Future of the club

 Future of the club

I’m seeing an interesting situation: many clubs decide to gather the players they have in order to form a full team and participate in the corresponding competition. For example, two or more clubs might decide to combine their U18 players to have around 20 players and be able to compete. On the surface, it seems like a good idea because it achieves something fundamental: the players can play rugby. However, this should always be accompanied by a club development program and a plan to promote rugby in schools.

If several clubs, for different reasons—such as being in a small town, or being a newly formed club—decide to come together temporarily, I think it’s great, but there must be an underlying plan to grow. For this, it’s essential to have a development program along with a school promotion plan, aiming to increase the number of players. And this is where, in my opinion, many clubs fail. I know it's not easy, and in many cases, the relevant federations are not very proactive either, but it’s crucial to have a development plan to ensure the club’s future and, of course, the future of rugby.

Growth must start from the bottom, starting with children in primary school. Rugby should be introduced in schools using Tag Rugby as a tool, gradually encouraging more children to join the club. The ideal approach is to start by setting up school Tag Rugby teams, and as the training sessions progress at the schools, let the kids know they can also practice it at the clubs, where they will be able to play contact rugby. It’s important to organize school rugby events before club competitions, so children attending these school sports days can see and get interested in rugby at the clubs.

Having a promotion program at a club is not easy, and it’s not cheap; in fact, I would say it’s expensive. But it should be one of the goals for the club's board members. In other words, they need to find the resources to implement this program—not just financially, but also in terms of human resources. They should recruit trained people, and there are plenty of them, to create and implement this development plan. As I said, it’s not cheap, but the results are guaranteed, and with that, the financial return will come—whether from new players who pay their fees, or from the club itself, which, being serious, professional, and well-established, will attract sponsors for the teams across different categories.

In other posts, I have already talked about this development program and the school promotion plan, and I won’t tire of doing so, because based on my experience, it is the only way to grow a club.