136 Can Australian Rugby Union Be Saved An In Depth Analysis With Stephen Hoiles

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I'm Mike Boris and this is Straight Talk.

Is there an existential threat to rugby union? Will it last?

The fear is that we don't get it right. That's the scary thing about this.

Stevie Hall's welcome to Straight Talk, mate.

I want to talk to you about a state of rugby.

You're in rugby union and you're a coach. You were also a player at the highest level, so you can actually speak expertly on this.

It isn't going great here in Australia at the professional level. Other levels of the game are great.

All we see on TV is really super rugby and test footy, and super rugby is the big problem.

What would you do in terms of super rugby?

Yeah, there's a big part of me that thinks it's probably run its race, to be honest.

Put it in these terms. There's five teams at the moment with a $5 million salary cap each versus 16 NRL teams with $13 million salary cap.

How are you going to-

I'm going to compete on that front.

That is probably half the reason why a lot of league fans hate rugby at the moment, because our former chairman was out there disrespecting the intelligence of another code.

Like, I just thought that was poor taste and rugby's never been about that.

Stevie Hall's welcome to Straight Talk, mate.

Thanks, Mark. Thanks for having me.

Well, I haven't seen you since, I don't know, your early 40s now.

I haven't seen you since you were about probably 15 or 16, around that territory when you were playing for East Randwick back in the day.

The East Randwick rep side.

Yeah.

But you're a Randwick boy.

Yeah, we merged our rep teams.

That weekend was on recently, you know.

Yeah.

My son's at that age at the moment, actually.

Your son?

One of my kids is 13.

Really?

He didn't make that Randwick side, unfortunately.

But yeah, he's going through the same age when I last met you.

Yeah, and I can't remember, but you were a back row, I think.

Yeah.

You were a back row, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you got big tall, much taller than you were then.

Yeah, I-

You're down late spurt or something.

Yeah, when I was at school, 13 to 16, year 7 to year 12, I wasn't allowed to play in the backs.

In the forwards, sorry.

I had to play in the backs at Waverley.

I was too short.

So I got those years of being halfback and 5'8", which then helped me later in life when

I had my growth spurt, so yeah.

So you're, was Trent Langlands, was he your territory or-

Chang was a few years older.

Older, yeah.

Yeah, Chang was a couple years older, and I was in the surf club and training with Chang

so I know him well, yeah.

So, and you're, you come from rugby union territory, I mean, your dad played footy.

Yeah.

Have you always been Randwick heritage?

Yeah, yeah.

So dad's a Marouba boy, and I grew up at Randwick.

Dad won a few first grade premierships as a centre.

He finished quite early, like by the age of 26 he was finished because he was managing

the airport for customs.

But then as I grew up, I did, I was a Coogee Wombat for 10 years whilst playing-

Just playing league.

League on a Sunday, rugby on a Saturday.

But mum worked at the New South Wales Rugby League the whole way.

I was from about the age of 5 to 15, and that was, I saw your Johnny Quayle interview, and

that was sort of the era that I grew up in.

And I was halftime entertainment at every second grand final and got tickets.

They're all the big games.

So I'm a Tigers tragic, don't know how.

I actually do know, I got given a number one jersey when I was a kid, Australian number

one, that was Gary Jack.

Oh, Gary Jack, great player.

So all my mates were Souths and Easts, being a Waverley boy.

But I was a Tigers tragic, and I did league and union all the way through.

And then when I got to 15, it was a bit, it was, I had to sort of pick one.

And I think I just suited rugby.

The game flowed a little bit more.

In those days?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

It flowed a lot to the point where I could read the game a little bit better in rugby,

and that was probably what helped me.

I didn't really have a position in league.

I was a hooker, halfback, lock.

Whereas in rugby, I got to be a flanker, and that was that hybrid position.

And back then, flankers just used to chase the ball.

It's different now because of the way the modern day is.

But I did both and still enjoy both.

So I wouldn't mind going back to that time, just in terms of style.

And just to talk about the way the world's changed, and it's worth explaining, a lot

of the rugby league kids, if they went to private schools, particularly around the East

Suburbs areas, in Lower North Shore, they played league on Sundays and union on Saturdays.

Sometimes Friday night, basically.

And the schools, and they played rugby for their school on the Saturday.

You went and played, like you were at Waverley, you went and played in the CAS, and other

kids playing the GPS, et cetera, all the different competitions.

And then you would probably play club rugby as well, and that could have been on a Friday

night or during the week.

So ordinarily, you'd be training.

You'd be training nearly every night of the week for one or the other.

You'd be playing club rugby, which was a short season, but then there was rep rugby.

And then you were playing school rugby, which is sort of a short season.

It was like six games or something like that.

And then you're playing rugby league on the Sunday.

Even then, there was a fair bit of tension between what schools expected from you in

terms of playing rugby, and what rugby league expected from you in terms of playing rugby

league in particular, and in particular training.

And there's a lot of pressure on the kids.

Give up rugby league.

Yeah.

Do you remember that?

I do remember it.

And essentially, when I was in year 12, I played in the first in year 12, I couldn't

play league in the holidays.

I had to sneak off a couple of games to the Wombats.

I didn't want Waverley to find out, because there was a strict rule you couldn't-

Why?

What do you think that's about?

I think it's a control thing, to be honest.

It's gone back to that, to be fair.

Now I know that schools are encouraging kids to go and play club rugby and league.

Yeah, that's because they teach them how to tackle.

That's right.

There are benefits of doing both.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

And you see the kids that-

Around 14, 15, and I see now my son's 13, I see the kids that are better in almost every

aspect of the game, they're the ones that are playing league, union, some of them are

even playing AFL.

I think being able to, yeah, being restricted to who you play for and what you do outside

of your school hours, I don't think that's a healthy thing for a kid.

Right now, you're a coach.

Yeah.

And you're coaching Randwick.

Mm-hmm.

And I just wanted to lay that down as a foundation straight up, because I want to talk to you

about rugby union-

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

And being a coach, you can actually speak expertly on this, not just because you were

also a player, a rugby union player, at the highest level, but in terms of coaching, I

want to talk to you about coaching and where the rugby union game's gone.

I can say to you, honestly, back in the early 80s, I was an avid fan of rugby union as well

as rugby league.

In fact, I sponsored the rugby union side for a number of years, which that was my very

first sponsorship.

But then it changed.

Rugby union's changed for me.

And I, to be honest with you, I have very little interest in watching rugby game and

rugby union today.

Mm-hmm.

Not just because I'm a rugby league fan.

No, no.

But the game's changed.

Yep, it has.

And I want to go back and ask you, if you could go back to your rugby union days, when

you were a kid, playing, you know, for Randwick, et cetera, and or playing for Waverley, whoever

it was, but could you explain to me what the game was like then?

And what I mean by that is in terms of flow, lack of interruptions, less rules, a lot of

ball playing, not just about kicking, et cetera.

Just give us a picture of what it was like when you fell in love with it.

Yeah, I grew up watching the, you know, the great teams of Randwick in the 80s and 90s.

So that's where I learned the game.

As in the Ella Brothers?

Exactly.

Like the Poitervans, the Campisys, the Knoxes, the, the names just go on and on, honestly.

So they had a, the game had a way of trying to keep the ball.

Off the ground.

It was about continuity of play.

What that, what does that mean?

Keep the ball off the ground?

So you'd, you'd be able to run and, and stand and set up a mall and keep playing.

Now you see the ball go to grit.

Now, I reckon the biggest difference is it's, you run at faces now, you used to run at spaces

and there's a big difference, like tackling's evolved.

So we were taught as kids, as a back rower, chase the ball, just be two or three metres

behind the ball the whole time.

Now, because defence has improved and people are better at, at stealing the football, as

in poach, like think of George Smith, Phil Ward, David Pocock.

In their peak, if they, if someone was isolated at any stage of the game, a good on-baller

would get over the ball and steal it or get a penalty.

So that would be most likely a stoppage.

So players evolved to become really good over the ball.

And I have this argument with my dad constantly about why the game has so much kick in.

If you don't kick the ball, so if you, if you run the ball at the wrong part of the

field or you're not, you don't have enough support play around you, just try and put

it in a league term.

If you run and you're not near your dummy half and you get tackled not near your dummy

half, you'll lose the ball.

So you've got to be.

Because they have better skills at taking away from you.

Defensively, people are just better.

It used to be like George Smith changed the game because he was number seven.

He was an on-baller.

And then all of a sudden people were like, well, it doesn't have to be just George Smith.

Number, hookers become on-ballers.

What's on-balling mean?

Like getting over the ball, stealing the football, getting that sort of jack, they call it a

jackal or a pilfer position.

And it was typically 10 years, 20 years ago, it was probably one player on the field was

good on the ball.

Now there's 10 to 12.

If you're not good on the ball and you can't slap the rack or you can't steal the ball.

You don't have to.

You're not going to make it in the grade.

You're not going to get picked.

So the game has evolved massively on that front.

But there's also the fear of a player losing the ball.

If in doubt, players will now run to someone and go and reset and try and get a new phase

or another arc.

So they go to ground.

They go to ground and that's right.

They place it back.

And as I said, as a back rower, I just used to chase the ball.

And now a lot of back rowers are coached to be, you go from this line out and you stay

on this side of the field.

We want one back row on this side.

We want one on the other.

And we want one in the middle.

So you kind of spread out a little bit more in, they call it shape, in shape and pods.

And I'm probably talking another language to you.

No, no, no.

I understand.

It's just become way more structured.

And I think the scrums are really slow part of the game at the moment.

I think back to the years you watched it, it was, and you only have to go and watch footage.

Whistles blown, eight forwards get up and they just go and pack a scrum.

And it's almost if the contest happens once the ball, once they've hit their shoulders

and that used to take 10, 20.

Seconds to get that set.

We're taking, you know, 90 seconds to get a scrum set now.

And then there's resets.

Why was that?

Is it more about safety?

Yeah.

They, they made the gap really big about my, my area of the gap was about a meter.

And that was, it was like two cars crashing into each other for a meter.

There was a lot of damage getting done to players.

A lot of sort of retirement from, you know, spine injuries and not necessarily like disability

injuries, but just more wear and tear.

So they tried to sort of shorten the gap, but it still takes.

It takes a long time.

It's a bit too technical to make it too quick.

Shorten the gap in terms of before they engage.

So they want the gap to be like, they used to be like that.

Then they brought it to there and you go back to the eighties, the gap was sort of like

that far away.

So that's interesting.

So that's actually something that the, I don't know, whoever it is, the referees or the,

whoever controls the play safety, they've actually said to the referees, you don't let

them engage or get ready to engage until they're close enough that they're not going to cause

effectively too much damage to each other.

Because when you think about it, there's probably, I don't know, a ton of weight close enough.

Yeah.

Honestly, most packs are just under a ton.

Just under a ton, yeah.

International packs about 900 kilos.

And they, they sort of train to have as much force as possible.

So.

And things can go wrong so quickly.

Yeah.

So that's a play safety.

Yeah.

It's play safety, but it's, it's, they haven't solved it to be fair.

Like you've got to look back at what has worked in the past and, and I'm the same as you.

I'll turn on a, I'll turn on a game and, and I'll get really frustrated.

You can kill a game of rugby in five minutes.

You can lose four to five minutes at the end of a game.

You think about it, your side's just gone up by three points.

The opposition in rugby league, that's probably what, two sets each, five minutes.

You know, you're going to have a crack.

In rugby, you can manipulate the laws or how they're interpreted to kill a clock.

And that's, that's a disappointing aspect of the game.

So if, when you were playing, what is it about, you know, I seem to remember the term back

in the eighties, running rugby.

Yeah.

That's sort of what I, but that's, I found that attractive.

You know, like in the Campesies and all that, the wingers get the ball, actually get the

ball.

They weren't running, they weren't running to chase a kick or something, but that was

actually getting out to the wingers.

There was more space for them because if you go back again, look at some footage, one ruck

would be, at the moment, it's about how you can win your ruck with the least amount of

numbers as possible.

So you want the ball carrier plus two, and you go back and look at footage in the nineties,

it's ball carrier plus four, one, two, three, maybe a couple more four, just get out of

the way.

They get out of the way.

So there was more space.

It was out wider.

But now those people that just come through to get out of the way, they're not there.

They're out in the same place that the centers or the wingers want to be.

So there's lots of defensive coverage.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like people say, one of the things that could solve rugby's problems, you could drop it

to third-hand side.

I was going to say.

You honestly could.

Yeah.

And, but people, for whatever reason, that's too much like rugby league.

We can't consider it.

Or you widen the fields.

Now, it's probably a lot difficult to widen fields all around the world.

Yeah.

It's probably easier to take.

But, but the, it's never been considered because I think they would have,

still it's jumping into rugby league territory.

Yeah.

Because it's, but it's, but it's a, it's a big game with a lot of followers globally

I'm talking about.

Yeah.

And, but it's losing followers and it's losing, therefore, therefore losing attractiveness

in terms of revenue and sponsorships.

And therefore.

Here in particular.

Here in New Zealand.

Here in New Zealand.

Yeah.

Globally, it's going great.

Like World Cup's fantastic.

Women's, like there's so many aspects of the game that is really healthy.

But you read Australian media, News Corp, Fox Sports used to have the,

the game, since they've lost it, they're not a positive.

It's on stand now or something.

That's on stand now.

But it's not a positive media, it's not positive in the media at the moment, rugby.

But it isn't, it isn't going great here in Australia at the professional level.

Other levels of the game are great.

But what we see on TV, all we see on TV is really super rugby and test footy.

And super rugby's probably the big one that's hurting us.

Test footy will always be healthy, but the Wallabies haven't been successful.

So we're sort of seeing and we're reacting to their performance of late.

That's why the game is viewed.

As if it's not that healthy because the Wallabies aren't going well.

Super rugby's the big problem.

But why would you say the Wallabies aren't going well?

I mean, let's just, I mean, is it because of 10 years ago,

the kids who were growing up and who have now become Wallabies,

they have not been, don't have the right skills or what's the case?

No, like the international market's become very competitive.

Like during my playing era, you could have got to Europe at the start of your career.

A couple of people were going to France and a few people were starting to enter the Japanese league.

Now, like those markets are huge.

USA's got competitions.

So that's not, the global market is one of the reasons.

I would say, and again, this is really polarizing because we've just cut a team as in Melbourne Rebels.

We've just not had-

Well, they went broke.

They went broke and they've been broke.

They've never been a financially successful model.

So the game has been pouring money into, and it's not just hurt Melbourne.

It's hurt New South Wales.

It's hurt the Brumbies.

It's hurt everyone.

And it's hurt Perth.

Like Perth's got Twiggy Forrest there who's,

who's obviously a very successful backer of the side.

So we've never had the talent to sustain five elite Super Rugby teams.

And when I think we brought in Melbourne because it was private money, it was Harold Mitchell.

And I think the game-

He passed away.

He passed away a couple of years ago, but he only held the license for a couple of years.

Right.

Once he realized it wasn't working, he handed the license back over to Rugby Australia.

And they've been propping up the Rebels for a long, long time.

I just don't think we've had the talent at that elite level for five teams.

When you think, put it in these terms.

There's five teams at the moment with a $5 million salary cap each versus 16 NRL teams

with $13 million salary cap.

How are you going to compete on that front?

Well, why isn't there don't have the talent?

Because like, is it because the pool of talent where the kids grow up in playing footy, like

is sort of still restricted to private schools?

Well, I think that, I think the talent, like you've got kids at the schools that I went

to Waverley, the CIS, the GPS, there's, there's probably a dozen AFL players now that have

come from the, from the, from the, from the, from the, from the, from the, from the, from

the, from the, from the, from the, from the, from the, from the, from the, from the, from the, from

the, from the, from the, from the, from the, from the, from the, from the, from the, from

the, from the, from the, from the, from the, from the, from the, from the, from the, from

CIS and GPS as non-AFL players.

They've gone and got the best locks, the kids that are going to be 190, 195 centimetres.

AFL teams have gone out.

They've just got great recruitment tools.

So all these young players, like it's hard to get good tall players.

A lot of them play in AFL.

We've got enough good players for a really good club competition.

And that's, I think club footy is excellent.

It's, it's healthy and it's, it's thriving.

But just at super rugby level, the five teams haven't been performing enough against the

Kiwi team.

And it definitely hasn't helped the Wallaby performance.

Like you can't, you can't argue that one in the last performance over the last 10 years,

since we went to, we went to from three teams, it was Queensland, New South Wales and the

Brumbies.

And then we went to Perth and then we rushed to Melbourne a couple of years after Perth.

And that was when you noticed the player drain.

It was probably, it was probably easier for players to get contracts and they weren't

going through that club system and getting the, you know, 20, 30, 40 games of club footy

where they're getting.

Bashed up by a 30 year old, you know, while they're getting hardened by playing second

grade and third grade.

A lot of kids were coming out of schools and going, and because of the competition and

the offers from league, it was like, I've got an offer from South.

I've got an offer from Roosters or Western Force.

So I'm going to make a big offer.

I'm going to stay in rugby and they'll get into super rugby probably a little bit quicker

than it happened previously.

And, and, and because they weren't hardened enough or at least experienced enough.

I think so.

To play at that level.

Yeah.

And then they weren't playing enough games.

Super rugby is a 16 game season and they weren't all getting.

They were sent back to play club footy and you go from.

Why not?

I don't know.

Academies, programs, all that sort of offset off season tours and, and all that sort of

stuff and players being relocated to different parts of the country.

So yeah, I think that's a big reason.

Like the number of games you mentioned before, like yeah, 40 game season for a kid is what

you should be doing.

Yeah.

And yeah, I reckon at professional level, you could go and do a survey.

You've probably got maybe 20% of players who aren't the Wallabies.

I'll use last year as an example.

I got 30 minutes out of one professional player after the super rugby for the round

week season.

I got one player for 30 minutes.

You can't say to me, you've got to come play?

Nah, they've got to want to.

The game needs them to play.

World Cup year is a bit of an anomaly because they're, they're kept, they're sort of wrapped

up in cotton wool.

They're in training camps and I don't expect to get the Wallabies like the Wallabies are

playing there.

But the fringe players who are, you know, they're following the Wallabies around and

they're used for training sessions at the Wallabies and.

As a opponent.

Yeah.

You've got a squad of 35 traveling around.

It's like the origin taken.

Yeah.

Two sides.

And then Trenton Robbins had not been able to get access to the reserves the day after

or the day before a Wallabie game because, oh, they're finding New Zealand next week

and they've got a week off and then we're going to South Africa and we're not sure about

this.

So there's just always been that issue of not letting players get back and playing enough

club footy after super rugby.

So it, it's, I mean, pardon me saying this, but it sounds like a mess to be honest with

you.

No, no, I'm not offended at that.

Like that professional side of the game, it is.

And you would say professionals.

You would say professionals, not at the club rugby level.

No, the club rugby is awesome.

Like they're, the perception of the modern day player and that I got a complete shock

in a, in a good way of these guys get paid nothing.

They train three nights a week.

They get their weights in beforehand.

Some of them aren't getting home till midnight.

They're finishing training at 8.30.

They're doing their weights till 10 o'clock.

They're getting up.

They're going to work.

They're on the tools at 6am.

They're the heartbeat of the, of the game.

And that's where I get to see that now.

And club footy is always junior footy, women's footy, seven, so many elements of the game

is, is thriving.

You're going really well, but we're just not seeing enough of it because we're seeing

super rugby and test footy on TV.

What, what would you do in terms of super rugby?

Yeah, there's a big part of me that thinks it's probably run its race, to be honest.

Yeah, that's interesting.

Yeah.

You know, super rugby only came out in the mid nineties because of pay TV.

Prior to that, if you played for New South Wales, it was like origin.

You maybe got three games a year.

You got a tour to New Zealand, maybe Argentina.

Then we started this super rugby with New Zealand, Australia and South Africa.

And I think the audience, I was a kid, but everyone just was so excited about, you know,

the best plays in South Africa, being in Sydney one week.

And, and I just think over time, it probably got a little bit stale.

And I don't know if club footy has always been, they've tried all these different comps

in between.

They've tried a couple of national club competitions, but they've never tried competitions consistently

with the jerseys that we're all familiar with.

And everyone in the region has a, you know, you could be an East fan, you could be a Gordon

fan.

You could be a brothers fan or a university Queensland, those jerseys and teams and supporters

have been around for a hundred years, but we've never given them a crack to be in a

national competition.

We've, we've tried all these different national competitions, but because we didn't want to

alienate or offend some teams, cause you can't have every club in a national comp.

We've decided to start a national comp with eight new teams, eight new jerseys, the Sydney

Rays, New South Wales country, which isn't New South Wales country and Western Sydney

Rams and all these teams that none of us have any affiliation.

With, so that hasn't worked in terms of the super rugby, that's a, that's a really tough

one because South Africa gone, they've gone up to the Northern hemisphere now and they're

playing in a great competition with the, the Welsh, they're in a gala with the Welsh, the

Irish and the Scots.

And they're now thriving and it's helped South African rugby.

Um, I lived in America for a couple of years in 2020 and 21, I was coaching rugby over

there and I looked at what they were doing with their, what they do with football or

NFL.

I'm sorry.

I reckon we could copy something very similar.

Friday nights, we'll put it this way.

I don't watch my school play.

I can't, I'm coaching Ramek at the same time.

So I don't, your audience is fighting against each other all the time.

So I can't watch Waverley play, but in America you can watch your high school play cause

they play Friday nights.

So you could run a good Friday night competition and you could still go down there.

And if you're an East fan, you could go and watch East the next day and all those supporters

that went and watched Scots versus Cranbrook or they could go down and also watch.

He's first Gordon on a Saturday and you could put your pro footy on a Sunday, like the NFL

do plus a couple of like a Thursday night and a Monday night.

So grid on in America is never competing against each other for bums on seats or eyeballs.

And they've got multiple channels covering it.

It's not just channel nine and Fox.

It's not just Stan.

They've got like five or six, five or six networks.

Like one has a Thursday night game.

There's no Friday night professional game of football in America.

Saturday's all college.

So you can watch everything.

Is it.

Football fan in, in the States or is he, you've got to pick something I can't watch.

I've got to watch Randwick.

I can't watch Waverly.

And then I've got to rush home to get, watch the Waratahs.

You're on at five 30 in New Zealand, all in the space of three hours.

It's funny.

She said, because you get a Scots Joey's game and like it's packed.

Yeah, it's packed.

That's right.

But if they're, but if the, but if, um, he's a playing Ramik on the same, at the same time,

someone's got to make a decision and neither one will be backed or they're going to go to one and I'll

go to the other one.

Yeah.

And it.

But it sounds like we've got an administration problem here.

Yeah.

It sounds like a decision making problem at the top and no one's prepared to make decisions.

Is the reason they have the, the super rugby is the reason they have that that was because

they thought it was a product they could sell into in terms of broadcasting.

I believe so.

That's where the money came in from.

I think it started, it was sort of like a, um, a super league scenario.

Yeah.

There was going to be another competition, uh, after the 95 World Cup and guys like Phil

Kearns will speak better to this, but they're all brought into meetings.

They're going to, they're all about to walk.

And so I'm with a, another competition and then Super Rugby was born out of pay TV, Fox

Sports back in it a long, long time ago.

And so it was a, it was a revenue raiser and it helped the Wallabies because we had three

teams and these guys went from being amateur to professional and it helped us win a 99

World Cup and we were sort of the, the leaders in the world of rugby and then we made the

final in 03 and then it sort of over time gradually just, yeah, disappeared into where

it is now.

Yeah.

Do you think it's the same issue in New Zealand then?

Yeah.

New Zealand's a weird one.

Like they are, they're going through, they've got private equity money in New Zealand.

And so I know they've got, they've had some really big challenges of late.

They've had potential threats of other competitions.

So that's when you know it's a concern when you're watching really, like these are the

best players in the world.

You're watching the Auckland Blues play against the ACT Brumbies in a round game and you're

getting 10,000 people there.

The Brumbies haven't lost, the Brumbies have lost like one or two home games.

I'm going to say no more than four home games in the last three or four years.

And they had a home final on the weekend and there would have been, I'd say 8,000 people

there.

The Raiders will go there the next day and they'll get 16 or 18,000.

That used to be the exact opposite.

Well, last, last, yesterday on Monday we had Canterbury Bank some play, the Bulldogs play

Paramount.

There's 45,000 people there at Accord, like a club game.

I mean it's, it's wins.

The Swans, the Swans the other day, 42,000 people.

Amazing.

Yeah.

So.

So rugby can get back to that.

But what is it?

I mean there's something missing.

Well they've got to win.

They've got to win.

Yeah.

And again that goes back to the number of teams and the players that you get.

And spread out and players are getting put in these teams a little bit too early because

there's now five teams.

You've sort of doubled the number of professional contracts.

Well they have.

They've gone from three teams to two plus a sevens program.

So they've doubled the number of professional contracts in a 10 year period.

We haven't been producing, we haven't got a high number of participants.

If anything we've been plateaued because AFL and league and soccer are, you know, working

hard to get our junior players or they're working hard to get access.

So we haven't had the talent pool to go to five teams.

That's hurt performance.

People, people aren't silly.

They're, they want to win.

They want to go and see winners and they want to go and see a good style of footy.

The Waratahs got, you know, they didn't have a good couple of years but they're also three

or four wins away from getting back up to 25,000, 30,000 people.

Sydney's fickle.

But do you, do you think, well then I don't know who it was, I guess it was the IAU but

they had, they did make an attempt, the previous, the previous administration of the IAU, not

the current administration, I'm not talking about Phil Waugh but I'm talking about the

previous administration of the IAU, they went to Joseph Soali or at least.

He was manager.

Yeah.

And they're paying him to join Rugby Union which is next year, 1.6 a year.

I mean is, is that a, an attempt to sort of glamorise Rugby Union and try and bring back

the supporters?

Yeah, I think it's a reflection of the previous administrator.

It was a media play, like he's a great talent, he's a rugby boy previously.

He's a Kings boy.

He's both, he's, yeah.

I actually, I was coaching the Aussie Sevens and he came in as a 15 year old and did a

session against us and was just like, I went to Tim Walsh, he was their coach, I said can

we take him to, I think we're playing in.

Dubai, I said no I'm not allowed, he's too young.

Like he was 15 and he was ready to play.

He was that good.

Yeah, I think it's been a bit of, it was an ego negotiation to be honest and I don't think

it was, I'm really happy he's coming to the game but I'm also a bit fearful that the pressure

that'll be put on him because the game can't afford that salary.

How does it work?

Like if, if I'm in the team.

Players are good like that.

I think players, like I don't think it's going to offend players.

No?

No, no.

I think.

Well what about if I come to negotiate my contract?

Yeah, well that's what's happening.

Players in that position.

He's a one.

He's a one point six.

He hasn't played rugby union since he was at school.

It hasn't just cost the game one point six.

It's cost the game a lot more because players in the same position.

Like Markinong Inithawasi's now gone to the Roosters.

Jorgensen, young kid who could have gone to the Roosters.

Like these are same position.

But Jorgensen's signed up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But they've all gone in and their agents have all gone in and said right, well he's now,

he's one point six.

My player was four.

Well that's my starting point.

Now five or six or, you know.

So it's definitely, it won't hurt, he'll be really well accepted from a playing group

in rugby.

Yeah.

Rugby would go like that.

Yeah.

It'll just be the constant media scrutiny that he's already getting.

It'll be that.

And I just don't know if, I just hope it's an enjoyable experience for him.

But he could be a superstar of the game.

But at the same time, one point six million bucks.

And Rugby Australia, I think they operate off like a 50 or 60 million dollar a year.

They've only just, they've got no money.

They've borrowed 80 million dollars.

So let's say they're operating off 50 million bucks a year.

You've got one point six million dollars of that 50 going to one player.

Yeah, that's a lot.

Yeah.

And then everybody else.

They're going to go up from there.

So they're all going to say, well, that's one point six.

I'm one point one or I'm one point two or I'm more than, I'm currently more than what I'm,

I'm more than I'm currently getting.

So you pay me more.

And the scariest thing about all of these negotiations for players is if Rugby Australia

don't pay it, Panasonic in Japan will pay it, Suntory, Toulouse, Toulon, Northampton.

Will they pay this sort of money?

They'll all pay big money.

Most people in Australian rugby could be getting more money elsewhere.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

That's the scary thing about this.

Like the overseas market.

It's so much stronger.

Like when you say, you just mentioned some French sides, but is that because of the

conversion of the dollar or are they just going to pay more money?

No, no, just that they're all probably owned.

They've got larger salary caps.

They've got bigger TV deals.

Like there's, there's money in the game of rugby.

Yeah.

Just not, just not here.

Yeah.

So we, we just lost another one of our players to Japanese rugby.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Joe Mano.

Yeah, Joe Mano.

And, and I remember Craig Wing, Wing played there for a long time.

And one of the things I found quite interesting is that when you, when you're talking about

that, um, he didn't play many games.

I was going to say.

And it sort of preserved him.

Very familiar, a hundred percent right.

Yeah.

His body was good.

There are, the Japanese season is probably a six game trial.

Yeah.

Eight to 12 game season.

Maybe you cut the game playoff.

You're doing 15 to 20 games like that.

Or you're doing 30 games and dummy half for the Roosters.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Getting your head knocked off.

Yeah.

So you do, a lot of guys do like they, they go there and the Japanese model is actually

quite good.

It's businesses, it's company owned teams.

Yeah.

It's owned like by Fujitsu or whatever, Daiken or whatever.

And there's employees and the locals are, the locals are playing, they come out of college.

They, they're good rugby players and then they get jobs for life.

So they got half the club are amateur.

They work, they train in the morning, they put the suit on, they go and work for the

company, Toyota or Panasonic or Canon.

And then they come back in after work and the pros join them after hours and they train

like club team does.

And did you ever think to yourself that you should have gone up to Japan to.

Uh, I had a couple of chances.

A couple of chances, but there was always that rule that if you were playing overseas,

you couldn't get picked for Australia.

Right.

And I just always like, no, I just would never have felt comfortable.

And as it turns out, I never played that many games for Australia, but I just wouldn't have

felt.

But you still did.

Yeah, I did.

I played it like, but I wouldn't have, I just know what I was like.

I wouldn't have been happy with myself if I moved over wherever and I was playing great

footy and I couldn't play.

Did they pay well?

They did pay well.

Yeah.

Like the offers are always better.

Um, but no, I never played overseas.

I missed a few straight with an injury, so I sort of missed about three and a half straight.

So that might've been the time when I did go overseas, but you know, young family, I

was sort of always, I don't know, I was always happy playing here.

So when I look at, um, rugby league players who go off to play rugby union, what, what

is the, I mean, Sonny Bill Williams is probably one of the greatest examples, but what is

the attraction, apart from the fact that he's just a pretty skilled dude, what's the general

attraction for rugby union to.

Yeah.

Bring in a rugby league player, is it because of the defense pattern that rugby league sort

of builds?

No, I think athletically, like they're not very, they're not dissimilar games.

If you can teach someone the basics of the rock and you can, you know, and a lot of these

guys, like I guess Joe Marnie might've played it as a kid.

So a lot of guys and girls his day and age are playing both as a young.

Angus Crichton, for example.

Yeah, exactly.

Like he's probably, the difficult thing with Angus is he was a back row or a center in

union.

So when he sort of looked at coming back to rugby, no one really knows what he is.

And that's.

He's big too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, he's got bigger.

Very big.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I think there's very, the professional, they're the best athlete.

Some of them are the best athletes in the world.

I think you can look at who they are as the character, as people, and I'll, if they're

a good league player and they've got a desire to learn rugby, that it'll work out for them

and vice versa, you know, like good, not necessarily too many big type forwards because of the

body shape, but almost anyone from number six through to 15 in rugby could, I reckon,

could turn out to be a decent league player.

Is that because when you say six to 15, you're talking about.

Back rowers.

Yeah.

But one of the things I noticed about rugby, they're big.

Yeah.

Especially in the foot.

The front row is shorter and wider.

Yeah.

Probably couldn't, probably don't have the legs.

No, they wouldn't be able to do that back.

Yeah.

Don't have legs.

But the guys behind them, they're not only tall, but they're big.

They're bigger.

A lock's 120 kilos.

Much bigger.

Like six, eight.

That's the sort of standard.

Yeah.

World size lock is six foot eight, 120.

Would those individuals convert into rugby league then?

No, they wouldn't.

There's very few examples of those.

There's more examples of those guys being unsuccessful over the years.

Just because the up and back nature of the onside, up and back and 10.

And admittedly, like the big front rowers in rugby, they could trim down.

But typically speaking, like that's why rugby is such a unique game.

Yeah, totally unique.

Because there is a sport within a sport.

Scrummaging.

And I appreciate scrummaging way more now as a coach because I was in scrums.

I was at the back.

I didn't do as much as others did.

But you learn the importance of it.

You can win and lose a game.

On a good or bad scrum in the modern day of rugby.

And so I do love the contest that rugby provides there.

But in terms of athletic ability, those guys, it would be too big a leap for them to go

from rugby union to rugby league.

And do you think therefore, but is that part of the downfall of rugby union?

I mean, in terms of a spectator sport, let's just talk about Australia, obviously, because

other parts of the world, maybe not the case.

But in rugby league, everyone's pretty much the same.

Yeah.

Apart from your halfback.

No, they are, yeah.

And maybe your fullback.

Yeah.

But your fullside backs and most of your forwards, except maybe the hooker, dummy half, they're

all pretty much, they're all about the same size, they're all about 100 plus kilos.

They all can run 12 seconds, 100 meters.

They're all big and strong and robust.

And it's become a bit of a same game and it's very fast and it flows and it doesn't, because

by the way, this is what the physiques of the rugby league players can do.

They can just keep rolling, keep rolling.

It's a good spectator game.

Rugby union still is very pure.

Your front three, they're all 120 kilos, but they're all five foot eight, five foot

nine.

Yeah.

And then your back row is your tall guys.

And then your back line is similar sort of players to what they were when they were playing

schoolboys.

They're all good runners.

They can run the ball and they can kick the ball and then catch the ball.

So do you think rugby union has stayed too pure?

I think it's a harder game for the audience to understand.

That's probably the big challenge in rugby at the moment.

Yeah.

Like just to sit there and watch it.

No one likes to, no one likes to watch sport and not, not understand it.

That's...

To seem more technical.

Yeah, absolutely.

Like...

In terms of rules.

Like what was that penalty for?

Yeah.

I don't know.

That's sometimes...

Sometimes you don't know.

Sometimes the answer, you're sitting in a game of rugby and I was at World Cup, what's that

penalty for?

And you're like, it could be for a number of things.

And you'll argue, you sit there with mates that you've, that you view some people as

really good rugby analysts, experts, and you'll argue over penalties.

Yeah.

And I suppose that still happens in rugby league with put downs and was his foot in

or out.

Like, but it's not...

It's not more a technical...

No, it's not.

It's not an easy thing.

He fucked it up.

He got the...

He made a mistake.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And in rugby, it's not that easy.

He's...

Okay.

The biggest issue with rugby is it's probably the hardest sport in the world to referee.

No sport in the world can again be influenced by the referee.

And again, I go back to the USA model in an NFL game, there's eight, eight umpires.

They're all responsible for something.

Rugby league.

Yeah.

Two referees.

And they've gone back and said, we don't want that.

Rugby hasn't...

I know they've...

Apparently they've tried it in some competitions.

I think we've got to start trying those sort of things, you know.

It's that hard a game.

We always know.

So as a coach, one of the first things I do, I look at the referee before I look at the

opposition on a Saturday.

Because you've studied that referee.

We just know what they're sort of, they've got key interpretations that they're a little

bit stricter on.

Some are more stricter on offside.

Some are a bit more stricter with going off your feet of the ruck.

Some are strict on coming...

And clean out from the side.

So that in itself, like the referees, they're not doing anything wrong.

It's a hard game for them to manage.

I can't think of a game in the world that's harder to referee than rugby.

And therefore makes it a lot more difficult as a spectator game.

That's right.

And you're relying on spectators in terms of money and TV rights and because TV companies

don't give a shit as long as they've got people watching.

That's right.

I'll pay you a lot of money if you can give me a lot of content.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that content wants to be watched.

Yeah.

And people will stop watching it if they don't understand it.

Yeah.

I mean, I go back to much simpler days when we used to watch it was, you know, the Campeas

and all that sort of people.

Yeah.

Much simpler game.

It was.

And it was easy, easy to watch for me.

And it's just become, it's become, yeah, it's a challenging, it's a challenging game to

adjudicate and you're on your own out there and you've got this, there's so many, you've

got linesmen or they're called ARs now, assistant referees, and they're responsible for offside.

But in any given ruck.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You pulled up five clips now and you showed me a penalty.

I could, I could agree or disagree and I could find one or two other infringements at that

same ruck.

And so it's a bit like, well, what, what was the most cynical penalty there?

What one affected the outcome of the game?

What deserved to be blown?

Like some, sometimes referees will have excellent games to a spectator and they'll be hauled

in from their coaches and go, you let all these things go.

That was.

So what's the answer to that?

Then we said, but who, who was making all this technical rules?

Well, look, that's the problem with rugby.

It's that it's, you know, if they never all want to change a rule, what do they do?

They go to more park and they change it.

Yeah.

It's changing.

They can change rules in a, in a week.

Yeah.

Rugby have to go through like a bylaw.

They have to go through a trial period.

Oh really?

So we're now Sydney club, all club rugby, playing a tackle law below the sternum.

Any tackle above the sternum is a penalty.

So I'll have players that play for the Waratahs on a Friday night that tackle normally and

then come down and play on Saturday.

So, so club rugby is different to the rep rugby.

This year it is.

In terms of the.

Tackle height.

Where, where, where.

Yeah.

So the.

Any above the sternum is a penalty.

Yeah.

So because of they're trying to protect the head.

Yeah.

But then there's a flip side of it.

The tall guys that we just mentioned, the six eights, they've got to now bend their

back a little bit more.

They're the, they're the ones a little bit more vulnerable to getting knees to the head

because they've got to become legs tacklers all of a sudden.

So it's not easy.

And so this is just one example of how the game, and for this to be approved, it needs

to go through a trial period, world rugby.

And every time Australians understand it, like we, Australia, New Zealand, we, we want

the game to, to flow because that's what we compete against.

And every time something goes to get changed, the Northern Hemisphere who, who prefer a

different style of rugby.

And if there's a board of 10 and there's six from the Northern Hemisphere, where do the

six vote?

So there's always this pushback.

So it's one international rule.

You need, you need to change the laws.

They need to, to, for it to be sanctioned by world rugby.

Ah, right.

So there's a problem just there.

You're never going to, because Northern Hemisphere, everything that we don't like, kick to the

corner and there's a mall, Australians will go, go to the bathroom during, during that.

They'll go get a beer.

Whereas the North, they start cheering when there's a, a mall, a scrum or a mall five

metres out.

Cause it's just, you know, the, the conditions over the years, the weather, the style of

footy that have been successful as a nation, it's different to our style of footy.

Do, do you, do, do you think, I mean, you just mentioned that the tackle height, which

I'm on the NRL's concussion committee, which is part of the player safety group.

So it's a subcommittee part of that.

And we often talk about.

The ARU rules or rugby union rules relative to tackle heights and stuff like that.

And at this stage, well, we have not bought a ruling like you guys have bought that ruling.

Is it, has rugby union become an anti-state?

Ex player.

No, look, I look at, I do think leaguer in, I reckon there's going to be some issues in

league in.

Don't want to get hit in the head.

I get that.

No, no.

I think there's going to be.

But why Stern and Blow?

That's what I'm talking about.

Because of the height of some players.

I don't agree with that.

I do agree with how rugby are managing protocol for head knocks.

Well, we're doing the same now.

So we've got the same, you know, 11 days, 10 days, but, but I, I, if I.

So when the shoulder charge got taken out of rugby league, I thought this is terrible.

Like this was some of the best highlights, but now you think about it.

No, it was, it had to happen.

Yeah.

Because it was an unfair advantage for someone to be able to load up, not have any technique

involved and knock the lights out of someone else.

Or someone like Dylan App is six foot eight or something like that.

And he's 120 kilos.

That's right.

And really tough players make really good hits in, in rugby league without shoulder

charge.

And so I think we, we learn to evolve as spectators.

There are definitely parts of the game where.

But do you think above the Sturm is, below the Sturm I should say, is going too far like

a.

Yeah.

There's a.

I mean, like if you hit around the top of the chest, what's wrong with that?

Yeah.

Look, it's everything.

Everything I coached last year was, had to be thrown out the window at the start of this

year.

And you know, we had a good year last year with Ramit won the comp on the back of defense

and it had to be changed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

When an email came around in middle of January this year.

So there's, I'm sort of of the opinion, I'm happy to, a bit like when I'm saying, I think

we should try things like two or three referees.

I'm happy to try things like that to see if it works.

But there are parts of me that, yeah, there's a lot of things like the contact in the air

where there's the red card.

A lot of things have been tried in rugby where they're bringing the 20 minute red card where

they, where you get a yellow card and then they go and get time to assess if it gets

upgraded to red.

So I think world rugby.

I quite like when they get you.

Is that the one where if, if, if you get sent off, you get a red card.

Yeah.

Someone else can come back on.

In 20 minutes, someone else can come back on.

Yeah.

I quite like that.

That would have been awesome in Origin the other night.

The other night, Origin.

I mean, I saw him.

So there are some things they're doing.

They're doing some good stuff here.

That's a good rule.

Yeah.

But a good example, and I'm not excusing what Joseph Swiley did, but you know, that Joseph's

six foot six or something and you know, Reece Walsh is like, I don't know, much smaller

and Reece slipped because of Joseph's height and may well be there was some recklessness

in there.

He didn't adjust and probably, but very hard to adjust mid flight.

And I would have thought in rugby, everyone's six, there's a whole lot of guys that tall.

Yeah.

And, but there's also those guys much shorter.

So I would have thought to myself, that would be a real danger, not being able to tackle

above the sternum.

It's really difficult.

I mean, the sternum, I guess.

It's there.

That's what it is.

But how's the referee see that?

Like.

Yeah.

And it's not for the referees because these guys, like they're now got to go and police

something completely different.

So whether it'll be, the thing is like when World Rugby started.

There's a few nations did it before us, everyone's sort of trying to be politically correct.

So I don't disagree with why they did it.

I don't think it's made it any better or worse at the moment.

It's going to take years to work that out.

But.

Is there an existential threat to rugby union with the rules?

All the new rules that are coming in, you know, everything just keeps flowing in the

joint.

You know, will it last?

It'll last globally.

We just, the fear, the fear is that we don't get it right.

And we become.

A sport that, you know, that isn't in the sort of realm of one of the big sports.

And we just can't fight our way, way out to get back in the top three in the world.

Like we sat there for 15 years.

That's the threat.

The global threat is not there that like, and I, again, I'm a, I love my league.

I get disappointed with the league, the perception of league to union and like I'm, I'm an Aussie

kid.

I love watching my league.

I don't reckon too many league boys sit there and are proud to say that they like watching

rugby.

It's a, it's a badge of honor to say, oh, rugby sucks.

And the game is really unhealthy to pro level globally.

It wasn't a spare seat at the world cup.

You know what I mean?

Like the game is really healthy.

We've just got to be performing well.

And the Wallabies, it sounds silly, there's, there's a lot to fix to make the Wallabies

successful.

But if the Wallabies are successful, it'll be a popular sport in Australia again.

Is Phil Ward the right guy?

I think he is because he's, you saw him play like he's pretty tenacious sort of fella.

He's going to have to make some enemies like he did on, on the footy field.

He's got to be prepared to be unpopular.

He's got to be prepared to be unpopular.

He's got to be prepared to be unpopular.

Um, but I think the current chairman is Daniel Herbert and Phil Ward.

You just got to give them, we've got to stick with them.

We've had so much turnover, disappointed with how the last administration went down, like

that whole playing the stuff in the media and taking pot shots at league and trying

to play the intelligence card.

Not smart.

We didn't like, it's still hurting us now.

Like it's, you don't, you don't poke the bear and you sort of show respect to where league

are and Volandes is doing a fantastic job.

And I think we became, well that, that is probably half the reason.

Why a lot of league fans hate rugby at the moment because how our former chairman was

out there disrespecting the intelligence of another code.

Like I just thought that was poor taste and rugby's never been about that.

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I want to do a complete switch now about you, Stevie Halls.

So you're a sports fan?

Yes.

Thank you, Stevie Halls.

You co-founded a business called RECOVERY.

Yeah.

Outside of Rugby League.

Well, it's sort of like Rugby Union and Rugby League.

It's nothing to do with what you do day to day, I guess, but it is something you do day

to day.

What's RECOVERY?

Yeah.

It's a wellness center that has group and large size ice bath saunas, hyperbaric chamber,

compression boots.

It's basically what we've all seen for years that was accessible at SFS Footy Stadium.

Right level.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The gym, the club, and the sauna.

And I just retired out of ... I've had a couple of gym franchises.

I've been involved in Anytime Fitness, and then F45, and about to open a Strong Pilates,

a Pilates wellness center.

Oh, the Strong brand.

Yeah.

Going to open that soon in Coogee.

And I just, over time, when I went through retiring and body was broken and wasn't able

to access a lot of the services that I was getting as a full-time footy player, found

it difficult to actually go and find these places.

And just watched the emergence of saunas popping up here and there, some cryo machines, and

we didn't have cryo machines.

And I just, I always knew that ice baths worked, and yeah, we just ...

So what have you got?

What's in ... How many sites have you got?

We've got Coogee, Cronulla, and Manly.

Okay.

Three sites in New South Wales.

Yeah.

We've got a lease signed in LA.

So what's the site got inside?

So I walk in, what do I get?

Is it membership?

How does it work?

It's both.

It's membership.

It's casual walking off the street, or it's multi-packs like Pilates and yoga model.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's very casual.

You buy a membership, you can come two, three times a week, you can come unlimited.

There's different type of memberships.

Half of our revenue comes from memberships, and half comes from walk-ins off the street

or multi-packs, which is good because they're all paying different prices, and members will

be able to come as many times as they want throughout the week.

You might not want to come ... It might be something you only do four times a month.

So you just buy a multi-pack, or you pay once as you're coming off the street.

It's honestly very much similar to what you would have seen at ...

Yeah.

... the Allianz or the Sydney Footy Stadium spa back in the days.

So you've got an ice bath?

Got a large ice bath that can fit ... Put it this way, we can get a rugby team in and

out in 45 minutes, so you can get ... You've got three or four saunas, you've got two or

three ice baths.

One might be three, five, 10 degrees.

You've got a big hot bath that could be 40 degrees, and then you've got a room outside

that's got 12 recliner chairs with compression boots, and we've got a lease signed in the

States.

There's the IV therapy.

Yeah.

The longevity side of it.

The drip.

Yeah, the drip.

There's all that sort of stuff that is starting to become a little bit more mainstream now.

That's not in Australia, though.

That's in the US.

No, we've done it in Australia.

Yeah, we've tried it, and we've sort of taken some data on it.

So you can get vitamin C, and B12 shots, blah, blah, blah, and pain museum.

It's becoming a little bit more popular here, but still over in the States, it's pretty

common everywhere.

I stayed at Caesar's Palace, and I was walking to the gym, and there was a center right there.

Exactly, yeah.

You can go and get it.

There's about 30 different injections, infusions you can get.

Yeah.

There's a lot of vitamin in the world.

Yeah.

Things I've never even heard of.

And I didn't go in, but I was tempted to, but everything was set out there.

It was pretty amazing.

But there was people in there.

I saw people in there.

So recovery is not just recovering.

It's just for health and wellness, I guess, at the end of the day.

Yeah.

And so what we sort of thought initially, we probably thought it'd be like the gym junkie,

the weekend warrior.

We've now been ... A big day on a Saturday or Sunday is like a couple hundred guests.

Wow.

A couple hundred people come through the door.

Wow.

Yeah.

30% of those people are there, not because they've got an injury, just because they want

to stay on top of their mental health.

Yeah.

So Monday mornings, just to start their routine, just to go and sit in an ice bath for 10 minutes

in a 30-minute booking.

You go ... Everyone's got their own routine.

We don't tell people what the right time is.

It's up to the individual worker.

They've got to book in, though.

They've got to book in.

Yeah, yeah.

And there's private bookings where you can get your own room, and you can get your own

sauna and your own plunge pool, or you could be sitting in there tomorrow, and you could

be sitting there with ... A famous Swans player could be sitting in there.

Yeah.

You might love that, but someone ... Your partner might not like that.

Yeah.

So there's private facilities, and there's shared facilities.

Yeah.

But it's ice bath, infrared, we're talking about ...

It's traditional sauna, steam room, infrared.

We've got all of them.

And you've got the boots.

You've got normal ...

Compression.

Compression boots.

And you've got a ...

You've got a hyperbaric chamber.

Hyperbaric chamber, yeah.

And we've got a dry float bed.

So you know those float pods that people use?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We've got a dry version of that, which is a hot water bed.

And let's just put the infusions aside, but that could be for the future, but are there

other professional aspects to it?

Like, for example, you can do consultations with someone about, you know, my blood count,

that sort of stuff?

So in the States, that'll be the longevity side of it.

That'll be ... We're opening our first one later this year in Los Angeles.

I was living there for a couple of years, and I sort of noticed when I was there, I

was coaching a rugby team, I couldn't find a large size ice bath in the whole of Los

Angeles.

Really?

Unless you got to the Lakers facility or UCLA.

Yeah, UCLA.

And it was impossible.

So we spent four hours trying to get a rugby team through the day before a grand final.

And there's a few competitors over there, but they're more ...

Yeah.

Yeah.

The private suites, like day spa, small sauna, small one-person plunge, and they can fit

three people at a time.

And they might have a room that has three or four of those, whereas you walk into ours

and you've got ... It can fit the same number of people that have just left a group training

class of 30 people.

So large people in a short period of time, therefore you can charge them a little bit

less of what the competitors are charging.

So it's sort of like that Gary Brekker thing, like he's just a bit more flawed in that

he gets a whole lot of other stuff.

Yeah, yeah.

So that'll be a big part of what the first one in Los Angeles is.

There's a medical director who's involved in the business now, and he will trade his

medical concierge business outside of our first one in the States.

And that'll be ... Part of our membership will be you get a consultation with the doctor,

your blood's taken.

So that's purely in America, because they're probably a little bit more ...

Can you do that here?

You can do it here, but it's a whole different ... We haven't got a medical director as

part of our head coach here, so we're sort of working through that.

But you need a licensed doctor, and then you need a registered nurse to go through all

of those things.

So we haven't hit go on that in Australia yet.

We've been ... We've enjoyed the success that Coogee, Cronulla and Manly have had.

We've got more sites coming and potential more in the North America region, and it's

been exciting.

You're going to talk to Tim again.

Yeah.

Unfortunately, I don't talk to him about that.

Could you go and talk to Tim again?

Tim, you're probably listening to this, so I'm just mucking around, mate, it's all good.

Can you just explain, though, how ex-Rugby Union player, current Rugby Union coach, you've

been ...

Yeah.

How did you get involved in something like recovery?

What's the story behind that?

How did I?

Yeah.

What's the story behind that?

Well, I had other gyms ... So I missed three and a half years with an Achilles injury at

like the age of 28.

Two kids at the time.

It was like a tough period, but I was ... I sort of knew this rugby thing won't last forever,

and I also knew what I was like at school.

I wasn't a good student.

Sport kept me ... Well, it got me into a lot of detentions, but sport was sort of what

really kept me on track at school.

And I just knew I'd never be a good 9 to 5.

I just wouldn't thrive in that environment.

So I invested and opened my first gym.

It was a 24-hour gym while I was in Canberra.

I was playing in the Brumbies.

I was an injured player.

I did that.

I didn't ... Got out of that one.

It was down the South Coast.

Then I got out of that brand and went to a 45.

I just sort of started to see the high number of people that were taking up gym memberships.

And then all you kept hearing, talking to good friends that are physios and chiros,

was the high number of people that were gym membership.

And then two, three months later, were booking themselves in for regular physio or chiro.

So this self-maintenance part of what we learned to do as a rugby player, that's what

you get good at.

You get good at being able to push yourself, but then work how to get yourself back into

shape as quickly as possible.

I just realized that there is a market here for people that are now starting to be really

conscious of not how they look, but how they feel.

And then COVID came like two months after we opened Coogee.

And we're right next door to a gym, at 45, and recovering next to each other.

And we own both of them.

And the numbers were pretty even.

Yeah.

For membership and whatnot pre-COVID, post-COVID, wellness just went through the roof.

People just started to become so concerned and aware of how they were feeling and what

they needed to do to feel better physically, that it became part of their routine.

And we're sort of seeing that now, the amount of education and what you can learn about

what is good for your physical health becomes good for your mental health and vice versa.

And we're an aging population.

Have you iced bath before?

Yeah, yeah, heaps.

I've got one.

30 years ago, maybe?

Yeah.

I did when I was playing footy.

But generally speaking, no.

You had to go to a particular facility to have an ice bath.

Exactly.

And so you just see now this emergence of people that now know that this isn't something

that they have to do if they've got a sore back or sore hamstring.

This is something they want to do to avoid getting a sore back or sore hamstring, or

just to feel good and clear and good mental clarity.

Do you remember, I don't know if you remember this guy, but maybe you do.

When you were a young bloke.

Yeah.

I was a young bloke.

I was best mates.

He's now passed away.

But a guy called Gary Stenwell.

Mitchell Stenwell.

I know Gary Stenwell really well.

Mitchell's one of my good mates.

Gary was my best mate.

Really?

I didn't know that.

So we boxed together.

I knew he was a great boxer, wasn't he?

Well, Gary and I, Gary introduced me to boxing when I was 19.

Is he your name, Gary?

No, the Army.

Army.

Yeah.

He went to Vietnam.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So he was in the military police.

Yeah, the family.

Great family.

And he was a good boxer.

And so he introduced me to boxing.

And then like when I was 18, 19.

Yeah.

And then like when I was 18, 19.

Anyway, we trained together till like, till I was 40.

And every morning we'd meet down at Bronnie's Surf Club and we'd, three days a week, we'd

Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday, every year, never stopped, we were in the surf club.

And we'd go for a run from Bronnie to Bondi and back.

And then we'd go and hit the bag and all the old school stuff, you know.

But the thing that we always did was we always jumped in the water, summer, winter.

And that winter swim.

Yeah.

I think.

It was like having an ice bath.

Yeah.

Not quite as cold.

No, it was still 12, 13, 14 degrees.

Still down there, yeah.

And I reckon we never got sick.

Yeah.

Neither one of us.

In the end, you end up getting cancer, unfortunately.

But like neither one of us ever got sick during that period.

And I had four kids, you know, I was running a big business.

And I think about it today, people get sick a lot.

And I never got sick.

And I always put it down to the fact that I was jumping in the cold water three times

a week, summer and winter.

We never missed.

And in fact, I remember taking.

My son, my oldest son and Mitchell and Gary and I said to the two boys, you guys got to

come for a run with us.

And they were about 11 or 12.

And we run them from Bondi to Bronte, Bronte to Bondi.

And there's a few pretty steep hills.

And I never forget Mitchell and Dane both started crying.

We left them behind.

We ran on.

And we said, well, you guys can sit here and we'll get us when we come back.

But that cold water stuff, I think, actually helped.

Helped me.

Yeah.

Helped me avoid injury and illness.

And I think today.

That's the thing.

It's not about fixing you if you're broken.

It's stopping you from getting to the point where you can't train.

That's the biggest benefit for myself.

I know I'm not going to be as big, fit or fast, as strong as I once was.

But if I can stay injury free, then I can still go for, I don't run at all anymore,

but I can still train.

I can still go to the park with the kids and be active at footy training and things like

that.

So it's not about just trying to get myself to peak performance.

It's about being able to continually train and exercise.

Yeah.

And exercise.

Because I know it helps me physically.

It helps me be better with work, better with family.

Mentally too, I think.

Absolutely.

Cold water is good for the mental thing.

Yeah.

I don't know what it does physically.

And it's funny you should say, because I was only talking to an orthopaedic guy this morning

before I came here.

And he was explaining to me that if you look at the data of all Australian males over time,

in terms of our age, he said that your muscle, muscle amount.

Yeah.

Amount of muscle.

Muscle volume.

Yeah, yeah.

Wastage or volume.

Goes down on a very, quite a smooth line over time as you get older.

It reaches down.

And one day you're dead and you've got very little muscle mass left.

You're 100 and you've got very little muscle mass.

He said, but if you look at individual people, he said it doesn't, it's not that smooth.

It goes like this and it drops.

It goes like this and it drops over time.

Yeah.

And he said, what you've got to try and avoid is that drop period, and he said, one of the

most important things to avoid.

Yeah.

Yeah.

To avoid that drop period is that you don't get injured.

Yeah.

Because you need some training.

Because you can't train.

Yeah.

He said, so what happens is over a two or three week period, if you've got an injury, cause,

because you're not well enough, you don't train, you lose muscle mass, you will never

recover it.

You never get it back.

You don't get it back.

Yeah.

So you want to be on like a life maintenance program.

Yeah.

So cold does, helps you do that.

Yeah.

Cold, and hot therapy, by the way.

Yeah.

Contrast therapy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Contrast therapy.

So you've got options to be cold bath, hot bath or cold bath sauna.

Yeah.

You can choose both.

So.

And so that's what your recovery is doing.

Yes.

Contrast therapy.

Yeah.

It's, it's interesting cause you know, like, I mean, it's probably scientifically

proven that this is sort of stuff we should be doing in order to, cause most people don't

get in their head, oh, why would I bother having a cold, going in a, in a freezing cold

bath?

Why would I bother getting into a really hot sauna?

Why would I bother doing it regularly?

Why would I bother?

Because at the end of the day, it's about maintaining muscle mass, for a bloke anyway,

I guess same applies to women, but muscle mass for a guy, it's very hard to maintain

muscle mass.

We go through periods of illness or injury and what you do is work out how do I avoid

illness and injury?

Or how can I actually give myself a fight and chance?

And I think some of the way recovery is pretty smart as, as sort of tapping in to the modern,

the modern or the science around modern thinking in terms of maintaining your, being your best

possible self for as long as possible.

There's also like, I saw the Hoobman, Andrew Hoobman came to Australia at the start of

the year.

He actually came into recovery throughout the course of the week.

Did he?

I watched his seminar at the Sydney Opera House and he said one thing that was really,

I've always thought this, but how he said it, and I'm going to, I can't say it in technical

terms.

Paraphrase it.

But he said that something along the lines of everything you do that you don't want to

do.

Like if you don't want to go walk down the shop and buy food in the morning because it's

too cold.

If you don't want to go to work, everything, every time you do something that you don't

want to do, you're building like a mental resilience, but there is a physiological improvement

in your brain.

Have you been able to complete tasks you don't want to do?

Like when you think about it.

So going to cold water.

Yeah.

Like, but not in fit, not doing things physically, but just, if you don't want to go to work

to have, you don't want to stay back for another hour because you, it's easier not to, everything

you do that you don't want to do and you push through some type of resilience barrier, there

is a physical improvement.

There is a physical change in your brain doing things or completing tasks that you don't

actually want to do.

Yeah.

It's interesting because, and I have to finish off on this too, but like what's interesting

about what you just said is that I think, and I don't know if it's right or wrong, but

I reckon one of the reasons we age after a certain point.

You know, like your dad would be around my age, is that we sort of get comfortable and

we don't have to do things we don't want to do.

We don't need to do this anymore.

You don't need to go out four times a week and stay at home.

Yeah.

I don't need to.

And, and I think what that does, what we should be doing as we get older, is to actually force

ourselves to do the things you were talking about in order to keep challenging ourselves.

I think it's really important and it's a simple thing.

Jumping in an ice bath is a simple thing.

Yeah.

You know, your joint, your recovery place, you just pay the fee, whatever it is, and

you know, by that stage you probably have accumulated a little bit of money anyway.

You know, you've got, you've got the ability to live a certain lifestyle.

If what Andrew Hubman says is correct, and what you just try to paraphrase, if it's correct,

then actually we will live more with more vitality going forward.

Because if we just, oh, we've got the house, the house is paid off, we've got one or two

investments, I've got my super, I'm cool.

I don't have to do anything.

I don't need to train like I used to train.

I can't train like I used to train because, you know, my knees are no good.

You find another way instead of stopping.

So I've got to get challenged.

And dudes my age start thinking about finding the challenge.

And one of, and it's a pretty simple one, just jumping in a cold bath.

It's pretty bloody simple, actually.

Yeah.

As a regular thing.

Make it part of your routine, even if you do it twice a week.

You talk about this and, you know, people are now very, this has become very normal

in people's lives.

Yeah.

It's not unusual.

Yeah.

And so in 20 years time, every 60 year old, not every 60, but a large number of 60s.

You'll be doing it.

We'll be doing it.

Yeah.

But my age group, we're not doing it.

No, not enough.

Because there's, like a lot of us can't wait to retire.

Yeah.

Can't wait to get to 65 and hang their gloves up and stop, stop doing everything.

And everything slows down once you slow down.

And then once you slow down everything, you start to lose muscle mass and things, you

just start to deplete.

Yeah.

And I, it's very interesting that you're, you and, you've got business partners.

Yeah.

I've got, I've got Nick Bardetta and Trev Folsom.

And so we've gone down that path of, we're not a franchise, we're a partnership studio.

We have studio partners.

And now we're just, because of what we've learned in the time.

What's that mean as a model?

So you give, give.

So instead of selling a territory and just taking a check off someone and them being

responsible for it.

Yeah.

We're, we're in for, if you're in a studio as a partner, as a studio operator, we're

in with you.

And we've got majority ownership and we've got the ability to raise and exit when we

want to.

But we just felt franchising wasn't for us because these are harder to open up.

You're putting pools, you've got, you know, heavy, heavy pools going on slabs.

You've got ventilation.

You've got a lot more risk for an owner.

It's not just taking a check and opening up a Pilates or yoga studio.

A lot more, more capital involved.

And a lot more, like there's engineering, there's a lot more.

Got to be done properly.

That's right.

And so there's compliance issues.

And we've, we've just been going, a lot of the competitors, there's a lot of, I'm

sure you've got an ice bath.

Yeah.

It's probably perfect for you at home using it once or twice a day.

But if you put 20 people in the ice bath, it's not going to be clean or it's not

going to be cold.

Yeah.

So we've built our own chiller and we've built our own pool and we haven't gone to

market yet, but there'll be distribution side of the business soon, helping other businesses,

hotels, gyms, add small wellness to their, their facility.

So what we sort of learned over the five years is, is about the compliance side of the business

and you've got to put the right service, you've got to put the right type of products in to

make sure they're clean and they're, they're cold enough and there's no issues with customers

and there's no insurance blowback.

So it's a big deal.

Yeah.

It's a big market.

People are buying a lot of stuff for at home and what works at home doesn't work from a

commercial perspective.

Well, my one definitely wouldn't work in a commercial environment.

My one's one of those that's got the stainless steel on the inside and the timber on the

outside.

You probably know the name of it.

Yeah.

It's...

Odin?

Odin, yeah.

It cost me heaps.

They're really good.

They're great.

But the order...

Yeah, 14 weeks?

Oh, more.

I think it was like five months or something.

Like I waited forever to get it.

Yeah.

But I got it and...

Well, they're just so popular now.

Yeah, totally.

And I'm amazed at that.

Yeah.

And I'm amazed at the number of videos.

And then as a result, we thought, well, we've got to open all these more studio.

Why don't we just design our own?

So we've just gone down that hole, the rabbit hole of how to get your own version.

The biggest, the piece of the puzzle on this is the chiller that keeps the big large pool

cold.

Yeah.

And on a hot day in Sydney or Queensland, and you've got 20 people coming in every hour.

Body heat.

Yeah.

So finding...

And we've just sort of realised we're better off working with a few people to build our

own and we've put it in ours now and we're just about to launch them elsewhere.

Well, I'm actually glad we got to talk about it as well as...

I'm trying to solve the issues around rugby union today.

I think it's harder to solve rugby, to be honest.

Stevie Hawes, good to see you, mate.

Thanks, mate.

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