There's some good people at the ARL and they've seen the writing on the wall for years but there's fk all they can do about it. The ARL plowing dead money into the Warriors again smacked of their desperation. Then COVID was the worst possible situation, outside of war and natural disaster, for a sport with so little money, Rugby is struggling to bounce back as well but they have the support and money to ride out the storm. 1A is played at a high standard and it gets the TV exposure that league no longer enjoys since the 20s folded. I watched Xavier Tito
Harris in the cage at St Peters yesterday and he wasn't the massive standout that you'd expect. He was good but so was everyone else. Basketball has taken a lot of boys off the field too.
I don't know how this gets turned around. It's not even about developing talent here for the NRL because 99.9% of players never get paid to play so it's about getting participation. Most promising kids are either getting shipped of to Aus as they begin high school or get snapped up by school rugby. It's all too serious in the comp league grades, kids have stopped playing for fun with all the talent gravitating to a handful of teams. Get the participation up overall and the law of averages will determine that more players will filter through to the elite levels of the game. It starts with transitioning the mod players into the comp grades, there's no point having the ARL putting all their energy into the junior grades if you don't retain the players in the game.
I've been saying forever that the ARL should be focusing on building the school comps with the non 1A schools. Look at St Pauls, roughly 300 boys between years 7 and 13 that produce more talent to league than all the other Auckland schools combined. Unfortunately, league supporters carry a bad rep that schools don't want on their grounds. St Paul's are disciplined enough to contain any bad behavior.
One positive has been the growth of the girls games in both league and school rugby.
