Phil Garling took over from Phil Parsons as president of the Sydney Rugby Union, the governing body that oversees the Shute Shield, late last year at an interesting time for both the organisation and the competition.

Rugby News sat down with Garling this week to learn more about his background and his plans for the years ahead.

How are you enjoying your time since joining Sydney Rugby Union as president? 

I’m really enjoying it so far. It’s been quite challenging but something I’m passionate about. I grew up playing rugby and played with Port Hacking in the 1970s before they merged with St George to form Southern Districts. I’ve also had some experience in sports administration as president of Water Polo Australia so it’s been great to combine those experiences in this new role. I’m fortunate to work with a fantastic board who have a lot of experience in all facets of rugby, so that makes my job a lot easier. 

Away from sport, can you tell us about your corporate background?

I worked for Lend Lease for 20 odd years across a number of roles. I’ve got a degree in building from the University of NSW and spent the first 10 years in construction and project management, then in infrastructure development. Then I worked at AMP Capital in funds management, investing Australian’s superannuation funds in infrastructure assets around the world. I retired from that in 2011 and in the last decade I’ve been a non executive director on various boards, including Charter Hall. 

Professional sport seems to jump between being run either by people with a corporate background, or by people with a sporting background. How important is it to have an understanding of both? 

I think it’s quite important because at the end of the day, each Shute Shield club is a business but it’s also a sporting club, largely run by volunteers. It’s important that they keep an eye on the bottom line, particularly Shute Shield clubs because they run in a a semi professional environment. You want to find the best aspects of both amateurism and professionalism, not the worst aspects and I think the clubs are doing that pretty well. 

Covid-19 had an enormous impact on all sporting organisations right around the world. During that period, the Sydney Rugby Union introduced a Participation Agreement. Why was that important? 

I was only an advisor to the board when the Participation Agreement was drawn up but I did attend the board meetings so I do have an understanding of its origins. The goal was to strengthen the competition as a whole and to outline what the obligations were for each club in entering the competition. So far, I think it’s worked and we’ve been delighted by the fact that the competition has been so tight. The average points difference in first grade so far this year is around 11 points and that’s a lot lower than it has been for quite some time. We’ve also only had one forfeit so far this year across all grade and colts competitions.

The clubs all play the same sport in the same competition, but they’re all very different and there is a lot of history between many of them. How difficult can it be and how important is it to try and get the clubs all on the same page? 

I think the job of the Sydney Rugby Union is to grow the competition as a whole, so that rather than clubs competing for a bigger slice of the same sized pie, instead they’re competing for the same sized slice of a bigger pie. We want to grow women’s rugby. We want all clubs to field four grade teams and three colts sides. We want each club to employ a development officer to grow the game in their region. All these things will help grow the competition as a whole and I think the clubs get that. 

Can you tell us about some of the benchmarking work you’re doing at the moment? 

This is done in a lot of other sports. We’re trying to gather as much information from the clubs as possible, then anonymise it to create an average or a benchmark to show clubs where they rank compared to others. It’s hard to share information, particularly financial information on a one on one basis, but if we can create an average of what each club is paying for strapping, or what each club is paying their coaches, it might show clubs where they are on or off the mark and help them make better use of their budgets. 

You’ve also spoken about trying to bring back a Sydney rep team to play games at some stage. What can you tell us about that? 

That’s something that I’m really interested in. I grew up in an era when Sydney rep teams used to play touring International sides during the week and quite often they’d beat them. It was quite a big deal to be picked for Sydney and I know a lot of people have fond memories of watching Sydney sides play in the past. We might not get midweek games against International teams anymore, but we might be able to bring back a North Harbour v South Harbour fixture. We’re looking at that at the moment. Then maybe you could pick a Sydney side to play a Brisbane rep team potentially further down the track. 

There seems to be some positive momentum behind professional rugby in Australia following the announcement of the Rugby World Cups in 2027 and 2029. How important is it for the Shute Shield and grassroots rugby to continue to play its role in the development of the game?

Hugely important and on top of the upcoming World Cups, we’ve also got a number of new facilities that Shute Shield sides will be playing from in the years ahead. Eric Tweedale Stadium is a fantastic facility at Merrylands. The development at Concord is getting closer and looks like it will be great, Eastwood will also have a new ground at some stage. Then we’ve got CommBank Stadium and the new SFS. It should continue to improve the game day experience for Shute Shield fans which is vitally important to the bottom lines of the clubs. We know the club rugby product is great, and hopefully more people will be able to be part of that through these new facilities. 

Who’s going to win the competition this year? 

Most other years, I probably would have tried to pick a winner, but it’s just too hard this season. I think there are easily six teams that could win the grand final at this stage and on their day any team can beat an opponent, which makes for a great competition.