Was the Hong Kong loss a gauge point
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Sri Lanka U-19s will lose injured skipper Naveen Henakankanamge this week - File pic
Raelene Castle will be an historic CEO for Rugby Australia, the first appointed after a process that involved the states as well as the national board. Castle will become the first woman to run any type of football in Australia.
Castle, who ran New Zealand Netball before taking the NRL Bulldogs job, and now Australian Rugby, must ensure that the various fractured elements can unite and produce stronger performances and to attract followers and also the money.
What would the scene look like if Sri Lanka Rugby (SLR) or for that matter Cricket appointed a woman to the apex post. The appointment of a woman to head SLR will be seen as profane in the rugby environment in this country.
Sri Lanka prides them for running a men’s game which has to be run by men who has played rugby. How will those who eternally call “this is not netball” during matches feel. Times are changing and as there is a need to be different when a sport is facing competition and the downhill jog is not helping either.
Australian Rugby is in a bog despite the Wallabies wining against the All Blacks recently. It has yet failed to put their hands on the Bledisloe Cup for 15 years; since 2002. They have suffered 26 defeats out of 26 against the All Blacks ‘s in the 2017 Super Rugby competition. They also kept losing against England and Scotland. This has not left the Australian Rugby public with much optimism for 2018 and attendance dipping and sponsors having a second look. The financial bleeding has left a scar which Castle has to heal.
Over the past four years it has bled supporting its five Super Rugby franchises until it controversially disbanded the Perth-based Western Force in September. Australia now sees the need for a future through a marketing look than a pure rugby background.
Rugby Australia in arriving at the decision to appoint a CEO invited the four Super Rugby states’ chairmen in to agree on the national boss, in a bid to bring greater alignment into the process. The down swing of Rugby affects all as seen with the axing of the Perth based Western Force who has been in the Super League since 2006. ARU Chairman Cameron Clyne said in a statement “Our decision to exit the Western Force has been guided primarily by financial outcomes,”
Talking to the stakeholders is a move that comes to work towards greater collaboration, in many ways following the highly successful model New Zealand Rugby has long implemented. There is a cry of foul play by the diehards as axing of Super League teams denies them of rugby.The others turn to competing game such as NRL and Football which is now gaining ground.
The former NRL Bulldogs boss Castle beat out former Wallabies captain hooker Phil Kearns for the top job, one of the toughest roles in Australia’s sporting landscape. Kearns who was a favorite had a good rugby background but he did not have any administrative experience. Though Kearns was favourite it was the thinking that rugby alone that will not give life to Australian Union Rugby. They broke bread to appoint Castle and also create history. The under-fire ARU board decided to go with the outsider. Castle will break ground as Australian rugby’s first female chief executive and will be tasked with turning the struggling rugby after a disastrous 2017. She replaces Bill Pulver, who found difficulty to achieve unity during his tenure.
Raelene Castle, the first woman Rugby CEO
Australia 1991 World Cup winning coach has summed up; “To my mind, the problem is the total lack of leadership at the top end of the game,” Dwyer told The Telegraph.
“There’s been no leadership, no direction. There’s been waffling, decisions half made and then recalled and re-evaluated.”
Castle, a New Zealander, will also become Australian rugby’s first foreign chief executive.
Meanwhile Sri Lanka is happily coasting along and must be happy that the oldest club, CH and FC is doing better this year. Does anybody see a gap between the League leaders Kandy and others? As we reach the final week of the first leg it is Kandy, followed by Havelocks and Navy that will move to the next round. CR with a talented side seems to be lost in the need for a mental tune up to make a win from the opportunities that come their way.
Where Sri Lanka stands in rugby can be gauged with the loss to the Hong Kong Under-19 team played for the Asian Under-19 Championships. An article about the Sri Lanka U-19 team submitted by SLR and published in Asian Rugby touts the tournament as a Junior World Cup qualifier. Sri Lanka played last week in Colombo at 15.00 hours and lost by 37 points to 8 when the temperature was around 28◦C, where as in Hong Kong it is around 12◦C. Despite fixing a time as the home team to put the visiting team on pressure by heat, it ended up with a loss and injuries to many local players who were falling off in the second half. It never looked that the rugby crowds were interested in the International Match.
There is a lesson to be taken from Australian Rugby as clubs keep talking of the financial drain while some schools too feel the heat but others don’t.
Vimal Perera is a former Rugby Referee, Coach and a former Accredited Referees’ Evaluator IRB