After one of the most memorable and tightly contested Shute Shield seasons in history last year, we caught up with Sydney Rugby Union president David Begg to discuss the upcoming season and hear his views on the future of rugby in Australia.

How thrilled were you with last year’s finals series?

It was a perfect storm with lots of well supported clubs playing one another and a few local derbies thrown in on top. The weather was perfect, it was well supported by channel seven and CRTV and in the end it was a great advertisement for club footy.

People have asked what we’ve got planned for this year but I don’t think there needs to be too much evolution. I think if we can replicate that, the rugby community is going to be very happy.

There are a couple of things we are trying to do and these are things we spoke about 12 months ago. We’d like to see more rugby played in country regions. There are three games going out to the country this year and we’d like to encourage all of our clubs to do the same. With the support of local council, the clubs can turn the event into a cost benefit and it help grow their footprint. Most clubs already have an affiliation with a certain region in NSW, whether it is official or not, so we’d like to see more footy played in the bush.

The other thing we’re working on is a significantly stronger women’s footprint. There will be women’s Shute Shield sevens tournaments played on the last Saturday of each month this year and that final tournament may potentially be played ahead of our match of the day and could potentially be televised.

You mentioned earlier that the SRU may be involved in the Waratahs match against the Blues at Brookvale Oval in early May, what can you tell us?

At the moment there are plans for their to be some Shute Shield involvement around the game. Either a Shute Shield game before or a Shute Shield game after the Waratahs play at Brookvale. There is also chat of potentially playing a schoolboys match on the same day as well, which would be fantastic.

Unfortunately, the game has to be played at 3pm on the Saturday afternoon for the broadcasters and Auckland can’t move the game to the Sunday because they play the following Friday, so we are encouraging all Shute Shield clubs to play their first grade matches at 1pm on that day to allow all players and supporters to get to Brookvale to support the Waratahs.

From a club rugby perspective, one of the things we’ve spoken about is that we need to reconnect with the next level of rugby and this is one way of doing that. Potentially we could play a bigger role while the Waratahs are out of Moore Park for two years. The response to our grand finals that have been played at North Sydney Oval show that there is great support for rugby played at community grounds, so we’d like to encourage the Waratahs to take advantage of that.

Last year, rugby at a professional level struggled while grassroots rugby thrived. If professional rugby continues to improve this year, do you think that will negatively affect the grassroots game?

We want to see both sides of the game succeeding in alignment with one another. It’s a really shortsighted and juvenile argument to say that we’re happy doing well because other parts of the game aren’t because we’re all invested in the wider rugby community. From my perspective, we not only want rugby to survive, but we want it to prosper and that’s in every element of the game. We want the Waratahs to be strong, we want our Super Rugby franchises beating New Zealand sides and obviously be want the Wallabies to win on a regular basis.

Do you think we’re starting to see the effects of the changes that were made at NSW Rugby HQ last year?

I’m very supportive of everything that has been put in place by the CEO of NSW Rugby Andrew Hore. One particularly encouraging thing is the hub model, which I know Andrew has been working very hard on. Basically, it’s a holistic model that tries to tie everyone in rugby at all levels together geographically. Eventually each geographic hub will have one CEO, with development officers that deal with rugby at all levels in that area. It’s been initially rolled out on the Northern Beaches and the idea was to trial it in an area that was strong and then replicate it elsewhere.

Is that something that could work in western Sydney considering some of the issues we’re hearing about at Penrith at the moment?

In some respects, I think a hub model will work best in western Sydney because there are less stakeholders and it might be easier to get alignment on the overall strategy. I’ve made the comment before, there is no silver bullet for western Sydney, there are 30 years worth of reports sitting on shelves that have been written by good intentioned people on western Sydney rugby, so it’s not a simple fix.

I strongly believe having a professional presence in western Sydney in the long term is extremely important. That might see the Waratahs playing some games at the new Parramatta stadium because we need the Wallabies and the Waratahs to be recognised when they walk through Westfield Parramatta and at the moment, that probably doesn’t happen.

Can you tell us a little about the conversations you’ve had with Penrith over summer?

I’ll be quite frank about it, we need Penrith to improve and we need them to play a more meaningful role in the competition. At the moment, there is a tail in the competition and we don’t want that. We’ve told Penrith that and they are on a monitoring exercise as we speak.

Sydney covers a huge geographical area, how important is it that rugby has a strong presence in western Sydney?

It’s essential, absolutely essential. I mean, why would you abandon two million people, it makes no sense when rugby is desperate for more players, more supporters, more administrators. Having said that, we’ve also got to protect the integrity of the competition and if Penrith’s performance metrics don’t add up, then obviously they have to come under close scrutiny.

What are those performance metrics?

They’re on and off the field. Obviously, we’re looking at their performance on the field in terms of playing strength and numbers. We want them to field four grade teams and three colts teams. Off the field though, we’d like to see them attract more sponsorship and delve further into their local community. We want to make sure players are only starting in one match on a Saturday and we want to make sure they have a professional S&C program in place.

Penrith have responded really well to the KPIs that we’ve given them and we’ll be keeping them under close observation, as we do every Shute Shield club.

We want the competition to be closer. One of the strengths of the competition in recent years is that there hasn’t been a clear cut favourite each year and 2018 is no different. I honestly don’t know who will hold the Shute Shield at the end of the year but we want all 12 clubs to be competing reasonably evenly against one another.

Is it realistic to think that can be achieved without some sort of intervention from an outside source?

I would like Penrith to look at ultimately developing meaningful partnerships with the large infrastructure that western Sydney has. Whether that be sponsors, licensed clubs, key partners, universities. All the things that a lot of the other clubs have developed, we’d like to see Penrith do the same.

The observation I have made is that in the last five years every Shute Shield club, with the exception of Penrith, has improved. They are on a steeper curve because they need to improve quicker than some of the other clubs do.

Parramatta will play from Lidcombe Oval this year while a new state of the art facility is built for them at Granville, how exciting is that for the competition?

It’s great for the competition. Parramatta is a really well run club and although last year they didn’t perform as well on the field as they would have liked, I think their long term success is almost guaranteed by this new facility, so that’s really encouraging. I think their home games at Lidcombe will be great this year as well. It’s a good facility and easy to get to and I think most clubs will enjoy that.

Eastwood have big plans to grow their footprint in the north, west of Sydney. Should that be encouraged or do some of the other clubs need to be protected?

It’s a very big area. It’s not like Eastwood is necessarily treading on Parramatta’s toes because I think where Eastwood are looking to go is away from Parramatta’s traditional catchment area. Eastwood have just sensed the demographic change in north, west Sydney and are responding accordingly and you only have to look at the amount of infrastructure that is being built in that region to understand their plans. There isn’t a major sporting organisation in that region already so it seems like a pretty sensible decision.

What else is happening?

We’re working hard to make sure the Shute Shield remains on free to air TV and we’re working very closely with our partners in that regard. We’re also looking at taking a more significant role in the rebadged NRC team that will be coming out of Sydney. The plan is for the two remaining Sydney NRC teams to merge and form one side and play out of the old Sydney strip. Then we’ll have the old Sydney v NSW Country fixture back on our schedule and I think that’s something that certainly people my age will be really looking forward to. They are talking about playing that over the October long weekend and if that game can be played in the country, it would make for a great weekend away.

The NRC is something that is on the rugby landscape and I understand that there is still a large degree of scepticism in the club rugby community about the competition but it is here to stay, it’s our job to make it succeed. The SRU will be more involved in the admin of the Sydney side and we’d like to think the Sydney rugby community will get right behind the side. My experience with the NRC with the Rays was positive. It was well run and we had great buy in from the four feeder clubs.

The upcoming broadcast negotiations in 2020 will probably be the most important since rugby went professional, where does the SRU sit in those discussions and how could you benefit?

We’ll work closely with the other stakeholders but I think everyone acknowledges that as far as 2020 and beyond is concerned, it really is a blank sheet of paper. What the rugby landscape looks like post 2020 will probably be determined by what the broadcaster feels is most appropriate but I’d like to think the wider rugby community will also have their voice heard. Maybe Shute Shield clubs will have a role to play, or maybe a revamped Sydney side may be involved, I really don’t know but as far as I know, all bets are off and we just want the broadcast to feature games that are meaningful and that supporters buy in to and want to watch?

Are you worried that Andrew Forrest’s proposed World Series Rugby competition will raid the Shute Shield for talent?

Yes, we are certainly concerned. For me, I just don’t understand where this competition fits into the Australian rugby landscape. I don’t understand how it is part of the strategic thinking for the future of Australian rugby. Rugby Australia made a tough decision last year to change from five Super Rugby sides to four to improve the depth and quality of our sides and the introduction of this competition seems to be a step in the other direction and almost some kind of concessional arrangement to keep Force fans happy. That doesn’t make much strategic sense to me at all.

Western Australia is still important and rugby needs to be developed over there even though they don’t have a Super Rugby side and that’s a big issue for Rugby Australia to deal with. But to go back to your question, are we concerned? Yes, we definitely are.

Will there be any changes to the Shute Shield finals series this year?

No, we are sticking with a six team finals series. I know there was a lot of talk last year after Souths were knocked out in the first week after finishing second and we certainly looked at it closely but ultimately, you’re not going to change the format based on the results of one game. I think that’s a flawed logic.

Last year, Souths got knocked out because they played a reasonably poor game by their standards and they weren’t expecting minor premiers Manly to lose to sixth placed Eastwood. In an ordinary set of circumstances, the first and second placed sides shouldn’t both lose in week one when they are playing at home but that didn’t occur last year. I think most people agree that a three week final series is best for the whole competition. We get every first grade final on TV bar one and hopefully this year a few more games will be played on channel seven’s main channel.

We’d also like to make grand final day even better. One of the plans that we’re considering if we do go back to North Sydney Oval is to play grade and colts on the one day and make it a festival of grassroots rugby. It would be great to have some live music in St Leonards park, great food and then get the Bledisloe Cup on a big screen afterwards.

Traditionally the colts grand final has been played on Sunday but it would be great to combine the two events and give out colts sides a bigger stage to play on. The advantage of being at North Sydney Oval is that No.2 is still a great ground. You may have to potentially move one of the grade grand finals there as well and I know that would be controversial, but it would make for a fantastic day overall.

Where would you like to see the Shute Shield in five years time?

I’d like the Shute Shield to be considered the best club rugby competition in the world, if it’s not already. I’d like it to be a genuine pathway to professional rugby and thirdly and most importantly, I’d like to see professional rugby players return to their Shute Shield clubs for at least one match a year. If they can’t play, then get them down there running the water or on the BBQ. It happens in New Zealand and I’d love to see it happen here.

You’re a former Manly president so we know where your heart lies. Who do you think the Marlin’s will play in the grand final this year?

It would be nice if Manly were in the grand final. I presume the premiers will be thereabouts again, Warringah will be tough to beat. You usually end up with egg on your face when you make pre season predictions but I think every club that made the finals last year will be strong again, then I think West Harbour and Easts will be considerably better than they were last year and I think Gordon and Parramatta will improve as well.

All I know is that there is a real hunger for success at Manly. If they were to make the grand final and it was at North Sydney Oval, I’m pretty confident it’d be a sell out again.