Rugby becoming more popular than AFL in Nauru

[rollouthebarrel]

Have been following Nauru where AFL was once the national sport. But rugby is now growing super fast whereas AFL is in obvious decline there.
The country is being starved of senior international competition in AFL but is now getting regular competition in rugby.
Seems a shame that the AFL is neglecting what was for so long the only country outside of Australia where it is popular!
Thoughts.

 

[jarrod_island_doggies]

I dunno about obvious decline - the Academy programs have been going great guns and both boys and girls sides knocked over PNG recently

 

[Canberra Pear]

I haven't been following rugby in the country, but like Jarrod said, their development has looked good to me, especially the growth in their women's game.

Long-term though, I'd like to see a facility that could host international games. An international test would go off, but you can't expect visiting teams to play on such a rough surface.

 

[rollouthebarrel]

Rugby have poached many of the senior men's AFL players to their international program. Of course the senior men not being able to play international AFL since 2017 and the senior men's AFL competition going into recess certainly didn't help.
So the AFL kids being developed are going to end up playing Sevens or professional rugby, instead an AFL club.
Like in PNG, huge amounts of investment has been coming from Australia and it is paying off. In comparison AFL only funds junior programs. The sort of money being thrown at rugby in Nauru makes the AFL programs look completely povo.
Their junior programs aren't as strong, but their senior women's programs are also growing fast with hundreds of players.

The obvious difference is the sport has only been going for a decade vs a century of AFL.

All of this is very bad news for the code.

Nauru recently won their first international and the whole country has been getting behind it.

Nauru Rugby Union

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Rugby participation in Nauru on the rise​

Rugby participation in Nauru on the rise

oceania.rugby

"They had the AFL posts up and there were players all over the ground training for the new season.

"I didn't see any sign of rugby. I knew we had a big challenge ahead of us."

It was a challenge Caginilotu was up for.

Over the next four months, the former semi-professional player and his passionate team of trained volunteers launched and ran the Get Into Rugby program (GIR), a scheme aimed at introducing the code to first-time players.

"I am so used to people wanting to play the game but here you have to sell the idea," Caginilotu said from his headquarters in Nauru.

"AFL is quite popular and it’s hard to get the fully grown players to switch to rugby." "We wanted to reach out to those who hadn’t tried the sport."