NSW Rugby boss Andrew Hore believes the sport can bounce back after a dismal 2017 season but said the introduction of an additional $12 state enforced player levy on all registered players in 2018 is essential for the short and long term future of the code in New South Wales. Hore has spent the past month travelling around the various affiliate Boards and respective AGMs to speak to clubs and associations and explain the reasons for the new levy, which will be introduced alongside a significant reduction in expenditure across the entire organisation. “In 2017, we effectively had the perfect storm. Last year (2016) we carried a loss of roughly $150K for NSW Rugby into 2017, we then had a reduction of around $500k in funding from the ARU and we had all the negative sentiment around Australian rugby and Super Rugby,” the CEO said. “On top of that, we had poor weather early in the year, even before we were performing badly and that affected our gate and then we had the