The official crowd figure for the Wallabies’ clash with Wales in rainy Melbourne on Saturday was an acceptable 21,932, and on television the eastern grandstand was close to full. But behind the cameras on the western side, AAMI Park’s largely empty upper tier was evidence of Victorian rugby’s recent trauma.
What comes next, following the demise of the Melbourne Rebels, is hard to say. “I would suggest for our community it’s too raw to even have that conversation,” says Rugby Victoria president Elizabeth Radcliffe. “It’s like your dog’s just died [and someone asks] ‘would you like a new puppy?’ I’m not ready for a new puppy.”
The closure of the Rebels this year alongside a sorry sequence of reported financial irregularities and political infighting has left local rugby in the doghouse. “The only way is up, surely,” says Radcliffe.
Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt was asked last week where Victoria’s rugby union community should look to renew its energy. “Jimmy Orange has got some programs up and running in schools that are going really well,” he said. “And I think the stronger it can be through the grassroots, inevitably, you grow the interest.”
New Zealand-born Orange may sound like a superhero, and his work in Melbourne public schools running programs in rugby union – a sport more closely associated with private education – has gained him a not dissimilar reputation. “The talent is here but the pathway is now uncertain,” he says.
Orange’s Academy Movement program has expanded to six government schools in the past three years. He says “of course” he would love a professional team back in Melbourne, but a centralised pathway and development program across Australia is perhaps more realistic, “meaning students don’t have to leave their home state or school to get quality rugby development”.
Michael Procajlo, manager of community rugby at Rugby Australia, says work is underway to bridge the gap between promising Victorian teenagers and the elite game, including sending kids to boarding school interstate to help them hone their skills. “We’ve got to go to ensure that there is a pathway there,” he says.
Yet pathways need people to travel them. Rugby union has recovered its Victorian club registrations to pre-Covid levels of more than 4,000, but rugby league appears to be growing locally at a faster rate. The Melbourne Storm now control Victorian juniors and reported more than 5,000 players this year. Saturday’s Wallabies crowd was barely a quarter of the number that attended the Bledisloe Cup clash at the MCG last year, and only narrowly more than the NRL franchise’s average attendance this season, of close to 20,000.
Ean Drummond, president of the Wyndham Rhinos in the city’s west – and one of those to express a lack of confidence in RV this year – said the Storm’s activity is obvious. “Melbourne Storm will bring their whole team and do a training session up at [league club] Werribee Bears,” he says. “They go around regularly doing all that throughout the year.”
Procajlo is aware of the competition, but says interest in union has proven to be resilient. “At the end of the day, the NRL have far more resources than than we do and we’re not going to be able to compete with the level of resourcing that they’ve got, certainly in the pathway space, as well as development officers,” he says. “But I think it’s a really good sign that rugby is holding its own.”
And Procajlo has promised better days are not far away. As part of an anticipated revenue injection from the Victorian government in exchange for hosting high-profile matches in Melbourne during the 2027 men’s and 2029 women’s Rugby World Cups, he says a “step change” in funding will flow to programs in the state.
RA currently provides RV with $377,000 each year as well as additional money for high performance. That would increase under RA’s plan. Every dollar counts, after RV was dragged into the financial mire of the Rebels. The state body shared two directors with the Rebels as well as sponsors, and provided $400,000 to the embattled club in its final months, only half of which was repaid.
As part of major upheaval, Radcliffe took over the RV presidency in March. She admits the untangling of the two entities is not going to be easy. The most recent RV financial statement lodged with Consumer Affairs Victoria was for 2019, and construction of the much-anticipated Centre of Excellence at La Trobe University has stalled. Radcliffe hopes it will be ready for the 2027 World Cup.
Radcliffe says it has been her priority to have the past five years financially audited. “It’s just about straight,” she says. “It’s probably not super healthy financially at the moment, but at least we know where we stand, and then we can use that as a launching pad.”
After the Wallabies beat Wales on Saturday night, Schmidt reflected on his week in Melbourne. He knows the city’s rugby community well and has a son who plays for local club Harlequins. “Melbourne, weather-wise, was a bit complicated but the people were fantastic,” he said, after clinics and training sessions with local clubs that “linked us with the community”.
Schmidt’s players – and elite rugby – won’t return to Melbourne until their match against the British and Irish Lions in a year’s time, meaning those links will be tested.
“Every kid wants to have their hero that they look up to,” Radcliffe says. “We need to find a way to ensure that they’re looking up to their heroes, but we need to work out who their heroes are as well.”
