Ecosystem Overview

Super Rugby has been disbanded and split across two formats that represent the professional product that Australian rugby takes to market in an attempt to engage interest and capture the hearts and minds of our youth. The Trans Tasman Rugby competition becomes our ‘domestic league’ with our New Zealand partners. Played over a sixteen-week window, it aims to be long enough to avoid being considered an exhibition but short enough to keep it punchy and ensure the best players remain active for their clubs throughout.

The Indian Pacific Championship is our chance to link up with another two high quality leagues outside of Europe and compete against players from an additional three countries. Played over an eight-week window, it beefs up the number of quality games that our professional players have access to and represents extra revenue opportunities for clubs.

While these formats are responsible for producing the talent that go on to earn Wallaby caps, they still function in a part of the ecosystem that is in the business of professional sport and these clubs have to operate in a fashion that produces the best results on the scoreboard and in the bank account. There is nothing more beneficial for the Wallabies and Australian rugby as a whole than five professional clubs that are successful on and off the field. This platform cannot be considered a Wallaby trial ground- its clubs having the chance to perform successfully will ensure that it achieves that function effectively. 

The five Under 20 academies will be looking at the eight Under 18 representative teams as the pool of talent that stocks their squads. The seven Australian teams that mirror the ARC sides would solidify a visible representative structure and provide a young player with a clear line of site between their club/school and their representative jurisdiction that offers a development pathway before becoming a feeder system for professional rugby ranks.

While the five Under 20’s ‘academy programs’ are embedded within the five professional TTR teams, the seven entities that make up the ARC would operate as multi-tiered representative academies that internally pool resources across their numerous programs. At the upper-end they would be training their combined squads of club and TTR players in preparation for the seven-week ARC. Beneath that ‘face’ of the academies (the 7 Australian ARC brands) there would be a 7’s program and the U18 and U16 programs that spend training camps and a school term working with and developing their talent in preparation for their respective national championships. They would also have access to and work alongside the U20’s TTR staff to manage program alignment while also developing their own coaching capability. As well as identifying players to enter and develop along the pathway, a core function of these seven academies is identifying coaches and providing them with development opportunities to continue to progress within their academy and prepare them to potentially assume a role at a professional level.   

This aligned pathway uses identifiable academy 'brands' to progress a young player's development through exposure to quality coaching and gameplay that puts them in a good position to be released to the next level. The NRL is able to leverage their favourable position as one of the two dominant football codes on Australia’s sporting landscape to start locking away talent around that 16-year-old age bracket. It’s achieved by little more than waving a dream in front of these kids that they, and so many of their peers aspire towards in this country. These entities and development structures would represent rugby's attempt to draw and keep young talent in the game while pushing some towards a professional career in rugby. 

The five country regions in both New South Wales and Queensland would also be aligned to one of the four representative jurisdictions that exist in these states. While the 10 regions across both states aren’t positioned at the upper levels of the pathway, country rugby is such a vital part of Australian rugby’s ecosystem and any effort to address the alignment between different facets of the game has to tie in regional areas. There are 13.5 million people in Australia’s rugby heartland states of New South Wales and Queensland and 5.5 million of these live outside the capitals. That’s more than the population of New Zealand and while it’s not concentrated in one area, it still commands appropriate attention and resourcing. 

As well as aligning each of these regions to one of the representative teams, I would bring the pathway to their backyard and play the bulk of the ARC in regional population hubs. Most ARC games played between weeks one to five would be played across regional areas in New South Wales and Queensland and would form half of a ‘double-header’ that also includes a Country Rugby Championship clash between two regions. The ACT would also play games in their regional NSW jurisdiction and a Round 7 ARC clash would be partnered with the big battle of the bush between the Cockatoos and the Heelers. Yes, that’s an investment in travel and accommodation, but taking quality rugby to the regions and putting a representative pathway to aspire towards in front of young kids would be a worthy initiative to effectively engage such an important part of the rugby ecosystem.  

While junior and regional representative platforms are still very much at the grassroots section of the game, they’re a smidge above the participation level where all players begin their rugby journey and the overwhelming bulk of a nation’s player numbers sit. As the entry point and the broadest part of the ecosystem, it represents a vitally important aspect of the landscape where engagement initiatives to lure participants and adequate infrastructure to maintain them are some of the cogs that need to be turning effectively. While these resources need to be deployed across the grassroots strategically, the strength back towards the top of the blade of grass plays a huge part in the reach and success at the base.

International and professional rugby are the drawcards and represent the products that are the face of the game. As such, these layers of the ecosystem shoulder the responsibility of capturing the hearts and minds of young people and pulling them into that participation level.

Players are what feed up through our ecosystem and providing an effective player pathway is often spoken about as a key area for the health of the game. There’s definitely a lot of truth in this argument (hence this whole website), however what’s as important if not even more so is applying strategy to the ecosystem that ensures you’re providing an effective pathway for fans. All (most) players end up shedding their status as ‘athletes’ and solely occupy the role of the ‘fan’ (if the game is operating well) and there’s no better way to attract young players than hooking them as fans to ignite that spark and start that dream.

This is the stakeholder group that funds the game and their kids represent a group that are positioned most favourably to enter the grassroots participation layer of the ecosystem. If this group declines (as it has in recent years), then the game declines at each part of the ecosystem (as it has in recent years). The lens of attracting and maintaining fans should therefore be applied to and influence all decisions that concern the strategic direction of the game.