WE NEED TO KEEP OURSELVES GROUNDED

I read a really nice and impassioned article tonight by Cameron Treloar, a former Tah and the only ARC winning captain (since we only had one season of the ARC .. given up on that debate!).

He's now playing in Italy and his thesis is that, while Rugby is probably only the 6th favourite sport in Italy, behind soccer, motor racing etc, and while they get tiny crowds, they can still put an Australian Rugby crowd to shame in terms of their passion. It was a good article, and if
you want to find it, you'll need to go looking for it, (but Twitter would be a good place to start - [editor please note: Twitter: http://bit.ly/hGrQrK)

He made a very good point that they don't have lots of security guards stopping kids from running onto the field at the end of the game, that players are encouraged to really interact with the crowd and drink in pubs after the game. Are we really that professional in Australia that we need to eschew all of that?

What are our points of difference from League, AFL, soccer etc?

I wonder whether we need to be selling ourselves as a professional game to the extent that we alienate the fan base. Should we persist with the notion that Rugby is entertainment, or is is truly a sport that all of its supporters can buy into?

His opening statement was: ....The very culture of how we support our teams, be it the Wallabies or a super 15 side, is sadly defined by one man… the guy in the tight black t-shirt with the clip board running the door at Cargo bar......"

He goes on to say: ........" The Australian Rugby public has only themselves to blame for this travesty. Australians go to the Rugby now to be entertained, as if it were a concert or a movie. If the entertainment doesn’t live up to expectations, the critics pan it and the crowds stay Away. We have it backward in Australia. We have come to rely on the something miraculous, something Quade Cooperish to spark us up....."

I don't think that you can argue with that logic.

Personally, these days , I prefer to stay at home and watch games on TV, because I know that there is not going to be much "after match" atmosphere at 10 pm when most people know that they have a bit of a drive ahead of them, can't really have too much to drink, and they are not likely to run into any of the players, anyway, who have had a long shower and meal in the shed and jumped on the bus back to the team hotel, either to go out on the town or get some well earned sleep. I'm too old for the Cargo Bar and there is no bloody way that i am going to stand in a queue, just to have a few beers after the footy, and pay through the nose for them!

The essence of going to the Rugby (at least to me) is getting back to the clubhouse, the boatraces, the tall tales, the catching up with mates - no way that's going to happen at the top level in the professional era.

I'm old enough to remember Test nights in Sydney and Brisbane at certain hotels (thanks, Buddha!) where most of the crowd and the players went back for a very late night/ early morning session. That was when you enjoyed being one of the fraternity. I suspect that, to do it these
days you have to get invited to the formal sessions that are run by the marketing guys or the sponsors. Most of us won't get to do that and we just have to "get on the bus and go home" after the game.

This is a bit of a rant but the theme is, I believe, reasonable .. and that is let's keep our feet on the ground and not get too far away from our roots.. what makes our game the wonderful creature that it is.

....and how are we going to encourage Aussie supporters to be more vocal, to out-sing the Welsh or the Poms, or anyone else, for that matter?