Hi, Mike Boris, and this is straight talk. Is it an exextential 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 worn straight talk.
Mate.
I want to talk to you about a state of 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 rays, to be honest, put them in this term. So there's five teams at the moment with a five million dollar salary cap each versus sixteen and r old teams with thirty million dollar salary cap. How
are you 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 has never been about that.
Stevie Hall's warning, straight talk mate. Thanks Mark, Thanks well, I haven't seen you since. I know you're a the early forties. Now. I haven't seen you since about probably fifteen or sixteen around that territory when you were playing for Istramic back in the day, the East Rambick Repside. But you're a Ramdwick boy.
We just we merged our rep teams that weekend was on recently. You know. Yeah, my sons at that age at the moment. Actually your son or one of my kids is really thirteen. He didn't make that Raundmick sit unfortunately, but yeah, that he's going through the same age when I last met you.
Yeah, and I sort of I can't remember. You're a back row. I think your back row, yeah yeah, yeah, you've got big tall, much taller than you were there. Yeah.
When I was at school thirteen to sixteen, he's seventy year twelve. I wasn't allowed to play in the backs in the forward. Sorry, I had to play in the backs at Waverley. I was too short, So I got those years. Have been half back in five eight, which then helped me later in life when I had my growth spurts.
So you're you was Trent Language. Was he your territory or.
A few years older old? Yeah? Changing was couples old and I was in the surf club and training with Changing, so I know him well.
And you're you come from Rugby Union territory and your dad played footy.
Yeah.
Have you always been Ramwick?
Yeah? Heverage so dad Samaruba boy and I grew up at Ramwick. Dad won a few first grade premierships at the center. He finished quite early, by the age of twenty six. He was finished because he was managing the airport for customs. But then as I grew up, I was a couodie won bat for ten years whilst playing league league on a Sunday, Rugby on a Saturday, but mum worked at the New South. I was rugby league
the whole way. I was from about the age of five to fifteen, and that was I saw you, Johnny qualen of you and that was sort of the era that I grew up in. I was halftime entertainment at every second Grand Final and got tickets to all the big games. So I'm a Tiger's tragic. I don't know how. I actually do know. I got given a number one jersey when I was a kid, Austraian number one. That was Gary Jack, my map of Souse, and he's been
a wavery boy. But I was a Tiger's tragic and I did league in union all the way through and then I got to fifteen. It was a bit it was 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 lots to the point where I 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 the league. I was a hooker, halfback lock. We was 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 it did both and still enjoy both.
So I wouldn't mind going back to that time, just in terms of style, so and just to talk about
the way the world's changed. And I was worth explaining a lot of rugby league kids if they went to private schools, particularly around the East Suburbs areas and Low and ll Sure they played league on Sundays and union on Saturdays sometimes Friday night, yeah, basically, and the schools and they played rugby for their school on the Saturday went and played you were at Waverley went and played in the CIS and other kids playing the GPS, et cetera,
all the different competitions, and then you were probably played club rugby as well, and that could have been on a Friday night or during the week. So ordinarily 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 seasons 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 in particular and in particular training, and there's a lot of pressure on the kids give up rugby league. Do you remember that?
I do remember, and essentially like when I was in year twelve, I played in the first and year twelve I couldn't play league in the holidays. I'd to sneak off a couple of games for the one bats. I didn't want wavery to find out because there was a strict where you couldn't.
Why, Ah, what do you think that's about.
I think it's ConTroll thing, to be honest, it's gone back that to be fair. Now, I now know that schools are encouraging kids to go and play club rugby and league.
That's because they teaching about to tackle.
That's right, Like there are benefits of doing both, absolutely so. And you see the kids that around fourteen fifteen, and I see now my son's thirteen. I see the kids that are 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 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 kids.
Right now, you're a coach and you're coaching around wick and I just wanted to lay that down as a foundation straight up, because I want to talk to you about rugby union and the state of rugby union and being a coach. You can actually speak expertally on this as not just because you were also a player 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 eighties, 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 ever did But then it changed. Rugby unions changed me and I I have real interest in watching rugby game of rage union today, not just because I'm a Roagay league fans,
but the game's changed. It has and I want to go back and ask you if you could go back to your your rugby union days when you're playing, when you're a kid playing you know, from Ramwick, 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 Ramwick in the eighties and nineties. So that's what I learned exactly, like the Pointer Evens, the campez Is, the Knoxes, the names just go on and on, honestly, So they had the game, had a way of trying to keep the ball off the ground. It was about continuity of play that what does that mean? You'd be able to run and stand and set up them all and keep playing. Now you see the ball gat 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 tacklings evolved. So we were taught as kids as a back rower chase the ball just be two or three meters behind the ball the whole time. Now because defense is improved and people are better at still in the football as in poach like they 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 kicking if you don't kick the ball. So 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 in a league term.
If you run and you're not near your dummy half and you get tackled not near you dumby half, you lose the ball.
So you've got to be because they have better skills are taking away offensively.
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. Hookers become on ballers.
What's on balling right?
Getting over the ball? Still in the football, getting that sort of jack they call it a jackal or a pill for position, And it was typically twenty years ago, it was probably one player in the field was good on the ball. Now there's ten to twelve. If you're not good on the ball and you can't slop the rock where you can't steal the ball, you get picked. So the game is evolve 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 on reset and try and get a new phase, another.
Arch whereas 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 background as a coach to be you know, you go from this line out and you stay on this side of the field. We want one background 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 too, but to 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 don't have to go and watch footage. Whistles blown. Eight forwards get up and they'se going back a scrumb and it's almost if the contest happens once
the ball, once they've hit their shoulders. And that used to take ten to twenty seconds to get that set. We're taking ninety seconds to get a scrum set now and then there's resets.
Was that is it more about safety?
Yeah, they made the gap really big. About my era of the gap was about a meter, and that was there's like two cars crashing into the meter, a lot of damage getting under players, a lot of sort of retirement from 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 a long time. It's a bit too technical to make it too quick.
Shorten the gap in terms of before they engage.
Yeah, so they want their 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 that's actually something that the I don't know whoever it is the referee or 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 a ton wait close enough.
Honestly, on most packs are just under a ton. International packs about nine undred yos, and they sort of.
Train to have as much force as possible and things can go wrong so quickly. Yeah, so that's a place.
Yeah's play safety, but it's I 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 game and I'll get really frustrated. You can kill a game of rugby and fight. You can lose four to five minutes. At the end of a game, you think about it, your side has just gone up by three points the opposition. In rugby league, that's probably what two sets of 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 the disappointing aspect of the game.
So if when you were playing, what is it about? I soon remember the term back in the eighties running rugby. That's sort of what's I found that attractive. You know, get the campezes and all, they're all the wingers to 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 of them.
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 u 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 carry plus four, one, two, three, maybe a couple more forgeress get out of the way. They get out of the way, so there was more space 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 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 end. You honestly could. Yeah, And but but people that for whatever reason, that's too much like rugby league, we can't consider it, or we widen the fields. It's probably a lot difficult to widen fields all around the world. Yeah, probably easy to take. But the it's never been considered because I think they would feel it's jumping into rugby league territory.
Yeah, because it's it's but it's a it's a big game, a lot of followers globally I'm talking about and but it's losing followers and its losing therefore therefore losing attractiveness in terms of revenue and sportships, and therefore here.
In particular here in here in his on a Yeah, globally it's going great, like World Cups are fantastic women's like there's so many aspects of the game that is really healthy. But you read Australian media in news Court, Fox Sports used to have the game. Since they've lost it then they're not on the stand now 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 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 is probably the big one that's third in US. Test footy will always be healthy. But the Wallabies haven't been successful, so we're sort of seen and we're reacting to their performance of late. That's why the game is viewed as if it's not that healthier because the Wallabies aren't going well. Super rugby is the big problem.
Why would you say that the Wallabies aren't going well? I mean, I mean, let's just I mean, is it because of ten years ago? The kids who are growing up and who have now become Wallabies, they have not been done of the right skills or what's the case.
No, like the international markets become very competitive, Like during my playing era, you could have got to Europe at the start your career, a couple of people going to France and a few people were starting to enter the Japanese league. Now like those markets are huge USA. He'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 just not had 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's hurting New South Wales. It's hurt the Brumbies, It's hurt everyone, and it's hurt Perth like person. I got Twiggy Forest there, who's obviously a very successful backer of the side. So we've never had the talent to sustain five elites to rugby teams.
And when I think we brought in Melbourne because it was private money, it was Harold Mitchell, and I think the game view past a couple years ago, but down he held the license for a couple of years. 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 this terms, there's five teams at the moment with a five moon dollar salary cap each versus sixteen RL teams with thirty moon dollar salary cap. How are you going to compete on that front.
Well, why isn't they don't have the time, because is it because the pool of talent where the kids grow up in playing footy like is so still restricted to private schools.
I think that I think the talent like, you've got kids at the schools that I went to, Waverly, THEES, the GPS, there's there's probably a dozen AFL players now that have come from Sales and GPS as non AFL players. They've gone and got the best locks. The kids that are going to be one ninety one to ninety five centimeters AFL teams have gone out. They've just got great
recruitment tools. So all these young players, Like it's hard to get good tour players, a lot of them playing AFL, We've got enough good players for a really good club competition and that's I think club foot is excellent. It's healthy and it's thriving. But just at super rugby level, the five teams haven't been performing enough against the Kiwi teams and it definitely hasn't helped the Wallaby performance. You
can't you can't argue that one. In the last the performance over the last ten years since we went 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 these after Perth, and
that was when you notice the player drain. It was probably it was probably easy for players to get contracts and they weren't going through that club system and getting the twenty thirty forty games of club footy where they're getting bashed up by a thirty year old, you know, whiley'
getting hardened by playing second grade and third grade. A lot of kids were coming out of schools and because of the competition the offers from league, it was I've got an offer from South I've gone off from Roosters or Western forth. 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 previously.
And because they weren't hardened enough or at least experienced enough, I think so to play that level.
Yeah, but then they weren't playing enough games. Super rugby is a sixteen game season and they weren't all getting sent back to play club footy and you go from why not, I don't know academies programs, all that sort of off season tours 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 forty game season
for a kid is what you should be doing. Yeah, and I reckon at professional level you could go and do a survey. You've probably got maybe twenty percent of players who aren't the Wallabies. I'll use last year as an example. I got thirty minutes out of one professional player after the Super Rugby for the Ramicks season, got one player for thirty minutes.
You can't say them you've got a gun play, No.
They've got a one too. The game needs and to play World couple years a bit of an anomaly because they kept they were sort of wrapped up in Cotton wall 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 were you know, they're following the Wallabies around and they're used for training sessions at the Wallabies.
And as opponent, you've got.
To squad a thirty five traveling round. It's like the Origin taking two sides, and then Trent Robbins had not been able to get access to the reserves the day after or the day before a Wallaby game because they're finding New Zealand next week and they've got a week off and then we're going to South Africa and I'm not sure about this play. So there's just always been that issue of not letting players get back and playing enough club footy after Super rugby.
So it's it's mid part of me saying this says like a mess. To be honest, he no, because.
I've got offender at that. Now that professional side of the game, it is like and you.
Would say professionals, not at the club rugby level.
Now the club rugby is awesome, like the perception of the modern day player, and that I got a complete shock, and 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 are getting armed till midnight. They're finishing train at eight thirty. They're doing their weights till ten o'clock. They're getting up. They're going to work there on the tour at six am. They're the heartbeat
of the game. And that's where I get to see that now, and club footy is always junior footy, women's forty seven. So many elements of the game is thriving and going really well, but we're just not seeing enough of it because we're seeing Super Rugby and Test footy on TV.
What would you do in terms of Super Rugby.
Yeah, there's a big part of me that thinks it's probably run its rays, 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 in New Zealand, maybe Argentina. Then we started this Super Ugby 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 players in South Africa being in Sydney one week, and I just think over time it's probably 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 comps, petitions, but they've never tried competitions consistently with the jerseys that we're all familiar with, and everyone in the region has a 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 one hundred years, but we've never given them a crack to
be in a national competition. We've tried all these different national competitions, but because we didn't want to alienate or offend some teams, because you can't have every club in a national camp, We've decided to start a national camp with eight new teams, eight new jerseys, the Sydney Rays, New South Vals Country which isn't New South VAL's 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 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 Welsh there gallicly with the Welsh, the Irish and the Scots, and they're now thriving and it's help South African rugby. I lived in America for a couple
of years in twenty twenty and twenty one. I was coaching rugby over there, and I looked at what they were doing with their what they do with football or NFL or Gridin' 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 Ramick 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 high
school play because 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 win and watch Scott's Verst Cranbrook, or they could go down and also watch East Verst Gordon on a Saturday. And you could put your pro footy on a Sunday like the NFL do, plus a couple
like a Thursday night and 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's not just Channel nine and Fox, it's not just Stand. They've got like five of Usit in five or six networks, Like one has a Thursday night game. There's no Friday night professional game football in America, Saturdays or college so you can watch everything as a football fan in the States,
You've got to pick something I can't watch. I've got to watch Roundwick, I can't watch Waverley, and then I've got a rush home to get watch the wartaz you're on at five point thirty in New Zealand. All in the space of three hours.
It's finishes there because you get a Scott's Joey's game. Yeah, and like it's packed.
Yeah, it's packed, that's right.
But if the if the bit of USA playing Ramwick on the same at the same time, someone's got to make a decision, right and neither one will be backed or they're going to go to one and not go to the other one. Yeah, 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 Super Rugby is The reason they have that though, is because they thought it was a product they could sell in terms of broadcasting.
So that's where the money came in from. Yeah, I think it started. It was sort of like a Super
League scenario. Yeah, there was going to be another competition after the ninety five World Cup and guys like Phil Kerns will speak better to this, but they're all brought into meetings are they're all about to walk and sign with another competition and then Super Rugby is born out of pay TV Fox Sports back in it a long long time ago, and so it was 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 ninety nine World Cup and we were sort of the leaders in the world of rugby. And then he made the finally No. Three and then it's sort of over time gradually just Yea disappeared into where it is now.
Do you think it's the same issue in New Zealand?
Then? Yeah, New Zealand's a weird one, like they 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're not to concern when you're watching really good these are the best players in the world. You're watching the Auckland Blues play against the act Brumby's round game and you're getting ten thousand people there. The
Rumbies haven't lost. The Rumbies 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 that home final on the weekend and there would have been I say eight thousand people there. The Raiders will go there the next day and they'll get sixteen or eighteen thousand. That used to be the exact opposite.
Well, last last yesterday on Monday, we had Cannaby based on play the Bulldogs play Power. Rememberre's forty five thousand people there at ac cour like a club games.
This one's the other day forty two thousand.
Amazing.
Yeah, so we can get back to that.
But what is it. I mean, there's something they've.
Got to win. They've got to win. And again that goes back to the number of teams and the players that are getting 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 seven's program, so they've doubled the number of professional contracts in a ten year period. We
haven't been producing. We haven't got a high number of participants. If anything, we've been plotoed because AFL and League and Soccer we're 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 aren't silly that they want to go and see winners, and they want to go and see a good style
of footy. The war Tar has got now they didn't have a good couple of years, but they're also three or four wins away from getting back up to twenty five thirty thousand people. Sidney's fickle, but do.
You think, well, then I don't know who it was. I guess it is the AU, but they they did make an attempt the previous the previous administration of the AU, not the current administrator for war, but I'm talking about the previous administration of the AU. They went to Joseph Suali, or at least to his manager, and they're paying him to join rugby union, which is next year one point six a year. I mean, is that an attempt to sort of glamorize rugby union and try and bring back the supporters.
Yeah, I think it's a reflection of the previous administrator. It was a media player, like, he's a great talent, he's a rugby boy. Previously he's a king's boy. He's both. Yeah. I actually I was coaching the I was his seventh and he came in as a fifteen year old and did a session against us and was just like I went to tim Oles, she was their coach, So can we take him to I think we're playing in Dubai. I said no, I'm not allowed. He's too young. He was fifteen and he was ready to play. He was
that good. Yeah. I think it's been a bit of as 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 will be put on him because the game can't afford that salary.
How has it worked, Like, if I'm in the team, the.
Players are good like that, I think players like I don't think it's going to offend players. No, no, no, I think.
What about if I'm going to negotiate my contract.
Well, that's what's happening players in that position.
He's at one point six, he hasn't played rugb Union Sea at school.
It hasn't just cost the game one point six. It's cost the game a lot more because plays just in position like Mark and nolanyass now gone to the roosters. Jorgensen young kid who could have gone the roosters like these are the same.
Position Jorganson's sign up.
Yeah, yeah, but they've all gone in and the agent's all gone in and said, right, well he's now he's one point six my player.
Well as we're starting boy now five or six, you know.
So it's definitely it won't hurt. He'll be really well accepted from a playing group in rugby, Rugby great like that. It'll just be the constant media scrutiny that he's already get in 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 astraightia, I think they'll parayed off like a fifty or sixty million dollars a year. They've only just they've
got no money. They borrowed eighty million dollars. So let's say they're operating off fifty million bucks a year. You've got one point six million dollars at fifty going to one player.
Yeah, that's a lot. Yeah, and then everybody else is going to go up from there. So they're all going to say, well, that's one point six on one point one or on one point two, or I'm more than I'm currently more than what I'm more than i'm currently getting, So are you paying more?
And the scariest thing about all of these negotiations for players is if Rugby straight don't pay it, Panasonic in Japan will pay it. Some tory to lose to Lon Northampton, will they paid this some money? The paying 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.
He's so much stronger, Like when you say you just mentioned some franchise, But is that because of the conversion of the dollar or.
The probably ownly they' got largest salary caps, they've got bigger TV deals, Like there's there's money in the game of rugby. Yeah, just just not here.
So we just lost another one of our players to Japanese rugby rusters half and yeah, and I remember Craig win Wing played there for a long time and it's one of the things I found quite interesting is that when you told me that he didn't play many games.
I was going to say, and it's sort of preserved for one hundred percent right now.
Body was good.
The Japanese season is probably a six game trial, eight to twelve game season. Maybe cut the game playoff. You're doing fifteen to twenty games like that, or you're doing thirty games and dummy half for the roost? Is that again, Graves? So you do a lot of guys do like they go there and the Japanese model is actually quite good. It's businesses. It's company owned and there's employees and the locals.
The locals are playing. They come out of college, they the good rugby players and then they get jobs for life. So they got half the club amateur. They work, they train in the morning, they put the suit on, they go and work for the company Toyota or Panasonic or Cannon, and then they come back in after work and the pros join them after hours, and they trained like club teams.
Does if did you ever think yourself that you should have gone up to Japan to.
I had a couple of chances, but there was always that rule that if you were playing overseas, you can get picked for Australia, 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 still did Yeah, I played it, 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 foota and I couldn't play Hey well they did play play well, yeah, like the offers were always better. But now I never played overseas. I missed a few straight with an injury, so I sort of missed about three and a half of straight so that might have been the time when I did go overseas. But young family, I was sort of always I don't know, I was always happy playing here.
So when I look at rugby league players who go off to play rugby union, what is the I mean, say, but Williams is probably one of the greatest examples, But what is the attraction part from the fact he's just a pretty skilled dude. What's the general attraction for rugby union to 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 ruck and you can and a lot of these guys, like I did say, Joe Money might have played as a kid. So a lot of guys and girls his day and age are playing both. As a young Crichton for example, yeah, exactly, Like He's probably the difficulting 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 big too. Yeah, I mean he's got bigger, very big. Yeah, yeah, he said. I think there's very the professional that they're the best athletes. 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 if they're a good league player and they've got a desired to learn rugby, it'll work out for him
and vice versa. You know, like not necessarily too many big, tight forwards because of the body shape, but almost anyone from number six through to fifteen in rugby could, I reckon could turn out to be a decent league player.
Is that when you say six to fifteen, you're talking.
About back rows on the back roun.
But one of the things I know is about rugby input. They're big, Yeah, especially the front row is shorter and wider. Probably couldn't probably don't have.
The league, they wouldn't be able to do it.
Yeah, don't have leagues. But the guys behind them, they're not only tall.
But they're big locks. One hundred and twenty ko much six eight. That's the sort of standard world sized lock is six 't eight one twenty.
How do those individuals convert into.
Rugby league then, nah, they wouldn't. There's very few examples of those. There's more examples of those guys being unsuccessful over the US just because the up and back nature of the on side up and back in ten and ad middedly like the big front railers in rugby, they could trim down. But typically speaking like that's why rugby is such a unique game. There is a sport within a sport, scrummaging. And I appreciate scrumaging way more now as a coach because I was in scrums, I was
at the back. I didn't didn't do as much as others did, but you learn the importance. So you can win and lose a game on a good or bad scrum in the modern Dave rugby. And so I do love the contest that rugby provides there. But in terms of athletic ability, those guys that would be too big elite for them to go from rugby union to.
Relieve and do you think therefore, but there's is that part of the downfall of rugby union. I mean in terms of a spectator sport. This is too about Australia obviously because other parts of the world maybe not the case. But in rugby league, everyone's pretty much the same apar from your half back and maybe a fullback, but generally speaking, your outside backs and you most of your forwards except maybe the hooker doumby half, they're all pretty much They're
all about same size. They're about one hundred plus kilos. They all can run twelve seconds hundred meters. They're all big and strong and robust, and it's become a bit of the 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 rguy 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, you know, one hundred and twenty kilos, but they're all five foot eight five nine, and then your back rolls tall, tall guys, and then your back line is similar sort of players what they were when they were playing school boys. They were good runners. They can run the ball, and they can kick the ball then catch the ball. So do you think rugby unions 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, you know, like just to sit there and watch it. No one likes to No one likes to watch sport and not not understand.
It that that's s more technical.
Yeah, absolutely, Like in terms of rules, like what was that penalty for? Yeah, I don't know.
Just sometimes you don't know.
Sometimes ends you sitting in a game of rugby. I was a World Cup, what's that penalty for? And you're like it could be for a number of things, and you argue. You sit there with mates that you've that you view some people who's really good rugby analysts, experts, and you'll argue other penalties, you know, and I suppose that still happens in rugby league. We've put downs and was his foot in or out? Like, but it's.
Not it's not more technicalist. It's not an easy he fucked it up, he made a mistake, 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 a game be influenced by the referee and again I go back to the USA model. In an NFL game, there's a dumpires they're all responsible for something. Rugby league, I've tried two referees and they've gone back and said, we don't want that. Rugby hasn't. I know, they've apparently have 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 study that referee.
We just know what they're sort of. They've got key interpretations that they're a little bit stricter on some more strict drops on off side. Some are a bit more strictly with going off your feet of the rock. Some are strict on coming and clean out from the side. So that's that in itself, like the referees are not doing anything that they're not doing anything wrong. This is 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.
Therefore makes it a lot more difficult as a spectator game. That's right, and you're own spectators in terms of money and TV rights, and because the TV companies don't give a shit as long as they've got people washing, I'll pay you a lot of money if you can give me a lot of content. And that content is what once to be watched, and people will stop watching it
if they don't understand it. I mean, I go back to much more simpler days, and we used to watch it was you know, the camp's and all that sort of people much simply aim it was and it was easy, easy to watch for me.
And it's just becomes 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, all the court rs and our system referees, and they're responsible for offside. But at any given rock, 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 is making all this technical?
Well, look, there's the problem with rugby is that it's if then I all want to change a rule, what do they do? They go to more Park and they change it. It's changing Then can change rules in a week Rugby have to go through like a by law, they have to go through a trial period. So we're now Sydney All Club rugby playing a tackle law below the sternam. Any tackle above the sternam is a penalty.
So I'll have players that play for the war Retars on a Friday night that tackle normally and then come down and plane.
So club rugby is different to the Red rug rugby this year. It is in terms of the So any of other surnam is a penalty. Yeah, so because of their 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 they're the ones is a little bit more vulnerable getting knees to the head because they've got to become legs tackles 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 Australia understand it, like we Australia New Zealand, we want the game to flow because that's what we compete against. And every time something goes to get changed the Northern Hemisphere who prefer a different style of rugby. And if there's a board of ten and there's six from the Northern Hemisphere, where to the six vote? So there's always this push back. One international you need, you need to
change the laws. They need to be sanctioned by.
World Rugby, all right.
So there's the problem just there. You're never going to because the Norlon Hemisphere everything that we don't like kick to the corner and there's a more Austrains 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 more scrum or a more five meters out because it's just you know, the conditions over the years, the weather, the style of footy that have been successful in a nation. It's different to our style of footy.
Do you 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 AARU rules or 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 a nanny state?
Ex player I look at uh, I do think leger in I reckon there's going to be some issues in the.
League and don't want to get hit in the head. I get that. None I think there's going to bestern and blood.
No, don't. I don't necessarily agree with the stern 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 eleven days.
But when the shoulder charge you got taken out of rugby league. Yeah, I thought this is terrible that this was some of the best highlights, but now you think about.
It, No, 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 Dylan app six foot eight.
It's still tough. You've still seeing really tough players make really good hits in rugby league without shoulder charge, and so I think we learned to evolve as spectators. There are definitely parts of the game where do you.
Think above the stoneam is below the steam? I should say, is going too far?
Like yeah, there's a I.
Mean like if you hit around the top of the chest, what's wrong?
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. It won the comp on the back of defense, and it had to be changed 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 the 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. Whether they're bringing the twenty minute red card where you get an low card and then they go and get tim to assess if it gets upgraded to red.
So I think world rugby quite long when they get is that the one where if you get sent off you get a red card, someone else can come in twenty minutes, someone else can come back on. Yeah, I quite like that. That would have been the other night original. I mean, I saw him.
What are some things they're doing. They're doing something that's a.
Good rule, but a good example. I'm not excusing what Joseph Slily did, but you know that Joseph six foot six, Yeah, and you know Respuls was like much smaller and real slipped because of Joseph's height, and maybe we'll be there was some recklessness in there, but he didn't adjust and probably but very hard to adjust mid flight. And I would have thought in rugbies. Everyone sick. There's a whole lot of guys that tall and and but there's alsose
guys much shorter. So I would have thought to himself that would be a real danger. Not being able to tackle above the sternum.
It's really difficult.
But has a referee see that?
Like yeah, and it's not fair the referees because these guys like they're now got to go and police something completely different. So whether it will be the thing is like when wild 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 it an egg extential threat to rugby union? With the rules, all the new rules that are coming in, You know, everything just keeps flowing in the joint. I know it will it last, it'll last globally.
We just the fear is that we don't get it right and we become a sport 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 fifteen years. That's the threat. The global threat is not there. And again, I love my league. I get disappointed with the league, the perception of league to union. And like I'm a Isie kid, I love
watching my league. I don't reckon. Too many league boys sit there and I'm proud to say that they like watching rugby. I reckon it's a little bit of a it's a badge of honor to say our rugby sucks and the game is really unhealthy to pro level globally. Was on a spare seat at the World Cup, you know what I mean. Like the game is really healthy. We've just got a big performal. When the Wallabies sounds silly. There's a lot to fix to make the Wallaby successful.
But if the Wallabies are successful, it'll be a popular.
Sport all the way.
Guy I think he is because he's he saw him play like. He's a pretty tenacious sort of fella. He's going to have to make some enemies like he did on the footy field. He's got to be prepared to be unpopular. But I think the current chairman is Daniel Herbert and Phil war You just got to give him.
We've got to stick with him. 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 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 Valandis is doing
a fantastic job, and I think we became that. That is probably half the reason a lot of League fans hate Rugby 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 has never been about that.
I want to do a complete switch now that you Stevie Hills, you co founded a business called Recovery outside of rugby League. Well, it's sort of a Rugby and the regul league. It's 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 it's a wellness center that has a group in large sized ice bar, saunas, hyperbaric chamber, compression boots. It's basically what we've all seen for years that was accessible at SFS Footy Stadium, you know, the shared hot tarb on the sauna. And I just retired out of I've been if I've had a couple of gym franchises. I've had been involved in Anytime Fitness and forty five and about to open a strong Parties of Parties Wellness and strong brand yeap, Can I open that soon? In Couldji?
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. Just watched the emergence of saunas popping up here and there, some cryo machines and we didn't have Crome machines, and I just I always knew that I sparse worked and yeah, we just saw what you got.
What's in What's how many how many sites you got?
We've got Cuji, Cronella and Manly three sites in. Yeah, we've got at least signed in LA.
So what's what's the site got inside, so I walk in as a membership. How's it work.
It's both it's membership, it's casual walking off the street, or it's multi packs like parties and yoga model. You buy membership, you can come two, three times, we can come unlimited. There's different type of memberships. Half our revenue comes from memberships and half comes from walkings 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 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 multipack where you pay once as you're coming off the street. It's a bit. It's honestly very much similar to what you would have seen at the Alians or the Sydney Footy Stadium. Spa backs got a large ice bath like they can fit put it so we can get a rugby team in and out in forty five minutes. So you can get you've got three or four saunas, you've got two or three ice bus. One might be three
five ten degrees. You've got to be hot bath that could be forty degrees and then you've got a room outside. It's got twelve recliner chairs with compression boots, and we've got a lease signed in the States. And there's sort of the IV therapy, the longevity side, the drip, yeah, the drip, there's all that sort of stuff that he's starting to become a little bit more mainstream.
Now that's not in Australia.
No, we've done in Australia. We've tried it and we've sort of taken some data on it.
See Vitamin C and B twelve shots blah blah blah.
Yeah, and it's become a newsyum. It's becoming a little bit more popular here, but still over in the States, it's it's pretty common everywhere.
I sayd because Caesar's Palace and I went was walking to the gym. There was a center right there. You can go and get it. There's about thirty different injections, infusions, you can get every vitamin in the world. Things I've never even heard of. And you I didn't go in, but like it just I was tempted to, but like it was just everything was set out there. It was
pretty amazing. But there was people in there. I saw people in there, so recovery is it's not just recovering, it's just for health and world.
So I guess at the end of the day, and so like what we sort of thought initially, we probably thought it'd be like the gym junk of the weekend warrior, like we've now been a big a big day on a Saturday of Sunday is like a couple hundred guests. People come through the door, and I would say thirty percent of those people are there not because they've got an injury, just because they want to stay on top
of their mental health. So Monday mornings just to start their routine, just to go and sit in a nice for ten minutes in a thirty minute book in you go. Everyone's got their own routine. We don't We don't tell people what the right time is. It's up to the individual work.
They've got a book in there.
You've got a book in yeah, And there's there's private book ins where you can get your own room and you get your own sawn and your own punchball. Or you could be sitting in there tomorrow and you could be sitting there with a famous ones player would be sitting in there, and you might love that but someone your your partner might not like that. Yeah, there's private facilities and there's shared facilities.
Yeah, so but it's ice bath in between the bread traditionally.
Saw in our steam room in forred we've got all of them. And you've got the boots you got normally the compression boots, and you've got to you've got chain, and we've got a drive float bed so you know those flat positive Yeah, we've got a drive version of that, which is a hot water bed.
And let's just put the infusions aside. But I mean that could be for the future. But is there other other professional aspects to it, like, for example, you can get the consultations with someone about my blood my blood count.
In the States. That'll be the longevity side of it. That'll be We're open our first one later this year in Los ange I was living there for a couple of years and I sort of noticed when I was there, I was coaching the rugby team. I couldn't get a couldn't find a large sized ice bath in the whole of Los Angeles unless you got the Lakers' facility or
LA 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 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 can just that have just left a
group training class of thirty people see large people in a short period of time. Therefore you can charge them a little bit less of what the competitors.
Sort of like the Gary Brecker thing, like he's just a bit more full than that. He gets a whole lot of other stuff.
Yeah, so that'll be a big part of what the first one in Los Angeles. There's a medical director who's involved in the business now and he will 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 pure in America because they're probably a little bit more. Can you do that, You can
do it here, but it's a whole different. We haven't got a medical director as part of our so we're sort of working through that. But you need a license 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 because we've been we've enjoyed the success that could your manly have had. We're looking we've got more sites coming and potential more in the
in the North America region and it's been excited. Anything to talk to Tim again, Yeah, unfortunately I don't talk to him about that.
Could you go and talk to Tim? Timmy, I'm probably listening. So am I just mucking around?
Mate?
It's all good? So can you just explain though, how ex rabunion player can't route and coach? How do you get involved with something like recovery? Oh? What's the true?
How did I?
Well?
I had other gym so I missed three and a half years with an achilles injury at like the age of twenty eight. Two kids at the time. It was like a tough period, but I sort of knew this rugby thing won't last forever. And I also knew what I was like at school. I was on a good student sport kept me, got me into a lot of detentions, but I sport was sort of what really kept me on track at school. And I just knew I'd never be a good nine to five person. I just wouldn't
thrive in that environment. So I invested and opened my first gym. It was twenty four hour gym. While I was in Canberra. I was playing the Brumbies. I was an injured player. I did that. I didn't got out of that one. I was down the South Coast and I got out of that brand and went to a forty five. I just sort of started to see the high number of people that were taking up gym memberships, and then all you kept here and talking to good friends at the physios and cairos was the high number
of people that were gym membership. And then two three months later we're booking themselves in for regular physio or Cairo. So this self maintenance part of what we learned to do with 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 through open Coujie, and we're right next door to a gym forty five and recovery next to each other, and we owned both them, and the numbers were pretty even for membership and whatnot. Pre COVID post COVID, it just went 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, like 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. You know, have you ice bath before? Yeah? Yeahps, but thirty years ago.
Maybe I did when I was paying putty, But like generally speaking, though, you had to go to a particular facility.
And so you just 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 saw back or saw hampshing this is something they want to do to avoid getting a saw back or saw hamshing, 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, I was best mates. He's now pass away, but a guy called Gary stem or Mitchell stem.
Mitch was one of my mates.
I know, Gary was my best mate really, so we boxed together. He was a great box wasn't it, Gary, GARYO box Gary and I Gary down the army Army he went to Vietnam.
Yeah.
Yeah, so he was the military police and he was a good boxer. And so when he induced me boxing, and then like when I was eight or nine, anyway, we were train together till like till I was forty. And every morning we'd meet down at Bronnie's Bronie Said Club, and we'd three days a week with Tuesday, Thursday Sunday every year, never stopped within the surf club, and we would go for a run from BONDI I'm back, and then we go and hit the bag and all the
old school stuff, you know. And then but the thing that we always did was we always jumped the water summer winter and that winter swim. I think it was like having nice bath. It's not quite as degrees, and I reckon we never got sick, neither one of us. In then he ended up getting cancer, unfortunate, but like neither one of us ever got sick during that period. And I met, 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 in 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 from run with us. And they were about eleven or twelve, and we're running from Bondai to Bronti to Bondai and there's a few pretty steep hills and I don't forget Mitchell and Dane started crying.
We left them behind. We ran on and we said, you guys considered, well, get us when we come back. But that that cold water stuff, I think actually helped helped me avoid injury and illness.
And I think today that's it's not about fixing you if you're broken, it's stopping you from getting to the point where you can't train. Yeah, that's all. 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 say 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 because I know it helps me physically. It helps me be better with work, better with family.
Mentally too. I think absolutely the cold water is good for the mental thing. I don't know what it does physic. And it's funny you should say, because I was only talking to an North Meeting guy this morning before he 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 of muscles volume wasted, your volume goes down on a very quite a smooth line. Over time,
as you get older, it reaches down. In one day, you're dead and you've got very little muscle musk left you your one hundred 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. It drops, goes like this and drops over time. And he said, what you're going to try and avoid is that drop period. And he said one of the most important things to avoid that drop period is that you don't get injured.
He said, because you can't train. 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 get back, you don't get it back.
So you want to be like a life maintenance.
So cold does helps you do that? Cold and hot therapy, by the.
Way, contrast therapy, Yeah, contrast. We've got options to be cold bath, hot bath or cold bathsauna, option to choose both.
And so that's what your recovery is doing. Yes, contract therapy. It's interesting because you know, like I mean, it's a probably scientifically proven that there's the sort of stuff we should be doing in order to because most people don't get in the head bother having a cold on a freeze gold bath. Why would I bother getting into a really hot sauner. Why would I bother doing it regularly?
Why would I bother it? Because at the end of the day, it's about maintaining muscle mass for a bloke anyway, I guess the same place of women, but it must mass for a guy. It's very hard to maintain muscle mass if you 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 way recovery is pretty smart 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 Hoodman Andrew Hoodman came to the Australia at the start of the city. Yeah, he actually came into recovery throughout the court and I watched his seminar Sydney opera house, and you 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
in technical terms. He said, that's something long 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 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? You think it's going to cold water, yeah, but not not doing things physically. But just if you don't want to go to work out, you don't want to stay back for another hour because it's easier not to Everything you do that you don't want to do and you push through some type of resilience barrow, there is a physical improvement. There is a physical change in your brain doing things or completing tasks you don't actually want to do.
It's interesting because and I have to finish off on this to you, but like what's interesting what you just said is that I think and I don't know if it's right wrong, but I reckon one of the reasons we age after a certain point, you know, like your dat to 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, to go four times a week sta at home, 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're talking about in order to keep challenging ourselves. You know, I think is really important. And it's a simple thing. Jumping in a nice bath is a simple thing. Like if they go to your joint, your recovery place is 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 you've got the ability to delive a certain lifestyle. If what Andrew Human says is correct and what you just try to para paraphrase, if it's correct, then actually we will live more with more vitality going forward, because if we just we've got the house, the house 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 a train like I used to try. I can't train like it's to train because you know another way and stop. So I've got to get challenged, and dudes my age start thinking about finding the challenge and one of them. And it's a pretty simple one. Just jumping into cold bath. It's pretty bloody simple actually, as a regular thing. Make a part of your routine and issue.
You talk about this, and people are now very this has become very normal in people's lives.
Yeah, it's not more for your age group that.
Yeah, and so in twenty years time, every six year old, not ever since, but large numbers 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. I can't wait to get the six phone and hang their gloves up and stop stop doing everything. I don't think slows down When you down, and then when you slading everything, you start to lose muscle mass and things. You just start to deplete. And that's very interesting that you're you and you've got business partners.
Yeah, I've got Nick, Nick Bardeta and tre Folsom and so we've gone down that path of we're not a franchise, a partnership studio. We have studio partners and now we're just because of what we've learned as a model. So instead of selling a territory and just taking a check off someone and them being responsible for it, 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 an
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 heavy, heavy pools going on slabs, you've got ventilation, You've got a lot more risks for an owner. It's not just taking a check and opening up. Capital involved, and a lot more like there's engineering, there's a lot more probably that's right, and so there's compliance issues and we're just been going to a lot of
the competitors. There's a lot of I'm sure you've got a nice bath. It's probably perfect for you at home, using it once or twice a day. But if you put twenty people in the rice bath, it's not going to be clean, it's not going to be cold. So we've gone down that path. We've built our own chilla 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 facility. So what we sort of learned over the five years is about the compliance side of the business. And you've got to put the right servant, you've got to put the right type of products in to make sure they're clean and there, they're cold enough and there's no issues with customers and there's no insurance blowback. So 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.
List, or one definitely wouldn't work in a commercial lane. But my one is one of those. I kind of got the stainless seel on the inside of the tim on the outside do you putat me know the name of it's Oden.
They're really good, they're they're great, But the order four ten weeks more.
I think it was like five months or something, waited for ever to get it.
But I got it, and they're just so popular now.
Yeah, totally, and I'm amazing.
So we've got one of those one of our studios and then as a result we thought, well, we've got to open all these more studios, won't we just design our own. So we've just gone down that hole, the rabbit hole of how to get your own version of the biggest the piece of the puzzle on this is the chiller that keeps a bit large pool cold on a hot day in Sydney or Queensland, and you've got
twenty people coming in every hour body heat. Yeah, so fine, And we've just sort of realized 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 have got to talk about it as well as trying to solve the issues around rugby union.
Today, it's harder the soul of rugby, to be honest.
Steve, your horse's good to see mate.
Thanks man.