ACU Rugby Partnership

While we undertook a life-saving joint venture with Wakehurst this year in the Seniors and Colts which worked well, it was always done with a view to re-establishing ourselves as a stand-alone club. To that end, the committee has been looking at ways of increasing the Brothers Rugby footprint to ensure not only that we get back on our feet but that we have some stability in recruitment in the years ahead.

We have tried to attract players from St Pius X and will continue to do so however many go to play with Gordon, Norths, Forest, and Lindfield so we are competing for a small number of players. Some Shute Shield clubs warehouse Colts players who are subsequently lost to subbies clubs (Gordon for example had 120 registered Colts this year). We have been advertising the club as much as we can and have established an academic scholarship program for U/21 players from SPX who play for Brothers, and we have already had one approach from ex-students about playing for us in 2024.

We are also using that scholarship approach in other areas. Last year we approached Australian Catholic University (ACU) to become their community rugby partner – last month we were finally able to sign a MOU with them. It is a three-year agreement where we become the rugby partner of ACU Sydney and feature in their advertising material (external and internal to all students). We also can set up stands at Open Days and O Week (the first of these will be on Saturday 9 Sep). In return we offer ACU two educational scholarships (one woman, one U/21 man) each year, the recipient to be decided by us after individual applications. We will also run ‘Try Women’s Sevens’ sessions over four weeks in Semester 1 (commencing February 2024) at the Strathfield Campus, where ACU will pay our coach(es) to run it. ACU will advertise these sessions amongst the student body and women who wish to continue with Sevens after the sessions will be encouraged to play for Brothers. We may also become involved in coaching an ACU intervarsity team.

We are currently exploring the same approach with another tertiary institution about establishing an MOU with them, and early indications are positive. These are potentially exciting developments and while they will no doubt take a few years to mature, they offer the club a bigger pool of potential players and is also a good way of establishing a Women’s Sevens team in 2024.

While this is good news for the club in an otherwise bleak environment for Subbies Rugby, it also means that we will need players to commit to Season 2024 early, funds, and people to help coach and manage teams in the years ahead. In the next newsletter, we’ll give you more details about how you can help the club rebuild for Season 2024 and beyond.