The beginning of the end - AFL has stormed the ramparts snide comments aside - it is actually the ARU that has failed here - they are the general custodians of the game and have allowed the disconnect to start at the top and fracture its way down through the body. If your kid plays rugby in NSW you have AT LEAST 2 disconnected data bases to contend with - Buddha & MRA - they do not "talk" to each other. The schools then sit outside all of this all together, not being required (as I understand it) to register their players! Because that's the way the schools have always done it. IF the funding comes from the top so to should the participation rules. And the knife to the throat would be participation in representative rugby for the schools. GOLDEN RULE #1 He who kicks in the gold, makes the rules! I don't want to get down to semantics, but NSWRU have been the custodians of the game in this state since 1874. They may have very gradually ceded some power and functions to the ARU, but they have retained a controlling bloc of votes. Essentially if the NSWRU had really wanted the ARU to do something then it would have happened. Even now, the ARU cannot reform its structure if the NSWRU delegates vote against it. For most of its existance the ARU has really only been a co-ordinating body, with state unions in control of their own