The chairman of Scotland Rugby League has initiated a review of how the sport is being run in a bid to ensure that it is best placed to capitalise on the way its profile has been raised by the national team with every aspect under scrutiny including his own position.
Looking at the way forward for what has been very much the minority version of rugby in Scotland, Keith Hogg explained that a thorough examination of management strategy and procedures was underway even before their Four Nations campaign which ended with them making history last weekend by claiming a draw with New Zealand which threatened the world’s number one side with elimination from the competition until England lost to Australia two days later.
“While all this has been going non we’ve actually engaged an expert in sports management who is actually currently undertaking a full board review, sitting down with each member of the board, talking about their role, how they see that as performing, how the board is performing and also how the chair is performing,” he explained.
“I don’t want to pre-judge that because I think that’s exactly what we should be doing, but I suspect that two things will probably come out of that. One is that we will decide we need more resource and secondly there’ll be some adjustment in responsibilities as to who does what.
“I think that’s an overall responsibility of the board and in particular my role as chair of that board.”
In terms of the way forward Hogg wants to see a six to eight team national league properly established.
“It’s not about suddenly thinking we’re going to have 12 to 15 rugby league teams across Scotland in two years’ time. That wouldn’t be right,” he said.
“We wouldn’t manage that particularly well in terms of giving them the right level of support.”
His thinking is based on achieving things that are manageable within the sport’s resources and he believes a template for grassroots development can be created in the north east around the strongest domestic club Aberdeen Warriors who earned a place in next year’s Challenge Cup last week with their victory over Strathmore Silverbacks in the Scottish Grand Final.
Explaining that both Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire Councils are supportive he expresses confidence that meaningful work will be done with schools competing with one another rather than the sport simply running taster sessions and claiming large participation figures on the back of that.
“I would expect that within two to three years we’ll have somewhere between 24 and 32 schools actively playing rugby league. Not counting them as playing rugby league because they have had an afternoon touching a rugby league ball, we mean playing rugby league against other schools in festivals and in a competitive school situation. If get in that position we are beginning to put the building blocks and some cement in those blocks,” said Hogg.
Naturally the successes achieved by the national team means there is an eagerness to move things forward more rapidly with the creation of a professional team in Scotland and Hogg would love to see that happen but, aware that the sport has what he describes as ‘a chequered history in terms of how it’s been run’ he urges caution.
“There are quite a few people who believe it is achievable. The debate is when,” he observed.
“It doesn’t feature within our strategic plan because I think that would be unrealistic and we’d be unbalanced because the balance has to be absolutely we improve and support our senior team and other representative teams. But our absolutely priority is the sustainable development of the sport in Scotland and if we started getting distracted with where could a pro team play and wondering how can we get investors, somewhat similar to another sport, this wouldn’t be the right time. Is there is a point in time when it could happen? Absolutely.
“I think it’s seven to 10 years away, being realistic, so it should be part of the very long-term thought process and it is, but it’s wrong to put it in a strategic plan because we’ll get distracted. We fundamentally want people experiencing the great game of rugby league at all ages. So we’re as much interested in having 60 14-year-olds having a great day playing rugby league in Aberdeen or Glasgow as anything else.”
In a week that has seen Glasgow Warriors sign the latest rugby league convert the potential benefits for Scottish sport are obvious and, at least in terms of awareness, Hogg and his current board have all the incentive they need.
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