3.13% 2
Wales 2,918,700 59,900 2.05% 8
Ireland 3,867,242 53,500 1.38% 4
England 49,536,600 634,460 1.28% 1
SouthAfrica 43,191,348 361,302 0.84% 6
Australia 19,545,279 140,000 0.72% 3
Namibia 1,952,814 11,500 0.59% 25
France 60,167,522 252,638 0.42% 5
Scotland 5,054,800 13,721 0.27% 10
Argentina 38,738,083 57,000 0.15% 7
Japan 127,538,014 129,626 0.10% 18
Uruguay 3,422,206 2,692 0.08% 19
Italy 57,528,119 39,856 0.07% 12
Canada 31,691,754 16,500 0.05% 16
Georgia 4,953,594 1,410 0.03% 17
Romania 22,377,750 4,500 0.02% 13
USA 287,007,588 37,429 0.01% 14

Total rubbish, even union writers don't use these inflated figures.

Do these figures include women, unborn childern and pets?

 

[AuckMel]

Do these figures include women, unborn childern and pets?

All registered players. Male, female and kids.

Population numbers are easy to find, while the playing numbers are from the IRB.

 

[dimitri]

and we can always trust the irb


:roll: :roll: :roll:

 

[dimitri]

the same t\\body that tells us the RUWC is the worlds 3rd biggest sporting event

the winter olympics, commonwealth games, paralympics, cricket world cup etc




:roll: :roll: :roll:

 

[AuckMel]

I'm not sure what you guys are getting all defensive about.

Apart from the Island countries, and to a lesser extent New Zealand, these figures paint a less than flattering picture of playing numbers and the games overall strength around the world.

And from what I've read lately, these numbers are dropping.