The Forgotten Pathway: Does Geography Determine Opportunity in NSW Rugby?

Part One of a 10-part series examining player development, opportunity and the future of rugby in country New South Wales.

Country New South Wales has never struggled to produce talented rugby players. From the New England and Central North to the Mid North Coast, Central West, Hunter, Illawarra and communities further west, regional rugby continues to produce young athletes with the physical ability, skill and ambition to progress within the game.

What is less clear is whether the system surrounding those players is providing them with the same opportunity to develop their potential as their metropolitan counterparts.

This is not an argument that country players deserve preferential selection, nor is it a criticism of the opportunities available to young players in Sydney. Strong school, club and representative programs should be celebrated. Rather, it is a question about whether a player’s postcode has become too significant a factor in determining the development opportunities available to them.

Over the next 10 articles, this series will examine the structure of rugby development in country NSW, the respective responsibilities of NSW Rugby, NSW Country Rugby, regional zones and local clubs, and whether the existing system provides a clearly defined pathway for talented regional players.

It will also ask a fundamental question that should precede almost every other discussion about country rugby: are we running a genuine development pathway, or predominantly a representative rugby program?

Selection and Development Are Not the Same Thing

Country rugby provides representative opportunities. Players trial for regional teams, compete at championships and, for some, progress into higher representative programs. Those competitions remain an important part of the rugby calendar and provide players with an opportunity to test themselves against stronger opposition.

However, representative selection should not automatically be confused with player development.

A representative program identifies players considered capable of performing at a particular level at a particular point in time. A development program should be concerned with what happens before and after that selection.

For a talented 15 or 16-year-old player in regional NSW, that distinction is significant.

If a young prop is identified as having potential but requires substantial technical development at scrum time, where does that specialist coaching come from? If a halfback needs to improve the speed and accuracy of their pass, who works with them over the following six months? If a promising lock needs lineout development, or a fly-half requires assistance with game management and decision-making, what formal mechanism exists to provide it?

More broadly, who develops an individual plan for that player, communicates with their local coach, monitors their physical development, provides meaningful feedback and then measures their progress?

Those are not questions about representative selection. They are questions about development.

If those responsibilities largely fall upon local volunteer coaches, parents or private providers that families locate themselves, it is reasonable to question whether country NSW currently has a clearly defined development pathway.

The Geographical Reality

Any discussion about rugby development in regional NSW also has to acknowledge geography.

A talented young player living in Sydney may have relatively close access to strong school or club programs, specialist coaching, strength and conditioning facilities and regular contact with people connected to higher levels of the game.

The experience of a player living in Armidale, Tamworth, Inverell, Moree, Dubbo, Orange, Coffs Harbour or one of the state’s smaller communities can be markedly different.

Accessing an additional training session, development camp or trial may involve several hours of travel. When opportunities require repeated trips to Sydney, the commitment can become considerable.

There is a financial component: fuel, accommodation, meals and other travel expenses. There is also a significant time commitment for families. Parents take time away from work, players miss school or arrive home late at night, and families can spend entire weekends travelling to provide their child with an opportunity to participate.

None of this means a country player should receive preferential treatment at selection.

It does, however, mean that simply making an opportunity available does not necessarily make that opportunity equally accessible.

That is an important distinction for any sporting organisation responsible for servicing a state as geographically large as NSW.

Who Is Responsible for Development?

Perhaps the central issue is not whether people within country rugby are working hard. Across regional NSW, there are countless volunteers, coaches, administrators and parents investing significant amounts of time into keeping the game functioning.

The more difficult question is whether responsibility for player development is clearly defined.

What is NSW Country Rugby expected to provide? What is the responsibility of NSW Rugby? What should regional zones provide, and what can reasonably be expected from local clubs?

If NSW Country Rugby is primarily a representative organisation responsible for selecting teams and competing at championships, that is a legitimate role. However, if that is its function, another question immediately follows: who is responsible for the ongoing development of talented country players?

Conversely, if NSW Country Rugby considers player development to be part of its role, there should be a clearly identifiable structure explaining how that development occurs throughout the year.

For players and parents, the organisational distinction should not need to be complicated.

A talented teenager should be able to understand where they currently sit, what aspects of their game require improvement, what development opportunities are available and what the next step in the pathway looks like.

At present, that pathway can be difficult for families to identify and navigate.

Country Rugby Must Also Examine Itself

It would be simplistic to suggest every problem facing regional rugby originates in Sydney.

Country rugby also needs to examine its own structures.

Are regional clubs doing enough to develop coaches? Are competitions providing sufficient quality and quantity of rugby? Are neighbouring zones collaborating where it would benefit players? Are talented athletes being identified early enough, and are those who miss selection receiving meaningful feedback about what they need to improve?

There is also a broader philosophical question about junior representative rugby.

How much emphasis should be placed on winning championships, and how much should be placed on producing players capable of progressing to senior rugby?

The two objectives are not necessarily incompatible, but they are not always the same.

A successful junior team may provide an excellent experience for those selected. A successful development system should have a much longer horizon.

Its effectiveness should arguably be measured not simply by the result of a representative tournament, but by how many players continue to improve, remain in the sport and are prepared for the next level of competition.

The Players Rugby Never Sees

The greatest concern may not be the country players who are already appearing in recognised pathways. By definition, those athletes have been identified.

The more difficult group to measure is the players who disappear before reaching that point.

Some will leave regional NSW to attend school, university or pursue rugby opportunities in Sydney. Others will move into rugby league, AFL or another sport. Some will remain valuable players within their local competitions, while others will leave organised sport altogether.

There will always be players who simply do not possess the ability required to progress to higher levels. Elite sport is necessarily selective.

However, there is an important difference between a player reaching the limit of their ability and a player never receiving sufficient development to discover where that limit might have been.Australian rugby cannot afford to ignore that distinction.

At a time when the sport continues to discuss participation, pathways and the development of future talent, regional NSW should be viewed as more than an area from which promising players are occasionally identified.

The objective should be to create environments capable of developing them.

That does not necessarily require replicating Sydney’s rugby infrastructure in every regional centre. Geography and population make that unrealistic.

It does require a coherent strategy.

Regional development hubs, specialist coaching visits, coach education, individual player development plans, strength and conditioning support, digital coaching, video analysis and stronger communication between local coaches and higher-performance programs are all mechanisms that warrant examination.

Most importantly, the responsibilities of the organisations involved need to be clear.

This series will attempt to establish what those responsibilities currently are, what development resources exist across regional NSW and where gaps may remain. It will speak with people involved at different levels of the game and examine potential models for providing country players with greater access to development without requiring every promising teenager to relocate to Sydney.

The purpose is not to argue that country players should be selected ahead of metropolitan players.

The standard should remain the standard.

The issue is whether young players across NSW are being given a reasonable opportunity to develop towards it.

Country NSW has demonstrated for generations that it can produce rugby talent.

The more important question for the modern game is how much more talent could be developed if opportunity was not so heavily influenced by geography.

The Country Question

Before debating whether country rugby is providing enough development, there is a more fundamental question that needs to be answered:

What is NSW Country Rugby actually designed to do — represent country rugby, develop country rugby players, or both?

Next in the series: What Exactly Is NSW Country Rugby?