{"id":17634,"date":"2025-07-24T04:04:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T04:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/17634\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T04:04:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T04:04:08","slug":"melbournes-rugby-landscape-opened-up-with-rebels-demise-storm-are-pouncing-on-the-opportunity-rugby-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/17634\/","title":{"rendered":"Melbourne\u2019s rugby landscape opened up with Rebels\u2019 demise \u2013 Storm are pouncing on the opportunity | Rugby union"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a city accustomed to sporting crossovers, Wallabies captain Harry Wilson<\/a> and winger Harry Potter<\/a> obligingly kicked a Sherrin in front of news cameras at the MCG on Wednesday. Featuring players from AFL club Essendon, the media event was designed to promote Saturday\u2019s Test against the British & Irish Lions<\/a>, and drive ticket sales towards the crowd of 90,000-plus Rugby Australia is hoping for. Behind the two Harrys, the rugby posts had been installed but the Australian rules ones also remained, not yet giving over the field for the northern code to borrow for the day on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Despite the dominance of Australian rules in the winter sporting marketplace, Melbourne has produced a crop of international rugby union players, including John Eales medal-winner Rob Valetini, Potter, other Wallabies such as Seru Uru and Hunter Paisami as well as Scotland captain and Lions centre, Sione Tuipolutu.<\/p>\n

The sport\u2019s connection to Melbourne can be traced through its multicultural roots, elite private schools and suburban communities, especially those with links to the Pacific. Yet the demise of the Melbourne Rebels last year has left the sport without a professional entity in Australia\u2019s biggest city. There are increasing concerns from those within the code that promising players will be lost to rugby league.<\/p>\n

Another local product, the Rebels\u2019 last captain, backrower Rob Leota, made the letter M with his hands after scoring for the First Nations & Pasifika XV against the Lions on Tuesday, \u201cfor where I\u2019m from,\u201d he said. \u201cUnfortunately last year was hard for me, being in Melbourne for nine years. I just look at it as good memories, and treasure those times.\u201d Leota had to move to the Waratahs this year to continue his rugby career. Now, he is off to France to play with Bayonne. \u201cDon\u2019t forget your roots, because wherever you go, whatever sport you play, just be proud to be yourself,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Rugby Australia is in a period of \u201cright-sizing\u201d the organisation, and it gave up waiting for the Rebels to become viable last year. Rugby Victoria, the body in charge of local clubs and grassroots, is also facing financial strain. Though a new centre of excellence is crucial to the organisation\u2019s new strategy for financial sustainability, it remains unfinished, and temporary change rooms are being deployed at the site in north-eastern Melbourne for games, training and events.<\/p>\n

Former Rebels captain Rob Leota says \u2018you can\u2019t blame kids\u2019 for wanting to take up rugby league given the opportunities available. Photograph: Martin Keep\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, rugby league club Melbourne Storm<\/a> continue their slow but steady growth. Average crowds are now above 20,000 and the outfit is considered one of the best run in the NRL competition, behind only the AFL in terms of revenue. Storm\u2019s football manager, Frank Ponissi, has been credited with much of the club\u2019s success over the last two decades. After seeing the Storm\u2019s supply of young talent \u2013 often recruited from New South Wales or Queensland \u2013 dwindle by 2022 in a period he admits was \u201cneglect\u201d, he worked to secured support from the board for a renewed focus on Victoria\u2019s best.<\/p>\n

Six new full-time staff now run the men\u2019s pathways, and the club will field a team in the second-tier NSW Cup competition for the first time next season. The Storm are also recruiting staff to run the junior women\u2019s programs, designed to support the club\u2019s eventual entry into the NRLW.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe don\u2019t see it as rugby league v rugby union, but we just want to have a program that young players \u2013 even if they are rugby union players \u2013 can say, well, there\u2019s a genuine opportunity for me to climb the ladder,\u201d Ponissi said.<\/p>\n

The veteran administrator said young Victorians especially with Pacific Island backgrounds often played both rugby codes, and it was natural that they would see the appeal of the club\u2019s now complete pathway.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re good enough, you\u2019re ambitious enough and you want it, you can climb that ladder without leaving home,\u201d Ponissi said. \u201cWhere now, through no fault of Rugby Victoria, they haven\u2019t got that opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leota doesn\u2019t blame young union players from recognising the opportunities in NRL. \u201cThe Storm have been going well for so long, and you can\u2019t blame kids for wanting to take up league, which is the unfortunate thing with the Rebels not being here any more,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

So far, the Storm haven\u2019t produced many local players in their almost three decades of existence. Winger Siulagi Tuimalatu-Brown became just the sixth Victorian to wear the jersey earlier this month.<\/p>\n

But Ponissi is open to leveraging those in other sports for the betterment of his club. He even invited former Lions player Ronan O\u2019Gara to Storm training on Wednesday, after the pair struck up a bond when the Irishman was coaching at Crusaders in 2018 and 2019. \u201cOn the bigger scale, it\u2019s not an AFL v the NRL here in Melbourne, because we\u2019re not going to win that fight,\u201d Ponissi said. \u201cIf kids playing rugby union are attracted to come over, that\u2019s fantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a city accustomed to sporting crossovers, Wallabies captain Harry Wilson and winger Harry Potter obligingly kicked a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-17634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}