Speaker 1: Hi, Mike Boris, and this is straight talk. Is it
Speaker 1: an exextential threat to rugby union? Will it last?
Speaker 2: The fear is that we don't get it right. That's
Speaker 2: the scary thing about this.
Speaker 1: Stevie Hall's worn straight talk.
Speaker 2: Mate.
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about a state of
Speaker 1: rugby union and you're a coach. You were also a
Speaker 1: player at the highest level, so you can actually speak
Speaker 1: expertly on this.
Speaker 2: It isn't going great here in Australia at the professional level.
Speaker 2: Other levels of the game are great. All we see
Speaker 2: on TV is really super rugby and Test footy and
Speaker 2: super rugby is the big problem.
Speaker 1: What would you do in terms of super rugby?
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a big part of me that thinks it's
Speaker 2: probably run its rays, to be honest, put them in
Speaker 2: this term. So there's five teams at the moment with
Speaker 2: a five million dollar salary cap each versus sixteen and
Speaker 2: r old teams with thirty million dollar salary cap. How
Speaker 2: are you going to compete on that front? That is
Speaker 2: probably half the reason why a lot of league fans
Speaker 2: hate rugby at the moment because our former chairman was
Speaker 2: out there disrespecting the intelligence of another code like I
Speaker 2: just thought that was poor taste and rugby has never
Speaker 2: been about that.
Speaker 1: Stevie Hall's warning, straight talk mate. Thanks Mark, Thanks well,
Speaker 1: I haven't seen you since. I know you're a the
Speaker 1: early forties. Now. I haven't seen you since about probably
Speaker 1: fifteen or sixteen around that territory when you were playing
Speaker 1: for Istramic back in the day, the East Rambick Repside.
Speaker 1: But you're a Ramdwick boy.
Speaker 2: We just we merged our rep teams that weekend was
Speaker 2: on recently. You know. Yeah, my sons at that age
Speaker 2: at the moment. Actually your son or one of my
Speaker 2: kids is really thirteen. He didn't make that Raundmick sit unfortunately,
Speaker 2: but yeah, that he's going through the same age when
Speaker 2: I last met you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I sort of I can't remember. You're a
Speaker 1: back row. I think your back row, yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you've got big tall, much taller than you were there. Yeah.
Speaker 2: When I was at school thirteen to sixteen, he's seventy
Speaker 2: year twelve. I wasn't allowed to play in the backs
Speaker 2: in the forward. Sorry, I had to play in the
Speaker 2: backs at Waverley. I was too short, So I got
Speaker 2: those years. Have been half back in five eight, which
Speaker 2: then helped me later in life when I had my
Speaker 2: growth spurts.
Speaker 1: So you're you was Trent Language. Was he your territory or.
Speaker 2: A few years older old? Yeah? Changing was couples old
Speaker 2: and I was in the surf club and training with Changing,
Speaker 2: so I know him well.
Speaker 1: And you're you come from Rugby Union territory and your
Speaker 1: dad played footy.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Have you always been Ramwick?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Heverage so dad Samaruba boy and I grew up
Speaker 2: at Ramwick. Dad won a few first grade premierships at
Speaker 2: the center. He finished quite early, by the age of
Speaker 2: twenty six. He was finished because he was managing the
Speaker 2: airport for customs. But then as I grew up, I
Speaker 2: was a couodie won bat for ten years whilst playing
Speaker 2: league league on a Sunday, Rugby on a Saturday, but
Speaker 2: mum worked at the New South. I was rugby league
Speaker 2: the whole way. I was from about the age of
Speaker 2: five to fifteen, and that was I saw you, Johnny
Speaker 2: qualen of you and that was sort of the era
Speaker 2: that I grew up in. I was halftime entertainment at
Speaker 2: every second Grand Final and got tickets to all the
Speaker 2: big games. So I'm a Tiger's tragic. I don't know how.
Speaker 2: I actually do know. I got given a number one
Speaker 2: jersey when I was a kid, Austraian number one. That
Speaker 2: was Gary Jack, my map of Souse, and he's been
Speaker 2: a wavery boy. But I was a Tiger's tragic and
Speaker 2: I did league in union all the way through and
Speaker 2: then I got to fifteen. It was a bit it
Speaker 2: was had to sort of pick one and I think
Speaker 2: I just suited rugby. The game flowed a little bit more.
Speaker 1: In those days.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, it flowed lots to the point where
Speaker 2: I I could read the game a little bit better
Speaker 2: in rugby and that was probably what helped me. I
Speaker 2: didn't really have a position in the league. I was
Speaker 2: a hooker, halfback lock. We was in rugby. I got
Speaker 2: to be a flanker and that was that hybrid position.
Speaker 2: And back then flankers just used to chase the ball.
Speaker 2: It's different now because of the way the modern day is,
Speaker 2: but it did both and still enjoy both.
Speaker 1: So I wouldn't mind going back to that time, just
Speaker 1: in terms of style, so and just to talk about
Speaker 1: the way the world's changed. And I was worth explaining
Speaker 1: a lot of rugby league kids if they went to
Speaker 1: private schools, particularly around the East Suburbs areas and Low
Speaker 1: and ll Sure they played league on Sundays and union
Speaker 1: on Saturdays sometimes Friday night, yeah, basically, and the schools
Speaker 1: and they played rugby for their school on the Saturday
Speaker 1: went and played you were at Waverley went and played
Speaker 1: in the CIS and other kids playing the GPS, et cetera,
Speaker 1: all the different competitions, and then you were probably played
Speaker 1: club rugby as well, and that could have been on
Speaker 1: a Friday night or during the week. So ordinarily you'd
Speaker 1: be training nearly every night of the week for one
Speaker 1: or the other. You'd be playing club rugby, which was
Speaker 1: a short season, but then there was rep rugby, and
Speaker 1: then you were playing school rugby, which is sort of
Speaker 1: a short seasons like six games or something like that,
Speaker 1: and then you're playing rugby league on the Sunday. Even then,
Speaker 1: there was a fair bit of tension between what schools
Speaker 1: expected from you in terms of playing rugby and what
Speaker 1: rugby league expected from you in terms of playing rugby
Speaker 1: in particular and in particular training, and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of pressure on the kids give up rugby league. Do
Speaker 1: you remember that?
Speaker 2: I do remember, and essentially like when I was in
Speaker 2: year twelve, I played in the first and year twelve
Speaker 2: I couldn't play league in the holidays. I'd to sneak
Speaker 2: off a couple of games for the one bats. I
Speaker 2: didn't want wavery to find out because there was a
Speaker 2: strict where you couldn't.
Speaker 1: Why, Ah, what do you think that's about.
Speaker 2: I think it's ConTroll thing, to be honest, it's gone
Speaker 2: back that to be fair. Now, I now know that
Speaker 2: schools are encouraging kids to go and play club rugby
Speaker 2: and league.
Speaker 1: That's because they teaching about to tackle.
Speaker 2: That's right, Like there are benefits of doing both, absolutely so.
Speaker 2: And you see the kids that around fourteen fifteen, and
Speaker 2: I see now my son's thirteen. I see the kids
Speaker 2: that are that are better in almost every aspect of
Speaker 2: the game. They're the ones that are playing league union,
Speaker 2: some of them are even playing AFL. I think being
Speaker 2: able to being restricted to who you play for and
Speaker 2: what you do outside of your school hours, I don't think
Speaker 2: that's a healthy thing for kids.
Speaker 1: Right now, you're a coach and you're coaching around wick
Speaker 1: and I just wanted to lay that down as a
Speaker 1: foundation straight up, because I want to talk to you
Speaker 1: about rugby union and the state of rugby union and
Speaker 1: being a coach. You can actually speak expertally on this
Speaker 1: as not just because you were also a player rugby
Speaker 1: union player at the highest level, but in terms of coaching.
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about coaching and where
Speaker 1: the rugby union game's gone. I can say to you honestly,
Speaker 1: back in the early eighties, I was an avid fan
Speaker 1: of rugby union as well as rugby league. In fact,
Speaker 1: I sponsored the rugby union side for a number of years,
Speaker 1: which that was my very first sponsorship but ever did
Speaker 1: But then it changed. Rugby unions changed me and I
Speaker 1: I have real interest in watching rugby game of rage
Speaker 1: union today, not just because I'm a Roagay league fans,
Speaker 1: but the game's changed. It has and I want to
Speaker 1: go back and ask you if you could go back
Speaker 1: to your your rugby union days when you're playing, when
Speaker 1: you're a kid playing you know, from Ramwick, et cetera,
Speaker 1: and or playing for Waverley whoever it was, But could
Speaker 1: you explain to me what the game was like then?
Speaker 1: And what I mean by that is in terms of flow,
Speaker 1: lack of interruptions, less rules, a lot of ball playing,
Speaker 1: not just about kicking, et cetera. Just give us a
Speaker 1: picture of what it was like when you fell in
Speaker 1: love with it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I grew up watching the you know, the great
Speaker 2: teams of Ramwick in the eighties and nineties. So that's
Speaker 2: what I learned exactly, like the Pointer Evens, the campez Is,
Speaker 2: the Knoxes, the names just go on and on, honestly,
Speaker 2: So they had the game, had a way of trying
Speaker 2: to keep the ball off the ground. It was about
Speaker 2: continuity of play that what does that mean? You'd be
Speaker 2: able to run and stand and set up them all
Speaker 2: and keep playing. Now you see the ball gat now
Speaker 2: I reckon. The biggest difference is it's you run at
Speaker 2: faces now you used to run at spaces, And there's
Speaker 2: a big difference. Like tacklings evolved. So we were taught
Speaker 2: as kids as a back rower chase the ball just
Speaker 2: be two or three meters behind the ball the whole time.
Speaker 2: Now because defense is improved and people are better at
Speaker 2: still in the football as in poach like they think
Speaker 2: of George Smith, Phil Ward, David Pocock in their peak.
Speaker 2: If they if someone was isolated at any stage of
Speaker 2: the game, a good on baller would get over the
Speaker 2: ball and steal it or get a penalty, so that
Speaker 2: would be most likely a stoppage. So players evolved to
Speaker 2: become really good over the ball. And I have this
Speaker 2: argument with my dad constantly about why the game has
Speaker 2: so much kicking if you don't kick the ball. So
Speaker 2: if you run the ball at the wrong part of
Speaker 2: the field or you're not you don't have enough support
Speaker 2: play around you. Just try and put in a league term.
Speaker 2: If you run and you're not near your dummy half
Speaker 2: and you get tackled not near you dumby half, you
Speaker 2: lose the ball.
Speaker 1: So you've got to be because they have better skills
Speaker 1: are taking away offensively.
Speaker 2: People are just better. It used to be like George
Speaker 2: Smith changed the game because he was number seven. He
Speaker 2: was an on baller, and then all of a sudden
Speaker 2: people were like, well, it doesn't have to be just
Speaker 2: George Smith. Hookers become on ballers.
Speaker 1: What's on balling right?
Speaker 2: Getting over the ball? Still in the football, getting that
Speaker 2: sort of jack they call it a jackal or a
Speaker 2: pill for position, And it was typically twenty years ago,
Speaker 2: it was probably one player in the field was good
Speaker 2: on the ball. Now there's ten to twelve. If you're
Speaker 2: not good on the ball and you can't slop the
Speaker 2: rock where you can't steal the ball, you get picked.
Speaker 2: So the game is evolve massively on that front. But
Speaker 2: there's also the fear of a player losing the ball.
Speaker 2: If in doubt, players will now run to someone and
Speaker 2: go on reset and try and get a new phase, another.
Speaker 1: Arch whereas they go to ground, they.
Speaker 2: Go to ground and that's right, they place it back
Speaker 2: And as I said, as a back rower, I just
Speaker 2: used to chase the ball, and now a lot of
Speaker 2: background as a coach to be you know, you go
Speaker 2: from this line out and you stay on this side
Speaker 2: of the field. We want one background on this side,
Speaker 2: we want one on the other, and we want one
Speaker 2: in the middle. So you kind of spread out a
Speaker 2: little bit more in they call it shape in shape
Speaker 2: and pods and I'm probably talking another language too, but
Speaker 2: to become way more structured, and I think the scrums
Speaker 2: are really slow part of the game at the moment.
Speaker 2: I think back to the years you watched it. It
Speaker 2: was and you don't have to go and watch footage.
Speaker 2: Whistles blown. Eight forwards get up and they'se going back
Speaker 2: a scrumb and it's almost if the contest happens once
Speaker 2: the ball, once they've hit their shoulders. And that used
Speaker 2: to take ten to twenty seconds to get that set.
Speaker 2: We're taking ninety seconds to get a scrum set now
Speaker 2: and then there's resets.
Speaker 1: Was that is it more about safety?
Speaker 2: Yeah, they made the gap really big. About my era
Speaker 2: of the gap was about a meter, and that was
Speaker 2: there's like two cars crashing into the meter, a lot
Speaker 2: of damage getting under players, a lot of sort of
Speaker 2: retirement from spine injuries and not necessarily like disability injuries,
Speaker 2: but just more wear and tear. So they tried to
Speaker 2: sort of shorten the gap, but it still takes a
Speaker 2: long time. It's a bit too technical to make it
Speaker 2: too quick.
Speaker 1: Shorten the gap in terms of before they engage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they want their gap to be like they
Speaker 2: used to be like that. Then they brought it to
Speaker 2: there and you go back to the eighties, the gap
Speaker 2: was sort of like that far away.
Speaker 1: So that's interesting. So that that's actually something that the
Speaker 1: I don't know whoever it is the referee or whoever
Speaker 1: controls the play safety, they've actually said to the referees,
Speaker 1: you don't let them engage or get ready to engage
Speaker 1: until they're close enough that they're not going to cause
Speaker 1: effectively too much damage to each other. Because when you
Speaker 1: think about it, there's probably a ton wait close enough.
Speaker 2: Honestly, on most packs are just under a ton. International
Speaker 2: packs about nine undred yos, and they sort of.
Speaker 1: Train to have as much force as possible and things
Speaker 1: can go wrong so quickly. Yeah, so that's a place.
Speaker 2: Yeah's play safety, but it's I haven't solved it, to
Speaker 2: be fair like, You've got to look back at what
Speaker 2: has worked in the past. And and I'm the same
Speaker 2: as you. I'll turn on a game and I'll get
Speaker 2: really frustrated. You can kill a game of rugby and fight.
Speaker 2: You can lose four to five minutes. At the end
Speaker 2: of a game, you think about it, your side has
Speaker 2: just gone up by three points the opposition. In rugby league,
Speaker 2: that's probably what two sets of each five minutes. You
Speaker 2: know you're going to have a crack. In rugby, you
Speaker 2: can manipulate the laws or how they're interpreted to kill
Speaker 2: a clock, and that's that's the disappointing aspect of the game.
Speaker 1: So if when you were playing, what is it about?
Speaker 1: I soon remember the term back in the eighties running rugby.
Speaker 1: That's sort of what's I found that attractive. You know,
Speaker 1: get the campezes and all, they're all the wingers to
Speaker 1: get the ball, actually get the ball. They weren't running,
Speaker 1: they weren't running to chase a kick or something, but
Speaker 1: that was actually getting out of them.
Speaker 2: There was more space for them because if you go
Speaker 2: back again look at some footage, one ruck would be
Speaker 2: at the moment. It's about how you can win your
Speaker 2: u with the least amount of numbers as possible. So
Speaker 2: you want the ball carrier plus two, and you go
Speaker 2: back and look at footage in the nineties, it's ball
Speaker 2: carry plus four, one, two, three, maybe a couple more
Speaker 2: forgeress get out of the way. They get out of
Speaker 2: the way, so there was more space out wider. But
Speaker 2: now those people that just come through to get out
Speaker 2: of the way, they're not there. They're out in the
Speaker 2: same place that the centers or the wingers want to be.
Speaker 1: So there's lots of lots of defensive coverage.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Like people say, one of the things that
Speaker 2: could solve rugby's problems, you could drop it to third end.
Speaker 2: You honestly could. Yeah, And but but people that for
Speaker 2: whatever reason, that's too much like rugby league, we can't
Speaker 2: consider it, or we widen the fields. It's probably a
Speaker 2: lot difficult to widen fields all around the world. Yeah,
Speaker 2: probably easy to take. But the it's never been considered
Speaker 2: because I think they would feel it's jumping into rugby
Speaker 2: league territory.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because it's it's but it's a it's a big game,
Speaker 1: a lot of followers globally I'm talking about and but
Speaker 1: it's losing followers and its losing therefore therefore losing attractiveness
Speaker 1: in terms of revenue and sportships, and therefore here.
Speaker 2: In particular here in here in his on a Yeah,
Speaker 2: globally it's going great, like World Cups are fantastic women's
Speaker 2: like there's so many aspects of the game that is
Speaker 2: really healthy. But you read Australian media in news Court,
Speaker 2: Fox Sports used to have the game. Since they've lost
Speaker 2: it then they're not on the stand now that's on
Speaker 2: stand now. But it's not a positive media. It's not
Speaker 2: positive in the media at the moment rugby but it
Speaker 2: isn't going great here in Australia at the professional level.
Speaker 2: Other levels of the game are great, but what we
Speaker 2: see on TV. All we see on TV is really
Speaker 2: super rugby and Test footy, and super rugby is probably
Speaker 2: the big one that's third in US. Test footy will
Speaker 2: always be healthy. But the Wallabies haven't been successful, so
Speaker 2: we're sort of seen and we're reacting to their performance
Speaker 2: of late. That's why the game is viewed as if
Speaker 2: it's not that healthier because the Wallabies aren't going well.
Speaker 2: Super rugby is the big problem.
Speaker 1: Why would you say that the Wallabies aren't going well? I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, let's just I mean, is it because of
Speaker 1: ten years ago? The kids who are growing up and
Speaker 1: who have now become Wallabies, they have not been done
Speaker 1: of the right skills or what's the case.
Speaker 2: No, like the international markets become very competitive, Like during
Speaker 2: my playing era, you could have got to Europe at
Speaker 2: the start your career, a couple of people going to
Speaker 2: France and a few people were starting to enter the
Speaker 2: Japanese league. Now like those markets are huge USA. He's
Speaker 2: got competitions, so that's not the global market is one
Speaker 2: of the reasons I would say, And again this is
Speaker 2: really polarizing because we've just cut a team as in
Speaker 2: Melbourne Rebels, we just not had went broke. They went
Speaker 2: broke and they've been broke. They've never been a financially
Speaker 2: successful model. So the game has been pouring money into
Speaker 2: and it's not just hurt Melbourne's hurting New South Wales.
Speaker 2: It's hurt the Brumbies, It's hurt everyone, and it's hurt
Speaker 2: Perth like person. I got Twiggy Forest there, who's obviously
Speaker 2: a very successful backer of the side. So we've never
Speaker 2: had the talent to sustain five elites to rugby teams.
Speaker 2: And when I think we brought in Melbourne because it
Speaker 2: was private money, it was Harold Mitchell, and I think
Speaker 2: the game view past a couple years ago, but down
Speaker 2: he held the license for a couple of years. Once
Speaker 2: he realized it wasn't working, he handed the license back
Speaker 2: over to Rugby Australia and they've been propping up the
Speaker 2: Rebels for a long long time. I just don't think
Speaker 2: we've had the talent at that elite level for five teams.
Speaker 2: When you think put it in this terms, there's five
Speaker 2: teams at the moment with a five moon dollar salary
Speaker 2: cap each versus sixteen RL teams with thirty moon dollar
Speaker 2: salary cap. How are you going to compete on that front.
Speaker 1: Well, why isn't they don't have the time, because is
Speaker 1: it because the pool of talent where the kids grow
Speaker 1: up in playing footy like is so still restricted to
Speaker 1: private schools.
Speaker 2: I think that I think the talent like, you've got
Speaker 2: kids at the schools that I went to, Waverly, THEES,
Speaker 2: the GPS, there's there's probably a dozen AFL players now
Speaker 2: that have come from Sales and GPS as non AFL players.
Speaker 2: They've gone and got the best locks. The kids that
Speaker 2: are going to be one ninety one to ninety five
Speaker 2: centimeters AFL teams have gone out. They've just got great
Speaker 2: recruitment tools. So all these young players, Like it's hard
Speaker 2: to get good tour players, a lot of them playing AFL,
Speaker 2: We've got enough good players for a really good club
Speaker 2: competition and that's I think club foot is excellent. It's
Speaker 2: healthy and it's thriving. But just at super rugby level,
Speaker 2: the five teams haven't been performing enough against the Kiwi
Speaker 2: teams and it definitely hasn't helped the Wallaby performance. You
Speaker 2: can't you can't argue that one. In the last the
Speaker 2: performance over the last ten years since we went from
Speaker 2: three teams it was Queensland, New South Wales and the
Speaker 2: Brumbies and then we went to Perth and then we
Speaker 2: rushed to Melbourne. A couple of these after Perth, and
Speaker 2: that was when you notice the player drain. It was
Speaker 2: probably it was probably easy for players to get contracts
Speaker 2: and they weren't going through that club system and getting
Speaker 2: the twenty thirty forty games of club footy where they're
Speaker 2: getting bashed up by a thirty year old, you know, whiley'
Speaker 2: getting hardened by playing second grade and third grade. A
Speaker 2: lot of kids were coming out of schools and because
Speaker 2: of the competition the offers from league, it was I've
Speaker 2: got an offer from South I've gone off from Roosters
Speaker 2: or Western forth. So I'm going to make a big offer.
Speaker 2: I'm going to stay in rugby and they'll get into
Speaker 2: Super Rugby probably a little bit quicker than it previously.
Speaker 1: And because they weren't hardened enough or at least experienced enough,
Speaker 1: I think so to play that level.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but then they weren't playing enough games. Super rugby
Speaker 2: is a sixteen game season and they weren't all getting
Speaker 2: sent back to play club footy and you go from
Speaker 2: why not, I don't know academies programs, all that sort
Speaker 2: of off season tours and all that sort of stuff
Speaker 2: and players being relocated to different parts of the country.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I think that's a big reason. Like the
Speaker 2: number of games you mentioned before, like forty game season
Speaker 2: for a kid is what you should be doing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I reckon at professional level you could go and
Speaker 2: do a survey. You've probably got maybe twenty percent of
Speaker 2: players who aren't the Wallabies. I'll use last year as
Speaker 2: an example. I got thirty minutes out of one professional
Speaker 2: player after the Super Rugby for the Ramicks season, got
Speaker 2: one player for thirty minutes.
Speaker 1: You can't say them you've got a gun play, No.
Speaker 2: They've got a one too. The game needs and to
Speaker 2: play World couple years a bit of an anomaly because
Speaker 2: they kept they were sort of wrapped up in Cotton
Speaker 2: wall They're in training camps and I don't expect to
Speaker 2: get the Wallabies, like the Wallabies are playing there, but
Speaker 2: the fringe players who were you know, they're following the
Speaker 2: Wallabies around and they're used for training sessions at the Wallabies.
Speaker 1: And as opponent, you've got.
Speaker 2: To squad a thirty five traveling round. It's like the
Speaker 2: Origin taking two sides, and then Trent Robbins had not
Speaker 2: been able to get access to the reserves the day
Speaker 2: after or the day before a Wallaby game because they're
Speaker 2: finding New Zealand next week and they've got a week
Speaker 2: off and then we're going to South Africa and I'm
Speaker 2: not sure about this play. So there's just always been
Speaker 2: that issue of not letting players get back and playing
Speaker 2: enough club footy after Super rugby.
Speaker 1: So it's it's mid part of me saying this says
Speaker 1: like a mess. To be honest, he no, because.
Speaker 2: I've got offender at that. Now that professional side of
Speaker 2: the game, it is like and you.
Speaker 1: Would say professionals, not at the club rugby level.
Speaker 2: Now the club rugby is awesome, like the perception of
Speaker 2: the modern day player, and that I got a complete shock,
Speaker 2: and in a good way. Of these guys get paid nothing.
Speaker 2: They train three nights a week, they get their weights
Speaker 2: in beforehand. Some of them are getting armed till midnight.
Speaker 2: They're finishing train at eight thirty. They're doing their weights
Speaker 2: till ten o'clock. They're getting up. They're going to work
Speaker 2: there on the tour at six am. They're the heartbeat
Speaker 2: of the game. And that's where I get to see
Speaker 2: that now, and club footy is always junior footy, women's
Speaker 2: forty seven. So many elements of the game is thriving
Speaker 2: and going really well, but we're just not seeing enough
Speaker 2: of it because we're seeing Super Rugby and Test footy
Speaker 2: on TV.
Speaker 1: What would you do in terms of Super Rugby.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a big part of me that thinks it's
Speaker 2: probably run its rays, to be honest.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, Super Rugby only came out in the
Speaker 2: mid nineties because of pay TV. Prior to that, if
Speaker 2: you played for New South Wales it was like Origin.
Speaker 2: You maybe got three games a year, you got a
Speaker 2: tour in New Zealand, maybe Argentina. Then we started this
Speaker 2: Super Ugby with New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, and
Speaker 2: I think the audience I was a kid, but everyone
Speaker 2: just was so excited about, you know, the best players
Speaker 2: in South Africa being in Sydney one week, and I
Speaker 2: just think over time it's probably a little bit stale.
Speaker 2: And I don't know if club footy has always been.
Speaker 2: They've tried all these different comps in between they've tried
Speaker 2: a couple of national club comps, petitions, but they've never
Speaker 2: tried competitions consistently with the jerseys that we're all familiar with,
Speaker 2: and everyone in the region has a you could be
Speaker 2: an East fan, you could be a Gordon fan, you
Speaker 2: could be a Brothers fan, or a University Queensland. Those
Speaker 2: jerseys and teams and supporters have been around for one
Speaker 2: hundred years, but we've never given them a crack to
Speaker 2: be in a national competition. We've tried all these different
Speaker 2: national competitions, but because we didn't want to alienate or
Speaker 2: offend some teams, because you can't have every club in
Speaker 2: a national camp, We've decided to start a national camp
Speaker 2: with eight new teams, eight new jerseys, the Sydney Rays,
Speaker 2: New South Vals Country which isn't New South VAL's Country,
Speaker 2: and Western Sydney Rams and all these teams that none
Speaker 2: of us have any affiliation with. So that hasn't worked.
Speaker 2: In terms of the Super Rugby, that's a really tough
Speaker 2: one because South Africa gone, they've gone up to the
Speaker 2: Northern Hemisphere now and they're playing in a great competition
Speaker 2: with the Welsh there gallicly with the Welsh, the Irish
Speaker 2: and the Scots, and they're now thriving and it's help
Speaker 2: South African rugby. I lived in America for a couple
Speaker 2: of years in twenty twenty and twenty one. I was
Speaker 2: coaching rugby over there, and I looked at what they
Speaker 2: were doing with their what they do with football or
Speaker 2: NFL or Gridin' sorry, I Reckon, we could copy something
Speaker 2: very similar Friday nights. We'll put it this way. I
Speaker 2: don't watch my school play. I can't. I'm coaching Ramick
Speaker 2: at the same time, so I don't. Your audience is
Speaker 2: fighting against each other all the time, so I can't
Speaker 2: watch Waverley play. But in America you can watch high
Speaker 2: school play because they play Friday nights. So you could
Speaker 2: run a good Friday night competition and you could still
Speaker 2: go down there, and if you're an East fan, you
Speaker 2: could go and watch East the next day and all
Speaker 2: those supporters that win and watch Scott's Verst Cranbrook, or
Speaker 2: they could go down and also watch East Verst Gordon
Speaker 2: on a Saturday. And you could put your pro footy
Speaker 2: on a Sunday like the NFL do, plus a couple
Speaker 2: like a Thursday night and Monday night. So grid On
Speaker 2: in America is never competing against each other for bums
Speaker 2: on seats or eyeballs. And they've got multiple channels covering
Speaker 2: It's not just Channel nine and Fox, it's not just Stand.
Speaker 2: They've got like five of Usit in five or six networks,
Speaker 2: Like one has a Thursday night game. There's no Friday
Speaker 2: night professional game football in America, Saturdays or college so
Speaker 2: you can watch everything as a football fan in the States,
Speaker 2: You've got to pick something I can't watch. I've got
Speaker 2: to watch Roundwick, I can't watch Waverley, and then I've
Speaker 2: got a rush home to get watch the wartaz you're
Speaker 2: on at five point thirty in New Zealand. All in
Speaker 2: the space of three hours.
Speaker 1: It's finishes there because you get a Scott's Joey's game. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and like it's packed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's packed, that's right.
Speaker 1: But if the if the bit of USA playing Ramwick
Speaker 1: on the same at the same time, someone's got to
Speaker 1: make a decision, right and neither one will be backed
Speaker 1: or they're going to go to one and not go
Speaker 1: to the other one. Yeah, but it sounds like we've
Speaker 1: got an administration problem here. Yeah, it sounds like a
Speaker 1: decision making problem at the top, and no one's prepared
Speaker 1: to make decisions. Is the reason they have the Super
Speaker 1: Rugby is The reason they have that though, is because
Speaker 1: they thought it was a product they could sell in
Speaker 1: terms of broadcasting.
Speaker 2: So that's where the money came in from. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: think it started. It was sort of like a Super
Speaker 2: League scenario. Yeah, there was going to be another competition
Speaker 2: after the ninety five World Cup and guys like Phil
Speaker 2: Kerns will speak better to this, but they're all brought
Speaker 2: into meetings are they're all about to walk and sign
Speaker 2: with another competition and then Super Rugby is born out
Speaker 2: of pay TV Fox Sports back in it a long
Speaker 2: long time ago, and so it was it was a
Speaker 2: revenue raiser and it helped the Wallabies because we had
Speaker 2: three teams and these guys went from being amateur to
Speaker 2: professional and it helped us win a ninety nine World
Speaker 2: Cup and we were sort of the leaders in the
Speaker 2: world of rugby. And then he made the finally No.
Speaker 2: Three and then it's sort of over time gradually just
Speaker 2: Yea disappeared into where it is now.
Speaker 1: Do you think it's the same issue in New Zealand?
Speaker 2: Then? Yeah, New Zealand's a weird one, like they they're
Speaker 2: going through they've got private equity money in New Zealand
Speaker 2: and so I know they've got They've had some really
Speaker 2: big challenges of late, they've had potential threats of other competitions.
Speaker 2: So that's when you're not to concern when you're watching
Speaker 2: really good these are the best players in the world.
Speaker 2: You're watching the Auckland Blues play against the act Brumby's
Speaker 2: round game and you're getting ten thousand people there. The
Speaker 2: Rumbies haven't lost. The Rumbies have lost like one or
Speaker 2: two home games. I'm going to say no more than
Speaker 2: four home games in the last three or four years,
Speaker 2: and that home final on the weekend and there would
Speaker 2: have been I say eight thousand people there. The Raiders
Speaker 2: will go there the next day and they'll get sixteen
Speaker 2: or eighteen thousand. That used to be the exact opposite.
Speaker 1: Well, last last yesterday on Monday, we had Cannaby based
Speaker 1: on play the Bulldogs play Power. Rememberre's forty five thousand
Speaker 1: people there at ac cour like a club games.
Speaker 2: This one's the other day forty two thousand.
Speaker 1: Amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we can get back to that.
Speaker 1: But what is it. I mean, there's something they've.
Speaker 2: Got to win. They've got to win. And again that
Speaker 2: goes back to the number of teams and the players
Speaker 2: that are getting spread out, and players are getting put
Speaker 2: in these teams a little bit too early. Because there's
Speaker 2: now five teams, you've sort of doubled the number of
Speaker 2: professional contracts. Well they have. They've gone from three teams
Speaker 2: to two plus a seven's program, so they've doubled the
Speaker 2: number of professional contracts in a ten year period. We
Speaker 2: haven't been producing. We haven't got a high number of participants.
Speaker 2: If anything, we've been plotoed because AFL and League and
Speaker 2: Soccer we're working hard to get our junior players or
Speaker 2: they're working hard to get access, so we haven't had
Speaker 2: the talent pool to go to five teams. That's hurt performance.
Speaker 2: People aren't silly that they want to go and see winners,
Speaker 2: and they want to go and see a good style
Speaker 2: of footy. The war Tar has got now they didn't
Speaker 2: have a good couple of years, but they're also three
Speaker 2: or four wins away from getting back up to twenty
Speaker 2: five thirty thousand people. Sidney's fickle, but do.
Speaker 1: You think, well, then I don't know who it was.
Speaker 1: I guess it is the AU, but they they did
Speaker 1: make an attempt the previous the previous administration of the AU,
Speaker 1: not the current administrator for war, but I'm talking about
Speaker 1: the previous administration of the AU. They went to Joseph Suali,
Speaker 1: or at least to his manager, and they're paying him
Speaker 1: to join rugby union, which is next year one point
Speaker 1: six a year. I mean, is that an attempt to
Speaker 1: sort of glamorize rugby union and try and bring back
Speaker 1: the supporters.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's a reflection of the previous administrator.
Speaker 2: It was a media player, like, he's a great talent,
Speaker 2: he's a rugby boy. Previously he's a king's boy. He's both. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I actually I was coaching the I was his seventh
Speaker 2: and he came in as a fifteen year old and
Speaker 2: did a session against us and was just like I
Speaker 2: went to tim Oles, she was their coach, So can
Speaker 2: we take him to I think we're playing in Dubai.
Speaker 2: I said no, I'm not allowed. He's too young. He
Speaker 2: was fifteen and he was ready to play. He was
Speaker 2: that good. Yeah. I think it's been a bit of
Speaker 2: as an ego negotiation, to be honest, and I don't
Speaker 2: think it was. I'm really happy he's coming to the game,
Speaker 2: but I'm also a bit fearful that the pressure that
Speaker 2: will be put on him because the game can't afford
Speaker 2: that salary.
Speaker 1: How has it worked, Like, if I'm in the team, the.
Speaker 2: Players are good like that, I think players like I
Speaker 2: don't think it's going to offend players. No, no, no,
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: What about if I'm going to negotiate my contract.
Speaker 2: Well, that's what's happening players in that position.
Speaker 1: He's at one point six, he hasn't played rugb Union
Speaker 1: Sea at school.
Speaker 2: It hasn't just cost the game one point six. It's
Speaker 2: cost the game a lot more because plays just in
Speaker 2: position like Mark and nolanyass now gone to the roosters.
Speaker 2: Jorgensen young kid who could have gone the roosters like
Speaker 2: these are the same.
Speaker 1: Position Jorganson's sign up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but they've all gone in and the agent's
Speaker 2: all gone in and said, right, well he's now he's
Speaker 2: one point six my player.
Speaker 1: Well as we're starting boy now five or six, you know.
Speaker 2: So it's definitely it won't hurt. He'll be really well
Speaker 2: accepted from a playing group in rugby, Rugby great like that.
Speaker 2: It'll just be the constant media scrutiny that he's already
Speaker 2: get in it'll be that And I just don't know
Speaker 2: if I just hope it's an enjoyable experience for him,
Speaker 2: but he could be a superstar of the game. But
Speaker 2: at the same time, one point six million bucks and
Speaker 2: Rugby astraightia, I think they'll parayed off like a fifty
Speaker 2: or sixty million dollars a year. They've only just they've
Speaker 2: got no money. They borrowed eighty million dollars. So let's
Speaker 2: say they're operating off fifty million bucks a year. You've
Speaker 2: got one point six million dollars at fifty going to
Speaker 2: one player.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a lot. Yeah, and then everybody else is
Speaker 1: going to go up from there. So they're all going
Speaker 1: to say, well, that's one point six on one point
Speaker 1: one or on one point two, or I'm more than
Speaker 1: I'm currently more than what I'm more than i'm currently getting,
Speaker 1: So are you paying more?
Speaker 2: And the scariest thing about all of these negotiations for
Speaker 2: players is if Rugby straight don't pay it, Panasonic in
Speaker 2: Japan will pay it. Some tory to lose to Lon Northampton,
Speaker 2: will they paid this some money? The paying money most
Speaker 2: people in Australian rugby could be getting more money elsewhere.
Speaker 2: Oh really, Yeah, that's the scary thing about this, Like
Speaker 2: the overseas market.
Speaker 1: He's so much stronger, Like when you say you just
Speaker 1: mentioned some franchise, But is that because of the conversion
Speaker 1: of the dollar or.
Speaker 2: The probably ownly they' got largest salary caps, they've got
Speaker 2: bigger TV deals, Like there's there's money in the game
Speaker 2: of rugby. Yeah, just just not here.
Speaker 1: So we just lost another one of our players to
Speaker 1: Japanese rugby rusters half and yeah, and I remember Craig
Speaker 1: win Wing played there for a long time and it's
Speaker 1: one of the things I found quite interesting is that
Speaker 1: when you told me that he didn't play many games.
Speaker 2: I was going to say, and it's sort of preserved
Speaker 2: for one hundred percent right now.
Speaker 1: Body was good.
Speaker 2: The Japanese season is probably a six game trial, eight
Speaker 2: to twelve game season. Maybe cut the game playoff. You're
Speaker 2: doing fifteen to twenty games like that, or you're doing
Speaker 2: thirty games and dummy half for the roost? Is that again, Graves?
Speaker 2: So you do a lot of guys do like they
Speaker 2: go there and the Japanese model is actually quite good.
Speaker 2: It's businesses. It's company owned and there's employees and the locals.
Speaker 2: The locals are playing. They come out of college, they
Speaker 2: the good rugby players and then they get jobs for life.
Speaker 2: So they got half the club amateur. They work, they
Speaker 2: train in the morning, they put the suit on, they
Speaker 2: go and work for the company Toyota or Panasonic or Cannon,
Speaker 2: and then they come back in after work and the
Speaker 2: pros join them after hours, and they trained like club teams.
Speaker 1: Does if did you ever think yourself that you should
Speaker 1: have gone up to Japan to.
Speaker 2: I had a couple of chances, but there was always
Speaker 2: that rule that if you were playing overseas, you can
Speaker 2: get picked for Australia, and I just always like no,
Speaker 2: I just would never have felt comfortable. And as it
Speaker 2: turns out, I never played that many games for Australia,
Speaker 2: but I just wouldn't have still did Yeah, I played it,
Speaker 2: but I wouldn't have. I just know what I was like.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't have been happy with myself if I moved
Speaker 2: over wherever and I was playing great foota and I
Speaker 2: couldn't play Hey well they did play play well, yeah,
Speaker 2: like the offers were always better. But now I never
Speaker 2: played overseas. I missed a few straight with an injury,
Speaker 2: so I sort of missed about three and a half
Speaker 2: of straight so that might have been the time when
Speaker 2: I did go overseas. But young family, I was sort
Speaker 2: of always I don't know, I was always happy playing here.
Speaker 1: So when I look at rugby league players who go
Speaker 1: off to play rugby union, what is the I mean, say,
Speaker 1: but Williams is probably one of the greatest examples, But
Speaker 1: what is the attraction part from the fact he's just
Speaker 1: a pretty skilled dude. What's the general attraction for rugby
Speaker 1: union to bring in a rugby league player? Is it
Speaker 1: because of the defense pattern that rugby league sort of builds.
Speaker 2: No, I think athletically, like, they're not very they're not
Speaker 2: dissimilar games. If you can teach someone the basics of
Speaker 2: the ruck and you can and a lot of these guys,
Speaker 2: like I did say, Joe Money might have played as
Speaker 2: a kid. So a lot of guys and girls his
Speaker 2: day and age are playing both. As a young Crichton
Speaker 2: for example, yeah, exactly, Like He's probably the difficulting with
Speaker 2: Angus is he was a back row or a center
Speaker 2: in union. So when he sort of looked at coming
Speaker 2: back to rugby. No one really knows what he is.
Speaker 2: And that's big too. Yeah, I mean he's got bigger,
Speaker 2: very big. Yeah, yeah, he said. I think there's very
Speaker 2: the professional that they're the best athletes. Some of them
Speaker 2: are the best athletes in the world. I think you
Speaker 2: can look at who they are as the character, as people,
Speaker 2: and if they're a good league player and they've got
Speaker 2: a desired to learn rugby, it'll work out for him
Speaker 2: and vice versa. You know, like not necessarily too many big,
Speaker 2: tight forwards because of the body shape, but almost anyone
Speaker 2: from number six through to fifteen in rugby could, I
Speaker 2: reckon could turn out to be a decent league player.
Speaker 1: Is that when you say six to fifteen, you're talking.
Speaker 2: About back rows on the back roun.
Speaker 1: But one of the things I know is about rugby input.
Speaker 1: They're big, Yeah, especially the front row is shorter and wider.
Speaker 1: Probably couldn't probably don't have.
Speaker 2: The league, they wouldn't be able to do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't have leagues. But the guys behind them, they're
Speaker 1: not only tall.
Speaker 2: But they're big locks. One hundred and twenty ko much
Speaker 2: six eight. That's the sort of standard world sized lock
Speaker 2: is six 't eight one twenty.
Speaker 1: How do those individuals convert into.
Speaker 2: Rugby league then, nah, they wouldn't. There's very few examples
Speaker 2: of those. There's more examples of those guys being unsuccessful
Speaker 2: over the US just because the up and back nature
Speaker 2: of the on side up and back in ten and
Speaker 2: ad middedly like the big front railers in rugby, they
Speaker 2: could trim down. But typically speaking like that's why rugby
Speaker 2: is such a unique game. There is a sport within
Speaker 2: a sport, scrummaging. And I appreciate scrumaging way more now
Speaker 2: as a coach because I was in scrums, I was
Speaker 2: at the back. I didn't didn't do as much as
Speaker 2: others did, but you learn the importance. So you can
Speaker 2: win and lose a game on a good or bad
Speaker 2: scrum in the modern Dave rugby. And so I do
Speaker 2: love the contest that rugby provides there. But in terms
Speaker 2: of athletic ability, those guys that would be too big
Speaker 2: elite for them to go from rugby union to.
Speaker 1: Relieve and do you think therefore, but there's is that
Speaker 1: part of the downfall of rugby union. I mean in
Speaker 1: terms of a spectator sport. This is too about Australia
Speaker 1: obviously because other parts of the world maybe not the case.
Speaker 1: But in rugby league, everyone's pretty much the same apar
Speaker 1: from your half back and maybe a fullback, but generally speaking,
Speaker 1: your outside backs and you most of your forwards except
Speaker 1: maybe the hooker doumby half, they're all pretty much They're
Speaker 1: all about same size. They're about one hundred plus kilos. They
Speaker 1: all can run twelve seconds hundred meters. They're all big
Speaker 1: and strong and robust, and it's become a bit of
Speaker 1: the same game, and it's very fast and it flows
Speaker 1: and it doesn't because, by the way, this is what
Speaker 1: the physiques of the rguy league players can do. They
Speaker 1: can just keep rolling, keep rolling. It's a good spectator game.
Speaker 1: Rugby union still is very pure. Your front three they're all,
Speaker 1: you know, one hundred and twenty kilos, but they're all
Speaker 1: five foot eight five nine, and then your back rolls tall,
Speaker 1: tall guys, and then your back line is similar sort
Speaker 1: of players what they were when they were playing school boys.
Speaker 1: They were good runners. They can run the ball, and
Speaker 1: they can kick the ball then catch the ball. So
Speaker 1: do you think rugby unions stayed too pure?
Speaker 2: I think it's a harder game for the audience to understand.
Speaker 2: That's probably the big challenge in rugby at the moment,
Speaker 2: you know, like just to sit there and watch it.
Speaker 2: No one likes to No one likes to watch sport
Speaker 2: and not not understand.
Speaker 1: It that that's s more technical.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, Like in terms of rules, like what was
Speaker 2: that penalty for? Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Just sometimes you don't know.
Speaker 2: Sometimes ends you sitting in a game of rugby. I
Speaker 2: was a World Cup, what's that penalty for? And you're
Speaker 2: like it could be for a number of things, and
Speaker 2: you argue. You sit there with mates that you've that
Speaker 2: you view some people who's really good rugby analysts, experts,
Speaker 2: and you'll argue other penalties, you know, and I suppose
Speaker 2: that still happens in rugby league. We've put downs and
Speaker 2: was his foot in or out? Like, but it's.
Speaker 1: Not it's not more technicalist. It's not an easy he
Speaker 1: fucked it up, he made a mistake, yeah, and.
Speaker 2: In rugby it's not that easy. He's okay. The biggest
Speaker 2: issue with rugby is it's probably the hardest sport in
Speaker 2: the world to referee. No sport in the world can
Speaker 2: a game be influenced by the referee and again I
Speaker 2: go back to the USA model. In an NFL game,
Speaker 2: there's a dumpires they're all responsible for something. Rugby league,
Speaker 2: I've tried two referees and they've gone back and said,
Speaker 2: we don't want that. Rugby hasn't. I know, they've apparently
Speaker 2: have tried it in some competitions. I think we've got
Speaker 2: to start trying those sort of things. You know, it's
Speaker 2: that hard a game. We always know, so as a
Speaker 2: coach one of the first things I do, I look
Speaker 2: at the referee before I look at the opposition on
Speaker 2: a Saturday.
Speaker 1: Because you've study that referee.
Speaker 2: We just know what they're sort of. They've got key
Speaker 2: interpretations that they're a little bit stricter on some more
Speaker 2: strict drops on off side. Some are a bit more
Speaker 2: strictly with going off your feet of the rock. Some
Speaker 2: are strict on coming and clean out from the side.
Speaker 2: So that's that in itself, like the referees are not
Speaker 2: doing anything that they're not doing anything wrong. This is
Speaker 2: it's a hard game for them to manage. I can't
Speaker 2: think of a game in the world that's harder to
Speaker 2: referee than rugby.
Speaker 1: Therefore makes it a lot more difficult as a spectator game.
Speaker 1: That's right, and you're own spectators in terms of money
Speaker 1: and TV rights, and because the TV companies don't give
Speaker 1: a shit as long as they've got people washing, I'll
Speaker 1: pay you a lot of money if you can give
Speaker 1: me a lot of content. And that content is what
Speaker 1: once to be watched, and people will stop watching it
Speaker 1: if they don't understand it. I mean, I go back
Speaker 1: to much more simpler days, and we used to watch
Speaker 1: it was you know, the camp's and all that sort
Speaker 1: of people much simply aim it was and it was easy,
Speaker 1: easy to watch for me.
Speaker 2: And it's just becomes it's become. Yeah, it's a challenging.
Speaker 2: It's a challenging game to adjudicate. And you're on your
Speaker 2: own out there, and you've got this there's so many
Speaker 2: you've got linesmen, all the court rs and our system referees,
Speaker 2: and they're responsible for offside. But at any given rock,
Speaker 2: you pulled up five clips now and you showed me
Speaker 2: a penalty, I could I could agree or disagree, and
Speaker 2: I could find one or two other infringements at that
Speaker 2: same ruck. And so it's a bit like, well, what
Speaker 2: what was the most cynical penalty there? What one affected
Speaker 2: the outcome of the game. What deserved to be blown.
Speaker 2: Like some sometimes referees will have excellent games to a
Speaker 2: spectator and they'll be hauled in from their coaches and go,
Speaker 2: you let all these things go.
Speaker 1: That was so what's the answer to that? Then we said,
Speaker 1: but who is making all this technical?
Speaker 2: Well, look, there's the problem with rugby is that it's
Speaker 2: if then I all want to change a rule, what
Speaker 2: do they do? They go to more Park and they
Speaker 2: change it. It's changing Then can change rules in a
Speaker 2: week Rugby have to go through like a by law,
Speaker 2: they have to go through a trial period. So we're
Speaker 2: now Sydney All Club rugby playing a tackle law below
Speaker 2: the sternam. Any tackle above the sternam is a penalty.
Speaker 2: So I'll have players that play for the war Retars
Speaker 2: on a Friday night that tackle normally and then come
Speaker 2: down and plane.
Speaker 1: So club rugby is different to the Red rug rugby
Speaker 1: this year. It is in terms of the So any
Speaker 1: of other surnam is a penalty. Yeah, so because of
Speaker 1: their trying to protect the head.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but then there's a flip side of it. The
Speaker 2: tall guys that we just mentioned, the six eights, they've
Speaker 2: got to now bend their back a little bit more.
Speaker 2: They're they're the ones is a little bit more vulnerable
Speaker 2: getting knees to the head because they've got to become
Speaker 2: legs tackles all of a sudden. So it's not easy.
Speaker 2: And so this is just one example of how the
Speaker 2: game and for this to be approved it needs to
Speaker 2: go through a trial period World Rugby. And every time
Speaker 2: Australia understand it, like we Australia New Zealand, we want
Speaker 2: the game to flow because that's what we compete against.
Speaker 2: And every time something goes to get changed the Northern
Speaker 2: Hemisphere who prefer a different style of rugby. And if
Speaker 2: there's a board of ten and there's six from the
Speaker 2: Northern Hemisphere, where to the six vote? So there's always
Speaker 2: this push back. One international you need, you need to
Speaker 2: change the laws. They need to be sanctioned by.
Speaker 1: World Rugby, all right.
Speaker 2: So there's the problem just there. You're never going to
Speaker 2: because the Norlon Hemisphere everything that we don't like kick
Speaker 2: to the corner and there's a more Austrains will go
Speaker 2: go to the bathroom during during that they'll go get
Speaker 2: a beer, whereas the North they start cheering when there's
Speaker 2: a more scrum or a more five meters out because
Speaker 2: it's just you know, the conditions over the years, the weather,
Speaker 2: the style of footy that have been successful in a nation.
Speaker 2: It's different to our style of footy.
Speaker 1: Do you do you think? I mean you just mentioned
Speaker 1: that the tackle height, which I'm on the NRL's Concussion Committee,
Speaker 1: which is part of the Player Safety Group, so it's
Speaker 1: a subcommittee part of that, and we often talk about
Speaker 1: the AARU rules or union rules relative to tackle heights
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. And at this stage, well we
Speaker 1: have not bought a ruling like you guys have bought
Speaker 1: that ruling. Is it has Rugby Union become a nanny state?
Speaker 2: Ex player I look at uh, I do think leger
Speaker 2: in I reckon there's going to be some issues in the.
Speaker 1: League and don't want to get hit in the head.
Speaker 1: I get that. None I think there's going to bestern
Speaker 1: and blood.
Speaker 2: No, don't. I don't necessarily agree with the stern because
Speaker 2: of the height of some players. I don't agree with that.
Speaker 2: I do agree with how Rugby are managing protocol for
Speaker 2: head knocks.
Speaker 1: Well, we're doing the same now, so we've got the
Speaker 1: same eleven days.
Speaker 2: But when the shoulder charge you got taken out of
Speaker 2: rugby league. Yeah, I thought this is terrible that this
Speaker 2: was some of the best highlights, but now you think about.
Speaker 1: It, No, it had to happen, Yeah, because.
Speaker 2: It was an unfair advantage for someone to be able
Speaker 2: to load up, not have any technique involved and knock
Speaker 2: the lights out of someone.
Speaker 1: Else or someone Dylan app six foot eight.
Speaker 2: It's still tough. You've still seeing really tough players make
Speaker 2: really good hits in rugby league without shoulder charge, and
Speaker 2: so I think we learned to evolve as spectators. There
Speaker 2: are definitely parts of the game where do you.
Speaker 1: Think above the stoneam is below the steam? I should say,
Speaker 1: is going too far?
Speaker 2: Like yeah, there's a I.
Speaker 1: Mean like if you hit around the top of the chest,
Speaker 1: what's wrong?
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, it's everything. Everything I coached last year was
Speaker 2: had to be thrown out the window at the start
Speaker 2: of this year. And you know, we had a good
Speaker 2: year last year. It won the comp on the back
Speaker 2: of defense, and it had to be changed when an
Speaker 2: email came around in middle of January this year. So
Speaker 2: there's I'm sort of of the opinion. I'm happy to
Speaker 2: a bit like when I'm saying I think we should
Speaker 2: try things like two or three referees. I'm happy to
Speaker 2: try things like that to see if it works. But
Speaker 2: there are parts of me the Yeah, there's a lot
Speaker 2: of things like the contact in the air where there's
Speaker 2: the red card. A lot of things have been tried
Speaker 2: in rugby. Whether they're bringing the twenty minute red card
Speaker 2: where you get an low card and then they go
Speaker 2: and get tim to assess if it gets upgraded to red.
Speaker 1: So I think world rugby quite long when they get
Speaker 1: is that the one where if you get sent off
Speaker 1: you get a red card, someone else can come in
Speaker 1: twenty minutes, someone else can come back on. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: quite like that. That would have been the other night original.
Speaker 1: I mean, I saw him.
Speaker 2: What are some things they're doing. They're doing something that's a.
Speaker 1: Good rule, but a good example. I'm not excusing what
Speaker 1: Joseph Slily did, but you know that Joseph six foot six, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know Respuls was like much smaller and real
Speaker 1: slipped because of Joseph's height, and maybe we'll be there
Speaker 1: was some recklessness in there, but he didn't adjust and
Speaker 1: probably but very hard to adjust mid flight. And I
Speaker 1: would have thought in rugbies. Everyone sick. There's a whole
Speaker 1: lot of guys that tall and and but there's alsose
Speaker 1: guys much shorter. So I would have thought to himself
Speaker 1: that would be a real danger. Not being able to
Speaker 1: tackle above the sternum.
Speaker 2: It's really difficult.
Speaker 1: But has a referee see that?
Speaker 2: Like yeah, and it's not fair the referees because these
Speaker 2: guys like they're now got to go and police something
Speaker 2: completely different. So whether it will be the thing is
Speaker 2: like when wild rugby started, there's a few nations did
Speaker 2: it before us. Everyone's sort of trying to be politically correct.
Speaker 2: So I don't disagree with why they did it. I
Speaker 2: don't think it's made it any better or worse at
Speaker 2: the moment. It's going to take years to work that out.
Speaker 1: But is it an egg extential threat to rugby union?
Speaker 1: With the rules, all the new rules that are coming in,
Speaker 1: You know, everything just keeps flowing in the joint. I
Speaker 1: know it will it last, it'll last globally.
Speaker 2: We just the fear is that we don't get it
Speaker 2: right and we become a sport that isn't in the
Speaker 2: sort of realm of one of the big sports, and
Speaker 2: we just can't fight our way way out to get
Speaker 2: back in the top three in the world, like we
Speaker 2: sat there for fifteen years. That's the threat. The global
Speaker 2: threat is not there. And again, I love my league.
Speaker 2: I get disappointed with the league, the perception of league
Speaker 2: to union. And like I'm a Isie kid, I love
Speaker 2: watching my league. I don't reckon. Too many league boys
Speaker 2: sit there and I'm proud to say that they like
Speaker 2: watching rugby. I reckon it's a little bit of a
Speaker 2: it's a badge of honor to say our rugby sucks
Speaker 2: and the game is really unhealthy to pro level globally.
Speaker 2: Was on a spare seat at the World Cup, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. Like the game is really healthy.
Speaker 2: We've just got a big performal. When the Wallabies sounds silly.
Speaker 2: There's a lot to fix to make the Wallaby successful.
Speaker 2: But if the Wallabies are successful, it'll be a popular.
Speaker 1: Sport all the way.
Speaker 2: Guy I think he is because he's he saw him
Speaker 2: play like. He's a pretty tenacious sort of fella. He's
Speaker 2: going to have to make some enemies like he did
Speaker 2: on the footy field. He's got to be prepared to
Speaker 2: be unpopular. But I think the current chairman is Daniel
Speaker 2: Herbert and Phil war You just got to give him.
Speaker 2: We've got to stick with him. We've had so much turnover,
Speaker 2: disappointed with how the last administration went down, like that
Speaker 2: whole playing the stuff in the media and taking pot
Speaker 2: shots at League and trying to play the intelligence we
Speaker 2: didn't like. It's still hurting us now, like it's you
Speaker 2: don't you don't poke the bear and you sort of
Speaker 2: show respect to where League are and Valandis is doing
Speaker 2: a fantastic job, and I think we became that. That
Speaker 2: is probably half the reason a lot of League fans
Speaker 2: hate Rugby the moment because how our former chairman was
Speaker 2: out there disrespecting the intelligence of another code. Like I
Speaker 2: just thought that was poor taste and rugby has never
Speaker 2: been about that.
Speaker 1: I want to do a complete switch now that you
Speaker 1: Stevie Hills, you co founded a business called Recovery outside
Speaker 1: of rugby League. Well, it's sort of a Rugby and
Speaker 1: the regul league. It's it's nothing to do with what
Speaker 1: you do day to day, I guess, but it is
Speaker 1: something you do day to day. What's recovery.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a it's a wellness center that has a
Speaker 2: group in large sized ice bar, saunas, hyperbaric chamber, compression boots.
Speaker 2: It's basically what we've all seen for years that was
Speaker 2: accessible at SFS Footy Stadium, you know, the shared hot
Speaker 2: tarb on the sauna. And I just retired out of
Speaker 2: I've been if I've had a couple of gym franchises.
Speaker 2: I've had been involved in Anytime Fitness and forty five
Speaker 2: and about to open a strong Parties of Parties Wellness
Speaker 2: and strong brand yeap, Can I open that soon? In Couldji?
Speaker 2: And I just over time when I went through retiring
Speaker 2: and body was broken and wasn't able to access a
Speaker 2: lot of the services that I was getting as a
Speaker 2: full time footy player, found it difficult to actually go
Speaker 2: and find these places. Just watched the emergence of saunas
Speaker 2: popping up here and there, some cryo machines and we
Speaker 2: didn't have Crome machines, and I just I always knew
Speaker 2: that I sparse worked and yeah, we just saw what
Speaker 2: you got.
Speaker 1: What's in What's how many how many sites you got?
Speaker 2: We've got Cuji, Cronella and Manly three sites in. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we've got at least signed in LA.
Speaker 1: So what's what's the site got inside, so I walk
Speaker 1: in as a membership. How's it work.
Speaker 2: It's both it's membership, it's casual walking off the street,
Speaker 2: or it's multi packs like parties and yoga model. You
Speaker 2: buy membership, you can come two, three times, we can
Speaker 2: come unlimited. There's different type of memberships. Half our revenue
Speaker 2: comes from memberships and half comes from walkings off the
Speaker 2: street or multi packs, which is good because they're all
Speaker 2: paying different prices and members will be able to come
Speaker 2: as many times they want throughout the week. You might
Speaker 2: not want to come. It might be something you only
Speaker 2: do four times a month, so you just buy a
Speaker 2: multipack where you pay once as you're coming off the street.
Speaker 2: It's a bit. It's honestly very much similar to what
Speaker 2: you would have seen at the Alians or the Sydney
Speaker 2: Footy Stadium. Spa backs got a large ice bath like
Speaker 2: they can fit put it so we can get a
Speaker 2: rugby team in and out in forty five minutes. So
Speaker 2: you can get you've got three or four saunas, you've
Speaker 2: got two or three ice bus. One might be three
Speaker 2: five ten degrees. You've got to be hot bath that
Speaker 2: could be forty degrees and then you've got a room outside.
Speaker 2: It's got twelve recliner chairs with compression boots, and we've
Speaker 2: got a lease signed in the States. And there's sort
Speaker 2: of the IV therapy, the longevity side, the drip, yeah,
Speaker 2: the drip, there's all that sort of stuff that he's
Speaker 2: starting to become a little bit more mainstream.
Speaker 1: Now that's not in Australia.
Speaker 2: No, we've done in Australia. We've tried it and we've
Speaker 2: sort of taken some data on it.
Speaker 1: See Vitamin C and B twelve shots blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's become a newsyum. It's becoming a little
Speaker 2: bit more popular here, but still over in the States,
Speaker 2: it's it's pretty common everywhere.
Speaker 1: I sayd because Caesar's Palace and I went was walking
Speaker 1: to the gym. There was a center right there. You
Speaker 1: can go and get it. There's about thirty different injections, infusions,
Speaker 1: you can get every vitamin in the world. Things I've
Speaker 1: never even heard of. And you I didn't go in,
Speaker 1: but like it just I was tempted to, but like
Speaker 1: it was just everything was set out there. It was
Speaker 1: pretty amazing. But there was people in there. I saw
Speaker 1: people in there, so recovery is it's not just recovering,
Speaker 1: it's just for health and world.
Speaker 2: So I guess at the end of the day, and
Speaker 2: so like what we sort of thought initially, we probably
Speaker 2: thought it'd be like the gym junk of the weekend warrior,
Speaker 2: like we've now been a big a big day on
Speaker 2: a Saturday of Sunday is like a couple hundred guests.
Speaker 2: People come through the door, and I would say thirty
Speaker 2: percent of those people are there not because they've got
Speaker 2: an injury, just because they want to stay on top
Speaker 2: of their mental health. So Monday mornings just to start
Speaker 2: their routine, just to go and sit in a nice
Speaker 2: for ten minutes in a thirty minute book in you go.
Speaker 2: Everyone's got their own routine. We don't We don't tell
Speaker 2: people what the right time is. It's up to the
Speaker 2: individual work.
Speaker 1: They've got a book in there.
Speaker 2: You've got a book in yeah, And there's there's private
Speaker 2: book ins where you can get your own room and
Speaker 2: you get your own sawn and your own punchball. Or
Speaker 2: you could be sitting in there tomorrow and you could
Speaker 2: be sitting there with a famous ones player would be
Speaker 2: sitting in there, and you might love that but someone
Speaker 2: your your partner might not like that. Yeah, there's private
Speaker 2: facilities and there's shared facilities.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so but it's ice bath in between the bread traditionally.
Speaker 2: Saw in our steam room in forred we've got all
Speaker 2: of them. And you've got the boots you got normally
Speaker 2: the compression boots, and you've got to you've got chain,
Speaker 2: and we've got a drive float bed so you know
Speaker 2: those flat positive Yeah, we've got a drive version of that,
Speaker 2: which is a hot water bed.
Speaker 1: And let's just put the infusions aside. But I mean
Speaker 1: that could be for the future. But is there other
Speaker 1: other professional aspects to it, like, for example, you can
Speaker 1: get the consultations with someone about my blood my blood count.
Speaker 2: In the States. That'll be the longevity side of it.
Speaker 2: That'll be We're open our first one later this year
Speaker 2: in Los ange I was living there for a couple
Speaker 2: of years and I sort of noticed when I was there,
Speaker 2: I was coaching the rugby team. I couldn't get a
Speaker 2: couldn't find a large sized ice bath in the whole
Speaker 2: of Los Angeles unless you got the Lakers' facility or
Speaker 2: LA and it was impossible. So we spent four hours
Speaker 2: trying to get a rugby team through the day before
Speaker 2: a Grand final, and there's a few competitors over there,
Speaker 2: but they're more the private suites like day spa small sauna,
Speaker 2: small one person plunge and they can fit three people
Speaker 2: at a time, and they might have a room that
Speaker 2: has three or four of those, whereas you walk into
Speaker 2: ours and you've got it can fit the same number
Speaker 2: of people that can just that have just left a
Speaker 2: group training class of thirty people see large people in
Speaker 2: a short period of time. Therefore you can charge them
Speaker 2: a little bit less of what the competitors.
Speaker 1: Sort of like the Gary Brecker thing, like he's just
Speaker 1: a bit more full than that. He gets a whole
Speaker 1: lot of other stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that'll be a big part of what the
Speaker 2: first one in Los Angeles. There's a medical director who's
Speaker 2: involved in the business now and he will he will
Speaker 2: trade his medical concierge business outside of our first one
Speaker 2: in the States, and that'll be part of our membership
Speaker 2: will be you get a consultation with the doctor your
Speaker 2: blood's taken. So that's pure in America because they're probably
Speaker 2: a little bit more. Can you do that, You can
Speaker 2: do it here, but it's a whole different. We haven't
Speaker 2: got a medical director as part of our so we're
Speaker 2: sort of working through that. But you need a license
Speaker 2: doctor and then you need a registered nurse to go
Speaker 2: through all of those things. So we haven't hit go
Speaker 2: on that in Australia yet because we've been we've enjoyed
Speaker 2: the success that could your manly have had. We're looking
Speaker 2: we've got more sites coming and potential more in the
Speaker 2: in the North America region and it's been excited. Anything
Speaker 2: to talk to Tim again, Yeah, unfortunately I don't talk
Speaker 2: to him about that.
Speaker 1: Could you go and talk to Tim? Timmy, I'm probably listening.
Speaker 1: So am I just mucking around?
Speaker 2: Mate?
Speaker 1: It's all good? So can you just explain though, how
Speaker 1: ex rabunion player can't route and coach? How do you
Speaker 1: get involved with something like recovery? Oh? What's the true?
Speaker 2: How did I?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 2: I had other gym so I missed three and a
Speaker 2: half years with an achilles injury at like the age
Speaker 2: of twenty eight. Two kids at the time. It was
Speaker 2: like a tough period, but I sort of knew this
Speaker 2: rugby thing won't last forever. And I also knew what
Speaker 2: I was like at school. I was on a good
Speaker 2: student sport kept me, got me into a lot of detentions,
Speaker 2: but I sport was sort of what really kept me
Speaker 2: on track at school. And I just knew I'd never
Speaker 2: be a good nine to five person. I just wouldn't
Speaker 2: thrive in that environment. So I invested and opened my
Speaker 2: first gym. It was twenty four hour gym. While I
Speaker 2: was in Canberra. I was playing the Brumbies. I was
Speaker 2: an injured player. I did that. I didn't got out
Speaker 2: of that one. I was down the South Coast and
Speaker 2: I got out of that brand and went to a
Speaker 2: forty five. I just sort of started to see the
Speaker 2: high number of people that were taking up gym memberships,
Speaker 2: and then all you kept here and talking to good
Speaker 2: friends at the physios and cairos was the high number
Speaker 2: of people that were gym membership. And then two three
Speaker 2: months later we're booking themselves in for regular physio or Cairo.
Speaker 2: So this self maintenance part of what we learned to
Speaker 2: do with rugby player. That's what you get good at.
Speaker 2: You get good at being able to push yourself but
Speaker 2: then work how to get yourself back into shape as
Speaker 2: quickly as possible. I just realized that there is a
Speaker 2: market here for people that are now starting to be
Speaker 2: really conscious of not how they look, but how they feel.
Speaker 2: And then COVID came like two months after through open Coujie,
Speaker 2: and we're right next door to a gym forty five
Speaker 2: and recovery next to each other, and we owned both them,
Speaker 2: and the numbers were pretty even for membership and whatnot.
Speaker 2: Pre COVID post COVID, it just went wellness just went
Speaker 2: through the roof. People just started to become so concerned
Speaker 2: and aware of how they were feeling and what they
Speaker 2: needed to do to feel better physically that it became
Speaker 2: part of their routine. And we're sort of seeing that now,
Speaker 2: like the amount of education and what you can learn
Speaker 2: about what is good for your physical health becomes good
Speaker 2: for your mental health and vice versa. And we're an
Speaker 2: aging population. You know, have you ice bath before? Yeah? Yeahps,
Speaker 2: but thirty years ago.
Speaker 1: Maybe I did when I was paying putty, But like
Speaker 1: generally speaking, though, you had to go to a particular facility.
Speaker 2: And so you just you just see now this emergence
Speaker 2: of people that now know that this isn't something that
Speaker 2: they have to do if they've got a saw back
Speaker 2: or saw hampshing this is something they want to do
Speaker 2: to avoid getting a saw back or saw hamshing, or
Speaker 2: just to feel good and clear and good mental clarity.
Speaker 1: Do you remember I don't know if you remember this guy, but.
Speaker 2: Maybe you do.
Speaker 1: When you were a young bloke, I was best mates.
Speaker 1: He's now pass away, but a guy called Gary stem
Speaker 1: or Mitchell stem.
Speaker 2: Mitch was one of my mates.
Speaker 1: I know, Gary was my best mate really, so we
Speaker 1: boxed together. He was a great box wasn't it, Gary,
Speaker 1: GARYO box Gary and I Gary down the army Army
Speaker 1: he went to Vietnam.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so he was the military police and he was
Speaker 1: a good boxer. And so when he induced me boxing,
Speaker 1: and then like when I was eight or nine, anyway,
Speaker 1: we were train together till like till I was forty.
Speaker 1: And every morning we'd meet down at Bronnie's Bronie Said Club,
Speaker 1: and we'd three days a week with Tuesday, Thursday Sunday
Speaker 1: every year, never stopped within the surf club, and we
Speaker 1: would go for a run from BONDI I'm back, and
Speaker 1: then we go and hit the bag and all the
Speaker 1: old school stuff, you know. And then but the thing
Speaker 1: that we always did was we always jumped the water
Speaker 1: summer winter and that winter swim. I think it was
Speaker 1: like having nice bath. It's not quite as degrees, and
Speaker 1: I reckon we never got sick, neither one of us.
Speaker 1: In then he ended up getting cancer, unfortunate, but like
Speaker 1: neither one of us ever got sick during that period.
Speaker 1: And I met, I had four kids. You know, I
Speaker 1: was running a big business, and I think about it today.
Speaker 1: People get sick a lot, and I never got sick.
Speaker 1: And I always put it down to the fact that
Speaker 1: I was jumping in the cold water three times a
Speaker 1: week summer in winter. We never missed. And in fact,
Speaker 1: I remember taking my son, my oldest son, and Mitchell
Speaker 1: and Gary, and I said to the two boys, you
Speaker 1: guys got to come from run with us. And they
Speaker 1: were about eleven or twelve, and we're running from Bondai
Speaker 1: to Bronti to Bondai and there's a few pretty steep
Speaker 1: hills and I don't forget Mitchell and Dane started crying.
Speaker 1: We left them behind. We ran on and we said,
Speaker 1: you guys considered, well, get us when we come back.
Speaker 1: But that that cold water stuff, I think actually helped
Speaker 1: helped me avoid injury and illness.
Speaker 2: And I think today that's it's not about fixing you
Speaker 2: if you're broken, it's stopping you from getting to the
Speaker 2: point where you can't train. Yeah, that's all. That's the
Speaker 2: biggest benefit for myself. I know I'm not going to
Speaker 2: be as big, fit or fast, as strong as I
Speaker 2: once was, but if I can say injury free, then
Speaker 2: I can still go for I don't run at all anymore,
Speaker 2: but I can still train. I can still go to
Speaker 2: the park with the kids and be active at footy
Speaker 2: training and things like that. So it's not about just
Speaker 2: trying to get myself to peak performance. It's about being
Speaker 2: able to continually train and exercise because I know it
Speaker 2: helps me physically. It helps me be better with work,
Speaker 2: better with family.
Speaker 1: Mentally too. I think absolutely the cold water is good
Speaker 1: for the mental thing. I don't know what it does physic.
Speaker 1: And it's funny you should say, because I was only
Speaker 1: talking to an North Meeting guy this morning before he
Speaker 1: came here, and he was explaining to me that if
Speaker 1: you look at the data of all Australian males over
Speaker 1: time in terms of our age, he said that your
Speaker 1: muscle muscle, amount of muscles volume wasted, your volume goes
Speaker 1: down on a very quite a smooth line. Over time,
Speaker 1: as you get older, it reaches down. In one day,
Speaker 1: you're dead and you've got very little muscle musk left
Speaker 1: you your one hundred very little muscle mass, he said,
Speaker 1: But if you look at individual people, he said, it
Speaker 1: doesn't it's not that smooth. It goes like this. It drops,
Speaker 1: goes like this and drops over time. And he said,
Speaker 1: what you're going to try and avoid is that drop period.
Speaker 1: And he said one of the most important things to
Speaker 1: avoid that drop period is that you don't get injured.
Speaker 1: He said, because you can't train. He said, So what
Speaker 1: happens is over a two or three week period if
Speaker 1: you've got an injury cause because you're not well enough,
Speaker 1: you don't train, you lose muscle mass. You will never
Speaker 1: recover it you get back, you don't get it back.
Speaker 2: So you want to be like a life maintenance.
Speaker 1: So cold does helps you do that? Cold and hot therapy,
Speaker 1: by the.
Speaker 2: Way, contrast therapy, Yeah, contrast. We've got options to be
Speaker 2: cold bath, hot bath or cold bathsauna, option to choose both.
Speaker 1: And so that's what your recovery is doing. Yes, contract therapy.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because you know, like I mean, it's a
Speaker 1: probably scientifically proven that there's the sort of stuff we
Speaker 1: should be doing in order to because most people don't
Speaker 1: get in the head bother having a cold on a
Speaker 1: freeze gold bath. Why would I bother getting into a
Speaker 1: really hot sauner. Why would I bother doing it regularly?
Speaker 1: Why would I bother it? Because at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, it's about maintaining muscle mass for a bloke anyway,
Speaker 1: I guess the same place of women, but it must
Speaker 1: mass for a guy. It's very hard to maintain muscle
Speaker 1: mass if you go through periods of illness or injury,
Speaker 1: and what you do is work out how do I
Speaker 1: avoid illness and injury or how can I actually give
Speaker 1: myself a fight and chance? And I think some of
Speaker 1: way recovery is pretty smart as sort of tapping in
Speaker 1: to the modern, the modern or the science around modern
Speaker 1: thinking in terms of maintaining your being your best possible
Speaker 1: self for as long as possible.
Speaker 2: There's also like I saw the Hoodman Andrew Hoodman came
Speaker 2: to the Australia at the start of the city. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he actually came into recovery throughout the court and I
Speaker 2: watched his seminar Sydney opera house, and you said one
Speaker 2: thing that was really I've always thought this, but how
Speaker 2: he said it, and I'm going to I can't say
Speaker 2: in technical terms. He said, that's something long lines of
Speaker 2: everything you do that you don't want to do, Like
Speaker 2: if you don't want to go walk down the shop
Speaker 2: and buy food in the morning because it's too cold,
Speaker 2: if you don't want to go to work everything. Every
Speaker 2: time you do something that you don't want to do,
Speaker 2: you building like a mental resilience, but there is a
Speaker 2: physiological improvement in your brain. Have you been able to
Speaker 2: complete tasks you don't want to do? You think it's
Speaker 2: going to cold water, yeah, but not not doing things physically.
Speaker 2: But just if you don't want to go to work out,
Speaker 2: you don't want to stay back for another hour because
Speaker 2: it's easier not to Everything you do that you don't
Speaker 2: want to do and you push through some type of
Speaker 2: resilience barrow, there is a physical improvement. There is a
Speaker 2: physical change in your brain doing things or completing tasks
Speaker 2: you don't actually want to do.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because and I have to finish off on
Speaker 1: this to you, but like what's interesting what you just
Speaker 1: said is that I think and I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's right wrong, but I reckon one of the reasons
Speaker 1: we age after a certain point, you know, like your
Speaker 1: dat to be around my age is that we sort
Speaker 1: of get comfortable and we don't have to do things
Speaker 1: we don't want to do. We don't need to do
Speaker 1: this anymore, to go four times a week sta at home,
Speaker 1: I don't need to and and I think what that does,
Speaker 1: what we should be doing as we get older, is
Speaker 1: to actually force ourselves to do the things you're talking
Speaker 1: about in order to keep challenging ourselves. You know, I
Speaker 1: think is really important. And it's a simple thing. Jumping
Speaker 1: in a nice bath is a simple thing. Like if
Speaker 1: they go to your joint, your recovery place is pay
Speaker 1: the fee, whatever it is. And you know, by that
Speaker 1: stage you probably have accumulated a little bit of money anyway,
Speaker 1: you know, you've you've got the ability to delive a
Speaker 1: certain lifestyle. If what Andrew Human says is correct and
Speaker 1: what you just try to para paraphrase, if it's correct,
Speaker 1: then actually we will live more with more vitality going forward,
Speaker 1: because if we just we've got the house, the house
Speaker 1: paid off, we've got one or two investments I've got
Speaker 1: my super I'm cool. I don't have to do anything.
Speaker 1: I don't need a train like I used to try.
Speaker 1: I can't train like it's to train because you know
Speaker 1: another way and stop. So I've got to get challenged,
Speaker 1: and dudes my age start thinking about finding the challenge
Speaker 1: and one of them. And it's a pretty simple one.
Speaker 1: Just jumping into cold bath. It's pretty bloody simple actually,
Speaker 1: as a regular thing. Make a part of your routine
Speaker 1: and issue.
Speaker 2: You talk about this, and people are now very this
Speaker 2: has become very normal in people's lives.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not more for your age group that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so in twenty years time, every six year old,
Speaker 2: not ever since, but large numbers you'll be doing it.
Speaker 2: We'll be doing it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But my age group, we're not doing it. No,
Speaker 1: not enough, because there's like a lot of us can't
Speaker 1: wait to retire. I can't wait to get the six
Speaker 1: phone and hang their gloves up and stop stop doing everything.
Speaker 1: I don't think slows down When you down, and then
Speaker 1: when you slading everything, you start to lose muscle mass
Speaker 1: and things. You just start to deplete. And that's very
Speaker 1: interesting that you're you and you've got business partners.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've got Nick, Nick Bardeta and tre Folsom and
Speaker 2: so we've gone down that path of we're not a franchise,
Speaker 2: a partnership studio. We have studio partners and now we're
Speaker 2: just because of what we've learned as a model. So
Speaker 2: instead of selling a territory and just taking a check
Speaker 2: off someone and them being responsible for it, we're in
Speaker 2: for if you're in a studio as a partner, as
Speaker 2: a studio operator, we're in with you, and we've got
Speaker 2: majority ownership and we've got the ability to raise an
Speaker 2: exit when we want to. But we just felt franchising
Speaker 2: wasn't for us because these are harder to open up.
Speaker 2: You're putting pools. You've got heavy, heavy pools going on slabs,
Speaker 2: you've got ventilation, You've got a lot more risks for
Speaker 2: an owner. It's not just taking a check and opening up.
Speaker 2: Capital involved, and a lot more like there's engineering, there's
Speaker 2: a lot more probably that's right, and so there's compliance
Speaker 2: issues and we're just been going to a lot of
Speaker 2: the competitors. There's a lot of I'm sure you've got
Speaker 2: a nice bath. It's probably perfect for you at home,
Speaker 2: using it once or twice a day. But if you
Speaker 2: put twenty people in the rice bath, it's not going
Speaker 2: to be clean, it's not going to be cold. So
Speaker 2: we've gone down that path. We've built our own chilla
Speaker 2: and we've built our own pool, and we haven't gone
Speaker 2: to market yet, but there'll be distribution side of the
Speaker 2: business soon helping other businesses, hotels, gyms add small wellness
Speaker 2: to their facility. So what we sort of learned over
Speaker 2: the five years is about the compliance side of the business.
Speaker 2: And you've got to put the right servant, you've got
Speaker 2: to put the right type of products in to make
Speaker 2: sure they're clean and there, they're cold enough and there's
Speaker 2: no issues with customers and there's no insurance blowback. So
Speaker 2: it's a big market. People are buying a lot of
Speaker 2: stuff for at home, and what works at home doesn't
Speaker 2: work from a commercial.
Speaker 1: List, or one definitely wouldn't work in a commercial lane.
Speaker 1: But my one is one of those. I kind of
Speaker 1: got the stainless seel on the inside of the tim
Speaker 1: on the outside do you putat me know the name
Speaker 1: of it's Oden.
Speaker 2: They're really good, they're they're great, But the order four
Speaker 2: ten weeks more.
Speaker 1: I think it was like five months or something, waited
Speaker 1: for ever to get it.
Speaker 2: But I got it, and they're just so popular now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally, and I'm amazing.
Speaker 2: So we've got one of those one of our studios
Speaker 2: and then as a result we thought, well, we've got
Speaker 2: to open all these more studios, won't we just design
Speaker 2: our own. So we've just gone down that hole, the
Speaker 2: rabbit hole of how to get your own version of
Speaker 2: the biggest the piece of the puzzle on this is
Speaker 2: the chiller that keeps a bit large pool cold on
Speaker 2: a hot day in Sydney or Queensland, and you've got
Speaker 2: twenty people coming in every hour body heat. Yeah, so fine,
Speaker 2: And we've just sort of realized we're better off working
Speaker 2: with a few people to build our own and we've
Speaker 2: put it in ours now and we're just about to
Speaker 2: launch them elsewhere.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm actually glad we have got to talk about
Speaker 1: it as well as trying to solve the issues around
Speaker 1: rugby union.
Speaker 2: Today, it's harder the soul of rugby, to be honest.
Speaker 1: Steve, your horse's good to see mate.
Speaker 2: Thanks man.