Development pathways
Increasing the number of programs run in rural and regional communities can address inequalities and improve development pathways for athletes, coaches, officials, and administrators.
Rural and regional communities play an important role in developing high-performance athletes. 53, 54
Research has suggested rural and regional communities can often produce a disproportionately high number of elite athletes. This may be due to children having more space for play and sport, being exposed to a range of sports, and often participating with adults due to limited number of available competitions. 53, 55
- One study found that more than 16% of players in the National Rugby League (NRL) between 1998 and 2010 started playing as juniors in towns with populations of less than 10,000 people. 53
- In the mid 2000’s this phenomenon was called the ‘Wagga Effect’,, opens in a new tab named after the city of Wagga Wagga in New South Wales. The Museum of the Riverina Sport Hall of Fame, opens in a new tab highlights the number of athletes that have developed in the area. 55
Increasing opportunities
Although there is often a focus on the success stories, many individuals in rural, regional, and especially remote communities lack opportunities to access high quality competitions, sport development, and talent programs and resources. 14, 18, 56
This affects not only athletes, but also coaches, officials, and administrators. Development programs and activities are most often held in metropolitan areas, leading to significant costs (both financial and in time required for travel) for non-metropolitan participants. 56, 57, 58
Increasing the number of programs run in regional, rural, and remote communities (for athletes, coaches, officials, and administrators) can help to address these inequalities, and improve the development pathways and sustainability of sport. 14, 58
Some other ideas suggested in the research to improve development pathways include:
- Increasing the number of qualified staff working in these regions, and/or the frequency and total time that experts (e.g., talent scouts) spend in non-metropolitan areas. 14
- Having formal mentoring and support programs, both in their home communities and for those who move to metropolitan areas. 58, 59, 60
- Promoting achievements of individuals from rural, regional, and remote communities to encourage others to get involved. 58
Resources and reading
- From McGrath to Peachey: Eleven sporting greats who hail from Dubbo, opens in a new tab, Aymon Bertah, Daily Telegraph, (23 August 2022). We’ve put together a list of 11 of the men and women who’ve grown up and been influenced by the town’s sporting culture, and then gone on to become major players on a national - or world - stage.
- Wests Tigers assistant Ronnie Griffiths, the NRL’s only Aboriginal coach, opens in a new tab, Nick Walshaw, The Advertiser, (18 June 2021). Nick Walshaw, The Advertiser, (18 June 2021). The NRL’s only Aboriginal coach has earned his position the hard way, initially working for free and driving 350km a day, but it beats being overlooked because of the colour of his skin. The problem is not limited to rugby league, with the AFL also boasting just two coaches of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander background — Richmond VFL coach Xavier Clarke and Western Bulldogs development coach Travis Varcoe. Elsewhere, a 2017 Western Sydney University study revealed across all sports, Indigenous Australians make up just 0.8 per cent of the coaching ranks.
- AIS support of regional athletes 1981 to 2013, opens in a new tab, Greg Blood, Australian Sport Reflections, (9 February 2021). Research found that 27.5 percent of 2016 Australian Olympic Team grew up in rural and regional Australia. Other research on this issue includes more than 16 per cent of professional NRL players (1998-2010) started as a junior in a town with a population less than 10,000 people and country Victoria has provided 22% (279 of a total of 1281) of the draftees into the AFL competition since 1997.
- Matt Denny: Grassroots to Greatness, opens in a new tab, Liana Buratti, Australian Olympic Committee, (22 October 2020). With talent to burn and a penchant for excelling at every sport he played, he went from rugby league prodigy to the town’s first Olympian, a feat he says he could never have achieved without his small town behind him.
- Black Diamonds Report, opens in a new tab, Glass Jar, (April 2022). The Black Diamonds Project reviews the netball service delivery to ensure that the policies and systems of netball in Western Australia are transformed to better facilitate the engagement and retention of Aboriginal people to the sport of netball. The dominant method of data collection was Yarning Circles, a uniquely Aboriginal methodology, with four stakeholder groups, across two phases. the top three most popular solutions in relation to Parallel Pathways and Selection Criteria were to develop parallel pathways for ATSI players which link to mainstream opportunities, including Aboriginal All Stars Camps; to support an ATSI WANL Club; and to provide more development opportunities for Aboriginal players within regions, with training provided by specialist coaches in Perth who travel more frequently to regions and stay for a longer duration. The solution to the discrimination and “purple circle” experienced and witnessed by many participants were to make selection criteria more transparent; have scouts from Perth visit the regions to identify talent; and providing a code of conduct for selection, particularly to Associations. Some participants also suggested having an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander representative on selection bodies. Participants also linked these talent identification processes with development opportunities and pathways.
- A Review of Country Cricket in Victoria 2014/15, opens in a new tab, David Richards OAM, for Cricket Victoria, (27 April 2015). Richards met with stakeholders from all eight country Regions, the Victorian Country Cricket League (VCCL), Cricket Australia and Cricket Victoria Regional Cricket Managers over a five-month period with the aim to assess the current condition of country cricket in the state and to examine the governance and structures impacting it.
- The long road from local communities to professional sport and the culture of the global sport industry for Indigenous Australians, opens in a new tab, Light R, Evans J, Lavallee D, Sport in Society, Volume 23(10), pp.760-772, (2021). This article draws on the findings of a three-year, inter-disciplinary study conducted on the journeys of sixteen Australian Indigenous sportsmen from their first touch of the ‘footy’ to the most elite levels of Australian football and rugby league and the central role of culture in these journeys. The first stage of their journeys involved the development of expertise and a distinctively Indigenous approach to their sport from early childhood to around the age of around thirteen. The second stage involved dealing with the challenges of cultural transitioning from small, local communities and practices to professional sport and the global culture of the sport industry.
- Understanding physical activity patterns among rural Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal young people, opens in a new tab, Rona Macniven, Justin Richards, Nicole Turner, et al., Rural and Remote Health, Volume 19(3), (2019). Physical activity across the lifespan is essential to good health but participation rates are generally lower in rural areas and among Aboriginal Australians. Declines in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) commence before adolescence but descriptive epidemiology of patterns of physical activity among Aboriginal children is limited. MVPA variation by season, setting and type at two time points among rural Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australian children was examined. While overall physical activity declines occurred between 2007–2008 (T1) and 2011–2012 (T2) in both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal rural-dwelling children, declines in particular components of physical activity were greater among Aboriginal compared to non-Aboriginal children. A multi-strategy, holistic approach to increase physical activity during the critical time of adolescence is necessary.
- Cultural connections and cultural ceilings: exploring the experiences of Aboriginal Australian sport coaches, opens in a new tab, Andrew Bennie, Nicholas Apoifis, Demelza Marlin, et al., Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, Volume 11(3), pp.299-315, (2017). This is one of the first studies to specifically explore Aboriginal Australian peoples’ experiences in sport coaching roles. We share the insights of 28 Aboriginal Australian sport coaches from a variety of team and individual sports as they describe an array of factors that facilitated and impeded their sport coaching journeys. By shedding light on these narratives this paper performs two main tasks. First, taking a qualitative approach, it gives agency and voice to Aboriginal people, long-neglected in academic sports scholarship. Second, it provides insights for coaches, athletes, academics, policymakers, and sporting organisations interested in enhancing opportunities and developing pathways for Aboriginal people in sport coaching roles. The article also provides some insights that could inform conversations between Aboriginal communities and organisational stakeholders to enhance opportunities for Aboriginal sport coaches. Some of the examples may include Aboriginal-specific coaching clinics that feed into mainstream opportunities, formal mentoring programmes, and promoting the achievements of current coaches.
- Improving the identification and development of Australia’s sporting talent, opens in a new tab, Toohey K, Funk D, Woolcock G, MacMahon C, Hahn A, Auld C, Farrow D, Bauman A, Weissensteiner J and Gulbin J, Australian Research Council Linkage Project, LP1001000324 (April 2015). Report identified and analysed the individual, combined and interactive effects of athlete, environmental and system determinants of talented athlete identification, confirmation and development (TID) in Australia. The research team investigated environmental, psychological, socio-cultural and developmental attributes specific to athlete recruitment and development. Findings from this research project provide sport organisations with strong evidence to help them refine their TID strategies, resource provision, and program design. Focus of the study was on cricket and Australian football athletes. Elite athletes were attributed to the region where they played during the ages of 11-15 years (previously identified as a key talent identification period). Athletes who did not play before 15 years of age were attributed to the region where they first played.
- To play Papunya: the problematic interface between a remote Aboriginal community and the organization of Australian Football in Central Australia, opens in a new tab, Barry Judd, Tim Butcher, Sport in Society, Volume 18(5), pp.543-551, (2015). This paper outlines issues arising from engagement with the remote Aboriginal community of Papunya. Researching the relationship between the community's football club and the organization of competitive fixtures in the Central Australian Football League (CAFL), we found that contrary to popular discourse the well-being of men in Papunya may be damaged by their participation in ‘town football’. We outline the nature of the current relationship between Papunya and the CAFL and the efforts of Elders to reshape the organizational interface via the establishment of an ‘on-country’ football league. We highlight that organizational rhetoric about reconciliation and cross-cultural awareness is not enough to warrant effective working relationships with Papunya people. We argue that there is a need to move beyond recognition of difference that is embodied in such agendas to develop strategies of interface inclusive of Aboriginal understandings of football.
- First club location and relative age as influences on being a professional Australian rugby league player, opens in a new tab, Cobley S, Hanratty M, O’Connor D, Cotton W, International Journal of Sports Science and Coaching, Volume 9(2), pp.335-346, (2014). This research found that players who began their participation as juniors in a country club are statistically overrepresented in the National Rugby League (NRL) competition. It examined the ages and first clubs of NRL players' between 1998 and 2010. The findings supported the idea that small rural communities have a more beneficial playing or social environment that helps to nurture professional players in the long-term. More than 16 per cent of professional NRL players started as a junior in a town with a population less than 10,000 people.
- Measuring spatial variations in sports talent development: the approach, methods and measures of ‘Talent Tracker’, opens in a new tab, Woolcock G, Burke M, Australian Geographer, Volume 44(1), (2013). Paper in Griffith University Online provided data from AFL draft records, informants and secondary sources identified the place of junior talent development for the 1,290 players who were drafted and played at least one game of senior AFL football in the period 1997-2010. Data is displayed by regions throughout Australia.
- The impacts of transport accessibility and remoteness on Australian Football League (AFL) talent production: findings from the ‘Talent Tracker’ project, opens in a new tab, Burke M, Woolcock G, Australasian Transport Research Forum, ATRF 2012 - Proceedings, (2012). Authors researched AFL players from 1997-2010 to identify their place of junior development, defined as the club or school where they were registered whilst playing during the ages of 11 to 15. Study found that as transport accessibility increases and remoteness decreases, a region is more likely to produce talented AFL players. But the strength of the association is limited. The research raised questions about locations such as the Wheatbelt of Western Australia, as to what has allowed them to produce so many AFL players? Is there something about transport and the sports landscape at the regional scale that allows them to overcome these problems? Or are other non-spatial factors – such as the Western Australian Football League’s considerable investment in regional and remote community development – working to overcome these limitations?
- Improving the Identification and Development of Australia's Sporting Talent Symposium, Australian Institute of Sport, (10 December 2014). The Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) hosted this Symposium as part of the ‘Sporting Talent’ research program, enabled through an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant. This project, led by Professor Kristine Toohey from Griffith University, represents one of the most comprehensive analyses of talent identification and development ever conducted. The project has been running for four years, over which time the research team has collaborated to understand how a number of factors may influence the identification and development of athletes, including community environments, athlete development and training, social and organisational factors, and psychology and participation.
- AFL Talent Hotspots and the 'Wagga Effect' [video], Associate Professor Geoff Woolcock, Smart Talk Presentation, Australian Institute of Sport, (18 March 2009). The 'Wagga Effect', a term used frequently in the Australian media to describe the disproportionately large number of elite sportsmen and women that originate from the city of Wagga Wagga in southern New South Wales, highlights that not enough is known about why this occurs in Wagga Wagga or other similar sport development 'hotspots'. It is generally acknowledged that critical social factors such as family upbringing and the socio-economic status of resident communities are likely predictors of sporting talent development but in Australia, aside from a few ad hoc and sport-specific case studies, little rigorous and longitudinal empirical data has been collected and collated to advance causal claims in this area. It is speculated - via the 'Wagga Effect' - that the phenomenon may arise in rural areas where the population is large enough to sustain the presence of a large number of sporting codes, but small enough to ensure that talented individuals are exposed to adult-level competition at an earlier age. However, this speculation remains just that in the absence of rigorous data collection and analysis across a range of sports. Associate Professor Geoff Woolcott presented his findings of a pilot study looking at AFL talent hotspots. [note: available to Clearinghouse 'High Performance' members only].
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