Rugby Union facing an extinction crisis in Sydney

As of April 30, the Penrith Emus have been thrown out of Sydney’s Premier Competition, the Shute Shield. This came off the back of 2 wins from 28 club matches across all grades this season and 0 wins last season for the First Grade side. In 2017 they averaged a losing margin of 35 points, and this season they've scored just 22 points while conceding 289 across the opening 4 rounds.

This is a worrying situation for the ARU. The West of Sydney has traditionally been a hotbed for Rugby League with the Penrith Panthers, Parramatta Eels and the Wests Tigers very well supported clubs. The Parramatta Two Blues (Totafu Polota-Nau’s club) are once again struggling this season having just picked up their first win this weekend, and now the Emu’s are no more. The final series has been dominated by Sydney University, Warringah, Manly, Eastwood and Northern Suburbs the past few years, Southern Districts and Randwick have made the odd appearance but the Western Sydney teams haven’t come close.

With crowd sizes in the NRL healthy, all you have to do is watch a Super Rugby game and the stadia are a quarter full at best. The second tier competition also attracts good crowds when it is kept at local grounds whereas the NRC is very poorly attended. Shute Shield games are better attended than most of the NRC games as that competition has struggled to gain traction.

The problem can be traced back to the high school game. Kurtley Beale at school level was attracting huge attention. He was spoken about in the press weekly and people would go to watch him play. He was invited to Waratahs training camps and signed for the club at 16 years old. There has not been the furore around a Union player like that ever since.

The biggest star in Australian Rugby is a League convert. Israel Folau was a Kangaroo at 18 years of age. He had done everything in the game by the age of 20. If any other player had tweeted the views he did recently then they would have been sacked, no question. The ARU cannot afford to sack Folau, he puts bums on seats and dollars in the bank account. The Wallabies are already struggling to sell out most games, lose Folau and they don’t sell out any.

The ARU need to take steps to prevent a situation like this occurring again and to bring the fans and players back to the game. Here are some ideas:

• Push the once very strong schools competition. There are currently only 4 teams competing in the highest level of Sydney Competition
• Create clear pathways for players to get into professional clubs
• Get into the Rugby League areas and try and get players to switch codes
• Move the professional clubs to smaller grounds to create a better atmosphere
• Put money into the NRC or scrap it, it isn’t a good look

The removal of the Emu’s should be seen as a huge wake up call to the ARU that something needs to be done.

Things do look a little brighter up in Queensland: