While Sydney clubs are lobbying the Australian Rugby Union for funding, "their counterparts in Brisbane say the loss of their six-figure grants was the best thing for them," according to Bret Harris of THE AUSTRALIAN. Up until four years ago, the nine Brisbane premier clubs received about A$250,000 each from the ARU/Queensland Rugby Union, "but since then they have had to become more self-reliant to survive." Former Wallabies and Queensland Reds center Anthony Herbert, the CEO of Brisbane club GPS, said, "The ARU and QRU are broke. You can’t get blood out of a stone. Everyone said we don’t need them. Everyone has more professional people running the clubs who have turned them into littlies businesses." While the Sydney clubs are asking the ARU to pay up to A$500,000 ($379,000) to "continue their coverage" on free-to-air TV next year, the Brisbane clubs believe paying to be broadcast on TV "is a false economy." Herbert: "I don’t think rugby suffers dramatically in Brisbane by not having free-to-air TV. It’s something that has been the norm in Sydney for a long time." The Brisbane clubs "have also amalgamated with the junior clubs in their areas to improve their financial health." Herbert believes the ARU and the QRU "now need the Brisbane clubs more than the clubs need the governing bodies." He said, "What do we really need them for? Governance of the game? Seriously. It’s not like without them we’d fall over. It’s quite the contrary. Without us they would fall over. They need us more than we need them" (THE AUSTRALIAN, 10/31).
