The New Zealand Rugby Union has today announced its player numbers for 2008 have increased 3% to a total of 140,279 players involved in the game this year. These numbers must particularly please the administrators given the amount of negative publicity that the game has recently attracted in the land of the long white cloud.
Taken from the press release:
One of the areas of significant growth is in the under 13 age group where seven percent more children are playing rugby this year.
NZRU General Manager Community and Provincial Union Rugby, Brent Anderson, said the organisation was delighted with the rise in numbers, following a year in which rugby faced many challenges.
“This news is a big boost for the game. One of our 2008 priorities through the implementation of the Community Rugby Plan is to increase participation rates in all areas, and since our first Community Rugby Plan was introduced in 2004, we have recorded an overall increase of 16% in player numbers.
BATTLE ROYALE FOR SUPREMACY IN TRANS TASMAN RUGBY
October 20, 2008 · Leave a Comment
The past few weeks on TV and on the web all the Rugby talk has been about the upcoming match between The wallabies and All blacks in Hong Kong.
However, during this timeframe the junior teams for both countries have been doing battle as have the ladies teams.
The current status reads as follows:
1. All Blacks lead the Bledisloe series 2 – 1
2. The New Zealand Black Ferns have defeated the Wallaroos 2 – 0
3. The Australian schoolboys gained their first ever win over their New Zealand counterparts in the land of the long white cloud.
What can we draw from this? Simply that the gap between the two nations across all levels of rugby is closing and fast. Just as it should be.
Categories: Rugby Union Comment
Tagged: Australian Rugby, New Zealand Rugby