By Sam Ryan

It’s been an interesting year or two for Australian rugby, particularly from a professional sense. As the 2017 season draws to a close, Rugby News sat down with ARU High Performance Manager Ben Whitaker in a two part interview to discuss the future of the professional game and all it’s elements in Australia. 

Rugby News: How do you look back on the past year or so and where is Australian rugby at the moment?

Ben Whitaker: I think particularly over the last four months, we’ve got a lot of people together to look at what we need to do build our capability to win. No one is happy about our results over the last year or so but I think what it has done is ensured that everyone has learnt along the way, so hopefully we won’t see history repeat itself.

People are quick to forget that we actually won the Super Rugby title in 2011 and 2014, we were runners up in the World Cup when we were 20 minutes shy of beating one of the best teams ever, so it’s not as though we’re not capable, we’re just inconsistent and that’s what we need to change.

RN: Did we need to almost hit rock bottom to turn things around? 

BW: Hopefully history shows that it did but at the same time, no one is happy with how our Super Rugby season went this year. We had a finalist because it was guaranteed but really we finished ninth down to 18th, so I think maybe it did need to get to that point for people to realise that we need and can do things differently and I think that’s certainly proving the case so far.

RN: Obviously no one has enjoyed the process of removing a Super Rugby side but will it lead to Australia’s teams being more successful from next year? 

BW: Yeah I think it will and that’s where we are focussing our energy now. Intuitively, what we’ve done should strengthen a few areas of high performance, in terms of squad depth and knowledge because it’s not just players, it’s coaches as well. We’ve seen a few coaches move down to Melbourne already.

RN: Could Australian rugby realistically get involved with Andrew Forrest’s new competition? 

BW: I think we’ve paid it due respect and we’ve been heavily involved in looking at how the competition can be constructed so that it works to achieve all the outcomes that Andrew Forrest, WA Rugby, Australian rugby and now World Rugby wants. There are a lot of stakeholders involved that are spending a lot of time looking at multiple outcomes and it’s not easy, it’s quiet a complex issue but we’re trying to work through it.

RN: Is Australian rugby’s future in SANZAR?

BW: That’s not necessarily something for me to answer, but we need to look closely at a professional competition that serves us well and that ensures that we remain towards the top of the World Rankings from a men’s XVs point of view, but also that creates viable rugby infrastructure across the country. To do that, you need to look at what is the best and most effective competition model going forward. I think clearly from an international perspective, being able to play New Zealand, South Africa, Argentina and more recently Japan, that’s of huge value and you don’t want to ruin that.

RN: How important will the 2020 broadcast deal be for the future of the game in Australia and the wider region?

BW: Whether people like it or not, it’s become one of the most significant elements of our game and a lot of time, effort and intelligence needs to go into how you position yourself to benefit best from each five year cycle. It’s important to get the rugby component and the financial component right, so it’s a bit of a balancing act there to make it attractive to all parties.

RN: In terms of our time zones, how attractive is the Asian market as we look ahead to the 2019 World Cup and the 2020 Olympics in Japan?

BW: We’ve understood the current Japanese market for some time now with a lot of our players and coaches spending time over there. The work that needs to be done is to look at what the Asian market actually looks like from a broadcast support point of view in the next five, 10 and 20 years.

A lot of people have hypothesised that the market is there for the taking but in reality, we haven’t really seen it yet. Again, there are people far more intelligent then me looking at this but I think we’re heading in the right direction with the Sunwolves now playing Super Rugby and that will help us get a better gauge of the overall market.

RN: Is the NRC where it needs to be for a competition now into its fourth year? 

BW: If we had to draw up a scorecard for the competition right now, with a few weeks still to go this year, from a football point of view, we’re really pleased with what we’re seeing on the field. The feedback we get from players and coaches all suggest that it’s providing current and future talent with a better opportunity to develop and become better players.

Clearly, we’ve tinkered around with how we’ve marketed and promoted the competition and we haven’t had a lot to work with, so it’s almost become somewhat of an in-house rugby competition. If you know about it, you’ll come and watch or turn it on TV, but we need to bridge that gap and get more people interested and involved.  That can’t happen overnight and we knew it was going to take some time because people talk a lot about tribalism and I think that’s an important factor and something we need to improve.

We’re also looking at the infrastructure that supports the teams. We’ve got some teams that are aligned directly to Super Rugby sides, then in NSW and QLD they have to cater for a bit more so I think we need to work on that so that every side can run an effective program.

RN: Considering the success of some of the club competitions around Australia this year, would a club based national competition help fans connect more with the NRC?

BW: It could be and we’re always reviewing what we’re doing to achieve the outcomes we’re after. A lot of people have talked about the resurgence of club rugby this year. Is it because the rest of the game stinks, or is it because club rugby is really good? It’s probably a bit of both but I think it’s more because club rugby has been really strong and competitive right around the country.

The challenge with creating a national club competition is that you risk bastardising what makes club rugby so great. Who competes in a national competition? Does everyone compete, or just some sides and how will that effect the individual state competitions? Then you have to look at distributing players as well. I’m sure the clubs and the member unions are looking at it but there may be some unintended consequences of going that way. Club rugby is very local and tribal, whereas the NRC has the potential to be a lot more regional, which adds a different flavour and creates an opportunity to support other communities.

I’d like to think that we can get the best of both worlds by keeping the two competitions separate but again, it’s certainly something that we’ll look at.

RN: Could the competition structure change as a result of the 2020 broadcast deal?

BW: Potentially. When we started the NRC, one of the things we set out to do was to create content that would be attractive to a broadcaster just like the domestic competitions are in New Zealand and South Africa. You’d like the think that in the next iteration, it plays a bigger part and a bigger role but why can’t there be other content that comes in as part of that as well?

RN: Is our rugby season too long at the moment? 

BW: I think at the top level, we manage it quite well and we keep track of a lot of data on each player to manage their work loads. This year, the Wallabies aren’t playing a fifth game over in the UK so that allows the Wallabies guys to get six weeks annual leave, then they have a graduated program for two weeks when they return to their Super Rugby clubs, so I think that is reasonably well managed.

For the club player that plays all the way through to the NRC, they’re usually the aspirational type player so they typically know how to manage their body and know what to do to ensure they can play through the club season and into the NRC.

The NRC is finishing much later this year then we’d like it to and we faced some challenges with the scheduling of this year’s competition. We pushed the NRC back to allow for other things to happen and we’re comfortable with that, but I don’t think we want to be playing in the second week of November with any competition in the future.

RN: Where is Sevens in Australia, compared to where it could be? 

BW: Everyone talks about the fantastic opportunity that Sevens presents and we’ve seen that over the last few years, particularly in the women’s game. We ran the AON Sevens Series this year and it was great to get something up and running so quickly and that’s already providing value.

With Sevens, we intentionally chose to start with a national men’s and women’s program and then sort of fill in the space below right down to juniors and minis and we’re still in the middle of that process. We held a great forum about a month ago and brought in people from right around the country who are involved in Sevens, from Scotty Bowen right down to volunteers who run clubs and teams.

Men’s Sevens is a little trickier because we’re historically bound by XVs and all the structures that are already in place, so the obvious solution then is to make the men’s game a summer sport so that our guys can play both. That will also open the door for a whole heap of new players to try the game as well.

That was probably the biggest thing to come out of the forum, that we can run the men’s and women’s game separately and they can both succeed in different ways.

Tomorrow, Whitaker discusses a revamped National U20s competition, the Australian rugby development pathway, the recent coaching conference, how to beat New Zealand and the role of grassroots rugby and professional rugby in Australia.