July 1, 2025 • 46 mins
In this episode of Scoreboard, Chris Titley chats with Queensland Rugby Union CEO David Hanham about shaping the future of the game—from grassroots clubs to major international events.
David reflects on the importance of development pathways, the power of community clubs, and what makes Queensland Rugby’s DNA so unique.
He also shares insights from working across multiple codes, and how his experiences in the NRL and AFL have influenced his leadership in rugby.
With the British & Irish Lions tour, Women’s World Cup, and 2032 Olympics on the horizon, David unpacks the opportunities for the game—on the field, in the stands, and across the state.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
Hi, it's Chris Tipley here and on today's episode of A School
Board, the podcast, I'm joined by David Hannon, the CEO of the
Queensland Rugby Union, the QRU.David, thank you for being part
of School Board and what is a glorious morning here on Tuesday
the 1st of July. Beautiful Brisbane morning.
Up early this morning going for a walk through Bricky Creek.
Beautiful. Magic, isn't it?
(00:22):
Every day is apart from yesterday.
Yesterday. Yeah.
Miserable. Actually, it was cold.
I was in Townsville on the weekend and I remember I came
in, it was actually cold in Townsville so it was cold and
brizzy. But mate, beautiful place to
live. Beautiful place to live and a
big 2448 hours for you with the British and Irish Lions in town.
Playing Queensland tomorrow night at Suncorp Stadium.
Are you pumped? I'm pumped mate, I reckon you
know for people that haven't been to a Lions game, 40,000
(00:47):
Lions fans hitting our shores. It'll only continue to grow
heading into the Wallabies Lionsgame.
But massive for us. The last time we beat them was
1971, right? They came over, they were flying
to play New Zealand in the series and I thought they'd play
one game to get themselves readyfor the New Zealand series.
They played against Queensland at Ballymore and they actually
(01:11):
put this little toy line up for grabs thinking we're just going
to trance these bikes in Queensland on our way through,
get a little bit of a curtain raiser game and.
Just a warm up. And just a warm up didn't didn't
realise the Queensland spirit. 1611 we win.
No tries, no tries. Well, there's a, there's a four
point tries back then, wasn't it?
Yeah. So, but there again, that's just
(01:31):
a great moment in our history and that was kind of a turning
point. But this game on Wednesday, you
know, there'll be 52,000 people at Suncorp.
Yeah, it's bloody exciting and yeah, it's the spirit of that
Northern hemisphere singing songs and just great.
Yeah, I think you mentioned in apress conference yesterday it
was like schoolies for 50 year olds.
That's right. That's the best way to explain
it. Schoolies Week for 50 years.
(01:52):
It's their time away from, from work.
They've they've come well, they're leaving their summer,
but they're coming over here to a beautiful winter as well.
And and and some other big news as well with Jock Campbell today
as well. Yeah, no Jock's re sign, which
is good. We've got pretty much that's
that sort of rounds off our listnow for for next season.
And now we're Jock's a great player.
He's he's been part of it. He wants to continue to play
(02:14):
good football here. And you know, we're, we're
really pleased. We've got a good list.
Obviously Les is around for another year.
So that's, that's that's been a real positive for us.
And, you know, we're excited that Les gets the transition to
become the Wallabies coach, and we've been part of that journey.
So, yeah, good. Yeah.
Good times ahead. Yeah.
Which is which is positive. Yeah, I was going to say just
rugby's had its ups and downs and we've got some good events
(02:35):
coming. We've got the Women's World Cup,
the men's World Cup, we've got the Lions like it's we had a
pivotal point for rugby. I reckon we are like, I mean, I
know in Queensland, you know, we've got, I reckon we've got a
great foundation. We've got probably close to
80,000 players that participate in rugby across the state.
You know, you've got a line series coming, 40,000 fans
because I said, as I mentioned, 52,000 at Suncorp got a Rugby
(02:57):
World Cup in 2027 here in Australia, which again, you
know, will be a massive event, third biggest global sporting
event in the world outside of the the soccer World Cup in the
Olympics in 2029, you got the Women's World Cup, which you
know, the growth of the women's game has been, you know,
phenomenal. And then in 32 rugby sevens in
the Brisbane Olympics. So we're we're not going to get
(03:19):
in rugby a better runway of 10 pole events to set our sport up
for success. And I think the next three
years, I know the next three years for us in Queensland from
this line series to a World Cup are critical.
So yeah, I, I think there's, there's all the opportunities
there. We just got to execute that
that. Yeah.
And we're in a pretty competitive era with
broadcasting rights and and the other codes sort of rising from
(03:40):
grassroots and and in Brisbane we've got the AFL, which the
Lions took a little, you know, the premiership and little
eyeballs, et cetera and bandwagon, et cetera.
What are we doing as a rugby, doing as a state, as supposed to
kind of get more eyeballs, more engagement, et cetera?
Yeah. Well, I mean, I think as I said,
the first thing is creating great content that people are
attracted to. So yeah, we're lucky to have
those big events that I mentioned before.
(04:01):
I think from a Reds perspective,from from our side, the unique
sort of part of Queensland rugbyis we're a connected pathway to
the community game. So we've got that that tribalism
that's there. Team performance has been a big
part for us is getting our team performance up to a point where
we're actually a top three team on a regular basis.
And we've had blips of success with Connolly and then you and
McKenzie. But we're building, you know, I
(04:24):
think we're building a really sustainable way to being a top
three team. We had, you know, the era of
Brad Thorne, which was a really good cultural reset.
You know, some controversial decisions.
Probably back in 2018-2019 when Brad came on, there was a few
players that he felt that didn'tfit the culture and standards
and behaviours. So we backed a young group and
that young group now are your Fraser, Mick writes, your Harry
(04:46):
Wilson's, you take Mcdermott's, etcetera.
So that was a pivotal moment forus.
If I look at sort of the historyof where we are today, Brad got
us to 7th on the table and did an amazing job to get to that
point. And then we identified that,
well, how do we go to that next level when we needed to pull in
a coach that had experienced, you know, professional rugby
globally and had had success. So we looked hard and obviously
(05:09):
there was a sort of sliding doormoment when Les was coaching at
London Irish over in the Premiership Rugby in the, in
the, in the northern hemisphere and the club went into
administration unfortunately. So Les became available when we
were in market and you know, he happened to be a Queenslander.
That was a nice fit. Obviously played rugby league
for, for the Maroons and the Bears in his early years.
(05:31):
And getting Les on board with the, the coaching group he's put
together has taken us up and obviously we, we didn't finish
where we'd like to have finishedthis year.
We we finished fifth. We've had two fifth places under
Les's tenure. Ultimately, we want to be top
three. And you know, it's probably two
or three games this year that, you know, we should have won
that we didn't. That would have put us in a
strong position to get there. So we've got that now.
(05:52):
And obviously, Les comes, you know, again next year and then
we're now looking at what's the next evolution.
And and a new coach, obviously, because he's taking that next
step up. That's right.
So but they're building blocks and you know, people want
success. We all want success really
quickly. But if I look at it, we've
actually built some some good foundations.
So team performance is another driver of how do we grow the fan
base. And and I know, you know, I was
(06:13):
around was lucky enough to be around in 2011 when you and
Mackenzie took on the role in 2010, you know, a quick rise to
winning competition and we were having average crowds of 2528
thousand. In fact, in fact, back then, I
think we were. Late teens, I remember, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. So like that, that's a key
driver of it for us. And then the broadcast is has
(06:36):
been an interesting one. I think, you know, Stan have
done a good job. And Channel 9 that's been
renewed the Super Rugby competition this year.
Yeah, there were some big decisions, you know, choose your
hard decision. Do you, do you keep the Rebels
in the competition 5 Super Rugbyteams in Australia or do you do
you restructure it? I mean, my personal view is it's
the right decision. We don't have enough talented
(06:58):
athletes in a competitive landscape, as you mentioned, to
support five teams when you're playing the best country in the
world in rugby. So yeah, we had to reduce the
number of teams down from 5:00 to 4:00 that that strengthened
the four teams with better talent.
So they gave them more depth, you know, and obviously there's
the funding and the distributionof funds for that as well.
(07:19):
So that was a that's a key moment for us.
And we're seeing the benefit of that decision by by Dan Herbert
and Phil War. So it's a people want to know
what's the silver bullet? It's a number of things that you
need to put in place to build long term success and you know,
for us at the Reds, you know, that's everything from a strong
Academy. So, you know, attracting young
(07:40):
talented players, boys and girlsthese days and securing them,
Yeah, you're looking at now. Now the age of contracts are
starting at the age of 15. Wow, OK, it's a bit different to
our. Yeah, well, we were lucky mate.
We might have got we might have got a hamburger.
And yeah, that's right. Just to you know.
Hang around a little bit longer.So they're the building blocks.
But look, it's, you know, I think we've got an opportunity
(08:02):
if we can, if we can stay as a top three team and we can
leverage the World Cup and the line series, we can build off
the back of that into a women's World Cup and then the Olympics.
During the the time that you mentioned the 20 eighteens
etcetera and the growth of othersports, you've seen sort of I
suppose different products from different sports.
We've seen the 10/20/20 explode.You've seen new rules, new
(08:23):
innovation, the golden point andtwo point field goals in league
etcetera. Rugby has got the sevens, has
always had the sevens. How important is that I suppose,
in terms of a different product and and boosting that into
awareness of rugby? It's interesting like so just to
answer the the first question onthe product, like one of the
advantages of rugby is it's a global game.
(08:44):
But one of the challenges of rugby is a lot of the a lot of
the decisions around the laws ofthe game get get sort of made it
in the northern hemisphere. Now they're happy for a game to
be decided by penalty kicks. That's their style, that's their
style. But over here when you're
competing against, you know, products like the NRL and AFL,
which is free flowing, we've hadto really look hard at how do
(09:06):
we, how do we fix that and make the game more free flowing?
So there's a bunch of stuff we've done in Super Rugby
around, you know, quicker scrum resets, get the ball out of the
back of a rock so the ball doesn't sit there too long.
Just game management, you know, goal on dropouts, 20 minute red
cards. So you don't have a red card and
then it just ruins the whole game.
(09:27):
So that's been a positive on theproduct.
On the sevens side of it, it's the sevens is, it's an Olympic
sport, it's a Commonwealth game sport.
It's the fastest growing participation sector for our
game at a community level and particularly women.
And it's quite simple. I mean sevens is the easiest
product to pick up as a new product.
(09:48):
You know you've got 7 people on a field, you know you can catch,
pass, run, tackle. There's not the complexities of
what a 15 aside game is. You only need probably 10
people, couple of reserves and so it's easy for schools to
adopt it rather than 15 asides. You probably need to have a
squad of 1819. It's it's safer just
statistically with injuries and those bits.
(10:08):
So and it's global. And yeah, the women's players,
they were probably not unknown factors after the Rio Olympics
when they won gold, that was thecatalyst moment for them to
become full time contracted athletes.
So I know NRL and AFL will talk about their players being full
time or that rugby was probably the first mover on that.
And now women's sevens, he got Charlotte Kozlik, Maddie Levi.
(10:31):
Yeah, they're getting posted. On as well.
As NASA, yeah, Yeah. So, yeah, it's been a, it's a,
it's a critical part and, you know, it's an offering that we
can give at a community level that grows the game.
But then there's, you know, a pathway to the biggest global
event in the world being the. Olympics and we are the
Queensland Reds. How Brisbane based centric head
office etcetera, but how important is the the rural and
(10:53):
regional areas in Queensland to grow the game?
Oh, it's passive. It's huge.
I mean, I was up in Townsville on the weekend, we had our
Queensland country championshipsthere and it was just, it was a
really pleasing moment, you know, to sort of look out.
You had, I was watching the under 18 girls and like 5-6
years ago that didn't exist. Now there's pathways.
Yeah, they would say, Oh well, you cannot come play rugby
because there's no teams. You can't play against anyone.
(11:14):
Sorry, I'll do another sport. You can't see it.
How do you, how do you get involved in it So that there's,
there's great pathways there now, you know, and I think
that's, that's critical. If you're going to be strong in
Queensland in any sport, you gotto have, you got to have, you're
going to have to make the game more accessible.
We launched yesterday with the government, we launched A
programme to get into more primary schools in regional
areas. That's where we're going to
(11:35):
allocate the investment. So, you know, Gimpy, Burdekin,
Innisfail, you know, some of these areas where kids might not
have played rugby before at thatlevel.
So it's almost like it's the, it's the widening of the funnel
that we said if we can start, ifwe can give a kid, a boy or girl
access to the game. And sevens is the programme
we're going to run there and their willingness in there.
You know, I mean, I've, I've, you've played rugby, I've played
(11:57):
rugby, right. So my connection to rugby came
through. My father, who was from New
Zealand, came over when he was in his 20s.
I was obviously destined to playrugby.
It was probably no choice. But you know, in the blood these
young girls are going to be mothers of young children and if
they've participated in the sport, playing is one element
could be as a fan, the likelihood of their kids playing
(12:19):
rugby are going to increase. So we just that that's where our
focus needs to be is a long gameon participation.
In terms of youth participation and having kids that are my
oldest is 12, that a lot of themplay touch, right?
And then they sort of play touch, they go, where do we kind
of go now? There's a bit of a pathway now,
I suppose. That's right.
Yeah, into sevens it is. And like from an elite
perspective, I know speaking to to our guys, the one that run
(12:41):
the Queensland Academy of SportsSevens, they say it's
interesting that that that will recruit athletes for for the top
level and teach them rugby. So right, there's touch skills.
Yeah, touch football players are, are great.
It's a great pathway. I mean, you can play rugby
league, you can keep playing touch, you can play rugby union,
you can be fully contracted as afemale player to play for
Australia. So there there's great pathways
(13:02):
and opportunities. Now that didn't exist when we
were when we were going through the system.
No, some of these things just don't exist.
So there's more offerings and more opportunity.
There was definitely no structured touch competitions,
probably speaking apart from theUQ on Wednesday or something
that was about social touch, social touch you.
Pull your hammy if you Yeah, well, your calf that's.
Definitely. Now David, you're involved in
rugby, you've been in the qiu for 22 odd years now.
(13:25):
How did that come about? And you're obviously, as
mentioned, your father involved in rugby.
You played a little bit of rugby, You're interested in
rugby beyond the game of playing.
Yeah, look, I I got involved. I mean obviously rugby's been
part of my life and I was, I wasactually when I left school I
went in to do an electrician apprenticeship.
(13:47):
So my father owned a commercial fit out business, Co owner of a
commercial fit out business and I got involved in that. 2-3
older brothers, two were, two were chippies, I was the sparky
and my other brother went off and worked in the tax office.
So obviously a different path for him.
But I remember doing it for two years and then sort of sitting
(14:07):
there, I was actually, ironically, I was back at
Churchy doing a job for Churchy in the electrical industry.
And I was sitting there and, andI remember listening to one of
the guys I was working with, he would have been in his 50s
complaining about, you know, howmuch he didn't enjoy his job.
And I, I just, I was only what, 1920 at the time.
And I just was sitting there reflecting, going, I just don't
(14:29):
want to be that. I don't want to do a job if I
don't, if I'm not enjoying it today, I don't want to be
sitting there reflecting in my 50s or 60s.
I wish I didn't. I wish I didn't do it.
So yeah, I was, that was a moment for me when I look at
back to the impact of the game for me.
And I sort of reflected going, well, what, what do I want to
do? I didn't know at the time an
(14:50):
opportunity came up to to be a development officer at East
Rugby and I thought I'll give ita crack because I love rugby.
It was obviously a pretty obvious fit and yeah, what I'll
reflect on it now what the the thing for me was that I've got
to do a job that is purpose LED.I can't just do a job for the
sake of earning an income and kicking a box.
(15:11):
So the passion and purpose is really make an.
Impact as well. Yeah, yeah.
Knowing that you're doing something that's greater than
your own self and you can support others and and make a
difference. And, you know, that's 23 years,
you know, different roles and different opportunities.
That's what's kept me engaged inthe game and and the role
particularly. So yeah, it's been, it's been an
(15:32):
interesting journey, but one that started off going down the
trade path but ended up. Yeah, it was, it was the start
or the sort of end of the goldenera of rugby.
First it was Mullaby. This wasn't the 99 O3 and you
probably you start an O3 or two.Oh well, I started at 02 at
East. O2 at East yeah and then the 03
World Cup we had a few had Matt Coburn on recently talking about
(15:54):
yeah that experience the sort ofthe highs and lows of the World
Cups from 03 and. 9 But it was it was a golden era.
A. Golden era And then what was
your first role at QR? Yeah.
I came in as the. Well, I was at East, yeah.
And then Brisbane development manager.
So basically my job was to manage the development offices,
coach the coaches, coach the coaches, yeah.
(16:14):
And then I went from that role into heading up coach education,
so running coach and match official education.
So that was interesting. I was a coach but trying to run
the match officials as well. Was was that did you?
Get on the tools as a coach. Yeah, yeah, I coached.
I mean I coached all the way through.
I probably haven't coached for the since 2008.
I coached obviously premier grade down at East Rugby, which
(16:39):
was which was great fun. I love coaching and it was funny
again when I finished coaching what I reflected on, I loved,
you know, the highs and lows of a game day, the adrenaline of
making a final and winning or losing and what you what you
learned out of your losses and and your wins.
But what I miss about it is the people part, the human part of,
you know, again, helping people be better and advancing.
(16:59):
And yeah, it's as you know, if you've been involved in coaching
in any form, it's it's sort of you can move away from these
guys. And then I'll catch up at a
reunion. And you?
It's a deep connection there you.
Just pick back up where you were.
It's it's a great part of. And remember this on the stories
that that didn't happen, but youexaggerated.
Yeah. Yeah, I remember that time you
ran 40 minutes. Yeah.
Yeah, it was 45. But those bonds, right, they're,
(17:21):
they're lifelong bonds. And, and I think that's the, the
beauty of coaching in any form. It's helping people, you know,
improve and, and being part of that and to, to, to allow that
to happen. My best coach is, you know,
that, that trust equation. Are they credible and reliable?
And, and have they, have you gota connection?
You can trust trust them to, youknow, support you and develop
you. And and so, yeah, it was, it was
(17:42):
a really fun time. I do miss the coaching part.
I've sort of applied it now moreto the the work side of it.
But yeah, the on field coaching was great fun.
With the, the, I mean just on the the coaching and the
volunteers and the referees etcetera.
Are you seeing any patterns, I suppose, in terms of shortages
or or supply and demand? Yeah, the coaching is actually
quite strong. We'd love to see more female
(18:04):
coaches and again, you know, andthat's starting to to come to
fruition. Actually, a lot of the clubs now
are making the decision to appoint for female coaches for
the female teams and that's beena positive.
But we'd love to see more, encourage more of that.
I'd love to see more female participation at committee
levels at clubs and it's starting to develop.
(18:24):
The match official part is actually quite interesting.
It's just it's getting in the younger generation to to
participate in in refereeing andin certain parts of the state
it's been really strong, which is which is really good to see.
And what's I think also the other part is actually
encouraging players that finished their playing career to
get involved in refereeing. And I don't know if you remember
(18:46):
these guys are probably a bit younger than us, but in now that
they're now international referees.
Nick Berry played for the Reds. He's now an international
referee. Half back.
Dallin Murphy played for brothers at fullback, played
ten, you know, then international referee.
So, you know, it's great to see that there's a pathway into that
(19:07):
side for, for people that are wanting to go to the next level.
Yeah. And as CEO of the Reds, how, how
do you sort of view grassroots? Do you keep an eye on things?
Do you keep an eye on the club system?
How do you sort of from above? Yeah, oh, it's an interesting
part of my role. So QIU own the Reds and and are
responsible to grow the game. So, you know, you're always
looking at both, you know, how do we get the Reds?
How do we get the team to perform on the field at Suncorp
(19:28):
Stadium? We've got a network of
development offices that are allacross the state of Queensland,
so their role is to work with the clubs and schools to grow
the game. We're constantly looking at what
you raised before around sevens.What are the different
programmes or products that we can put out into the market to,
you know, stimulate and encourage growth?
(19:48):
How do we work with our clubs tomake sure that they become more
resilient businesses? You know, there's 140 clubs.
There are effectively 140 businesses.
Yeah, yeah. The P&R, yeah, yeah.
So and the more successful that clubs are, the better the game
goes. So yeah.
And David, so 22 years, you've seen the ups and downs of rugby.
You've been CEO for six years. Yeah.
(20:09):
Six years since the back end of 1819.
Six years now the the success ofa club you mentioned on field
performance is one thing. Behind the scenes, what else
needs to make a good club and a legacy for you to say I've I've
left it at near X and it's a good spot.
That's a good point. Like, I mean, obviously for us,
a little bit of context. So obviously the, the financial
(20:29):
piece for us is really critical.So you know, 6-6 years ago,
seven years ago, we had a fairlysignificant debt profile.
So we had to really focus on strategies leading into COVID,
actually ironically to consolidate and reshape the
business and looking at how do we how do we create a point of
difference in our model as we move into this sort of golden
(20:51):
runway. So once we got rid of all that
debt through just some cost saving measures and some, some
on field performance, we looked hard at our, our commercial
framework. So our sponsorship one, one of
the, one of the unique selling points of our sponsorship for
QRIU is that when you invest in you looking at the sponsors
like, you know, Santos, Rio, we've got BMS, Alliance Airlines
(21:13):
currently as just to name a few.How do you involve them in both
parts of the business? So the Reds, but also the
community game and there's a lotof corporates, as you know,
looking for their ability to connect with community, but also
tell their story through the brand or the retail brand.
So that's been a really key part, the relationship side of
it and how we engage and retain those partners and, and grow
(21:37):
their investment over time and grow their value in return.
The other part was also looking at 11 of rugby's I guess
uniquenesses is there is a, there is a, a wealth within the
game that are that love the games, the people that have got
the capacity to give. So we established 4 years ago
Foundation, so a philanthropic part of our business, and we're
(21:59):
now able to generate $1,000,000 of donations that are
effectively going towards both the Reds Academy and Community
Game and also supporting Ballymore.
So that's been from a commercialperspective that they're
probably two things that really stand out outside of more ticket
sales, more hospitality, all that sort of stuff.
The other part for us is Ballymore.
(22:21):
So that's the other part of our business.
And Ballymore has been around for over 50 years.
But one of its issues was an asset with great memories and a
lot of nostalgia that people often talk about the experience
of Ballymore, which is which is a great sort of selling point,
but the challenge of the asset is losing $1.5 million a year.
Oh wow. Yeah, OK.
And so, yeah, if you looked at the financial performance of the
(22:44):
QAU, the Reds had to make a final every year to offset the
operating loss of Ballymore. So it was set up for for for
failure, You know. So that was probably, from my
perspective, one of the key focus.
If we can turn the financial fortunes of Ballymore around and
it becomes a profitable asset that supports our core business,
which is to grow the game and toget the Reds to perform, then
(23:05):
we're going to be more resilientand we're going to be able to
make those investments. And and I think it's pretty
simple that the sporting organisations with a balance
sheet that's strong enough to toinvest and be resilient are the
ones that will ultimately rise, rise to the top over time.
Yeah. So, yeah, that, that was really
just the the commercialization. We we got funding to build the
new high performance centre at Ballymore called the the BMS
(23:26):
National Rugby Training Centre. Our old offices were able to
tenant those commercially and now we've got this wonderful
master plan where we can developover 4000 square metres of
either health education. So, you know, anything from, you
know, radiology, sports physicians, you know, a medical
preset, a hub. It's a hub, yeah.
(23:47):
So Ballymore's future is really about high performance.
It's about, you know, health andwell being and a commercial
engine that supports the the thesustained success of Reds in the
community game. And what sort of what other
sports do you think would be a good fit for Ballymore or home
or use case for Ballymore? Yeah, well, look, our our
strategy obviously Reds are at Suncorp.
(24:08):
People who often ask me are the Reds going to come back to
Ballymore? It's like, well, in, in reality,
owning stadium is a very expensive exercise, the reason
government owned them. So yeah, reviewing sort of what
we need from a sports perspective, that we feel like a
smaller venue of around 8 to 9000 in the core of the stadium,
(24:29):
it would be, would be the capacity level we think
Ballymore supports, which then opens it up for women's sport.
You know, going and hiring Suncorp, if you're getting 6000
people is not the right venue tobe hosting those games.
It's a loss making exercise you're.
Going to lose money and the fan experience is going to be pretty
pretty rubbish. So smaller venues, better
(24:49):
atmosphere, more community oriented.
Ballymore's got 3 fields. We want an extra field.
So you could have anything at Ballymore from a touch football
championship? Yep, right through to the
Wallaroos playing, you know, against another international
team. Soccer.
Or football. Soccer.
Football. Yeah, exactly.
Yep, whatever it may be. Yeah, we've had, we actually had
(25:12):
an NFL flag football there. Yeah, they're national champs
there. So our view is it's multi sport
and multipurpose, but it needs, yeah, we need to turn the
financial tide around. So we've got it back to being a
break even venue in the next sort of five years as part of
this sort of, you know, ignite phase for rugby with the World
Cups is to turn it into a profitable asset.
Just going to touch on the sponsorship side of things.
(25:32):
You, you some sponsors come and go, but there's the ones you
want a long term. What are you offering or how are
you getting them to sign longer term deals?
So it's not a chopper change every year.
Yeah, you're back on the the road again, knocking on doors.
Yeah, I think it's what I said before.
It's, it's, it's identifying firstly what the partner is
looking to achieve. I, I often see working in the
sports industry now for 20/22/23years.
(25:56):
The issue with a lot of sports is they come in with the
transactional attitude of, well,I'm going to put your logo on
the jersey and you're going to get this many people view you
and, and that's, that's OK when you've got scale.
We don't have as big a scale as the NRL and AFL do in
Queensland, so we've got to lookat other ways to generate that
return on investment. That could be business to
business opportunities where we can sit down with them and
identify well what clients are you trying to make that fit our
(26:18):
audience and then work with themon some.
Data some overlay. Data overlay, but also VIP
experiences. How do we build relationships?
I mean, I'm amazed the people that we can go and meet with
that are industry leaders and business CEOs of major
corporations that we have the ability to talk to and connect
with and organisations would love that opportunity to come in
(26:40):
and elevate their discussion with those people.
So that's, that's that we can enable that.
And I think that's that's definitely a core part of it.
The business to business side. I mean, outside of that, I'd say
that the the ability to invest in both the professional arm and
the community side of the game. And so yeah, if you're like, I
look at a partner like Santos. Santos's major objective with us
(27:01):
is to work in 2 communities. 1 is Roma in in Narrabri in NSW.
And each year we run a festival of rugby, which is this amazing
event which they invest into. The Reds and Waratahs play a
preseason game, the sevens go there and play.
So the national sevens team playtheir carnival and this becomes
a big corporate event but ultimately gives them a chance
to engage with their clients butusing rugby as the vehicle to
(27:23):
create an event that enables them to build relationships and
and opportunities. So the.
Activation of that actual sponsorship as opposed to just
like here's a, here's a check, see it.
Yeah, good luck, you know, Yeah,give us give us the metrics.
Yeah, and they're going to Roma.It's an area for us.
They're. Probably interesting if Chris
Latham turned up, which I know you'd wear.
Yeah, well, he'd have to wear red of her own.
That's it. I learned the other day he did
play Britain, Matt Cohen said. He played one game for NSW.
(27:46):
Yeah, yeah, I know you would seehim as a right Queenslander.
That's right. Yeah, and the social media side
of things and the content and the storytelling, sponsors might
be looking at that. Now how important, I mean this
22 three you guys didn't exist in Myspace probably, you know,
or schoolmates, Stockholm or whatever, school friends,
etcetera. Now if it's just the era, right,
what are sponsors looking for that sort of stuff?
(28:07):
And what are what Q are you doing in terms of being front of
mind as. Well, I find now where it is.
It's human interest stories, youknow, just doing, you know,
highlights of, you know, how many tries you scored and all
that. Yeah, that's for for a tribal
audience. Yeah.
We love to see the highlight reel.
But from a from a partner in engagement and and growing fan
base. They want to know who the person
is behind the jersey. They want to know what their
(28:28):
likes and dislikes are. That's, that's the market for
us. Our most engaging content is
more about the human interest lifestyle part of the person,
rather than who the. Person being the player, the.
Player or it could be it could be anyone.
Staff. Yeah, it could be staff.
It could be the player. Could be the coach Yep.
You know who is Les Keys? Yeah, you know him as the the
(28:48):
coach, but what what what are his interests?
What does he love doing on the weekend?
Yeah, he he loves, he loves music, he loves going to
concerts, the whole. Relatable.
It's sort of this a deeper connection with someone as
opposed to student teacher or like, oh, they're the, you know,
Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness. It's now actually, I can relate
to that. If you're a human person.
They got fishing. I got fishing there.
Yeah. Oh, wow.
I didn't know that. Oh, next time I'll say G'day A.
(29:10):
100% Oh, they love surfing. I love surfing too.
I didn't realise that, you know,so that that's the sort of stuff
that I feel if sports are going down that path and the, you
know, the and this is not new stuff.
I mean, the F1 did it with theirshow, yeah.
The Netflix, yeah, they, they want to go, they want to go
behind the scenes and understanda little bit more.
So that that to me is the value proposition.
And then how do you integrate that to campaigns?
(29:30):
So if you if you're doing a dealwith an organisation that's got
a campaign around, you know, a certain interest story or what
players have that interest and how can we elevate that?
Yeah, and the behaviour on on social media, it's a it's pretty
easy to give feedback now and and it can go dark and it can go
into things. Do you read anything on social
media about yourself, about the team's performance, about the
(29:50):
players? We've got, I mean, I, I, I can
scan the Facebooks and, and those bits and pieces, but it's
funny, isn't it? Like you kind of can look at
stuff and you got to pull, you got to put your ego to the side
and go what, what's, what is this feedback actually focused
in on? And, and how do we learn from
it? And you know, you could have 99
people give you a really good say on the podcast, 99 people
(30:13):
say this was great and one person gives you negative.
But what people tend to focus inon is the one negative.
So we just look at. Trends, share portfolio.
Yeah. How's it going?
Well, what about this one? It's down to 40%.
And how much time are you spending on that and is that a
value or are you just worried about it because one person said
one bad thing. So we can I I say to the guys,
let's just look at is there a consistent issue and if there
(30:34):
is, what have we learned from that versus it's one person just
having a whinge versus 99 that has said something really
positive. So more more I said the answer
are we more look at it on a trend basis, What is it telling
us? And the feedback that you get
from people, how you as a leadernow take it all in and
prioritise. Yeah, it's interesting, like,
(30:56):
you know, probably my journey asthe CEO over the last six years,
like you know how I would have taken feedback at the beginning
verse. Now I kind of back to it, see
it, it's all relevant information for growth, you
know, and you're either going tohave a growth mindset that this
is actually going to inform a positive impact to the next
phase of the business or not where you know, if your ego's at
(31:18):
the front of it, you tend to brush it off and hit it back
and. You're not right.
I'm right? Yeah, correct.
Like just just take it in, take a breath, listen and observe and
and then identify what can we dowith that personally or
collectively as a as a business.And that comes from getting
things wrong and copying a blackeye and going, well, actually,
(31:39):
you know what your ego got in the front of that.
So pull back, think about it, and then let's reassess it.
I mean, the one thing I've learned, I mean, probably my
biggest learning in the last sort of two or three years is a
strength based leadership approach rather than, you know,
just looking at everyone and focusing on what can I improve
in Chris? What are Chris's strengths?
And yeah, there's, there's a, there's formulas and, and and
(32:03):
research you can do to identify that and give, give give more
structure to it. But if you start a conversation
with someone on these are all the great strengths you have and
I want to elevate and focus in on that.
And as a team, we've all got different strengths.
So how do we now elevate and work with our strengths as a
team? It's a very different
conversation. You're starting with rather than
Hey, Chris, look, I've, I've listened to everything you've
(32:23):
done, but these are these are four things that you need to do
better. So you know, I've found that if
you. Shift in mindset about the
strength versus the like point, pinpoint, pinpoint.
Yeah, correct. Yeah.
And I know Les spoke about that philosophically in his part of
his interview process of coming in, of elevating people's
strengths and focusing in on that rather than spending your
time on, you know, what they're not good at.
(32:44):
Yeah, it's interesting. Paul Ruse called it his
superpower about what he did well and he needed to elevate
what he did well to be remembered by.
And yes, he needed to keep fit and do other things around the
game. And then he sort of talked about
Steph Curry, the three point shooter.
Yeah, like Steph still has to worry about defence and
rebounding, etcetera, but he wasjust honing in to become the
best 3 point shooter. Like, yeah, doubling down on
(33:05):
your strengths. It's a really interesting kind
of thought. And you had to be remembered by
something for your strengths. Not about.
Oh, you. Steph's still lagging defence,
mate. Get there and be a generalist.
Yeah, correct. Like you have to be remembered
for something I suppose. Yeah, and, and, and actually
sitting down and, and talking tosomeone about what they think
their strengths are, you know, even just reflecting what are
your strengths? You know, and, and we did this
(33:27):
Gallup Strength Finder exercise,which is a bunch of questions.
It spits out, you know, here's your top 34 strengths, but these
are the top 4 to focus in on. And it was interesting with our
our executive team, we did it across the five of us.
And one thing that was consistent across all of us was
this strength called relater. And a relater is effectively in
simple terms, people that that build strong connections on a
(33:49):
one on one basis. And you know, we identified that
if if we maintain that connection between US and it's
not just the CEO dealing with myindividual exec cross across
each other. You're not up and down also side
to side. We would, we would continue to
elevate and keep connected as a team.
So there's and with each strength, they've got what they
call a balcony, which is when you're operating at your best.
(34:12):
So that would be you and me. I'm, if I'm connecting with you
one on one, I'm a relater. I need to build that bond and
then that will maintain. But the basement when you're
not, when you're not operating is your best is you can form
cliques so you don't extend outside of your little network
of people and start to build other relationships.
So it's quite interesting that astrength can have a really
positive impact, but equally thesame strength can have a
(34:34):
negative impact. And, and it's the, it's the self
awareness. You've talked about leadership
before. It's the self awareness to know
when you are actually operating well, but also the self
awareness to know when you mightmight be falling back into some
old traps. Yeah, the, the balcony in the
basement, I haven't heard that before.
Yeah. That's excellent.
And in terms of your leadership and getting on top of you and,
and being the best at what you do, Yeah.
What are some traits? You get a good night's sleep,
(34:56):
You drink coffee. What's the.
Yeah. What's the routine for Dave?
But it's a good, it's a good question, like the first
question I asked, I got asked about this just to lead into
what I do like, what does it? What does a good week look like?
Was someone said to me, what's the best version of you for me?
So it's basically me asking you that question, What's the best
version of me for you? And it's quite interesting to
get that feedback for people to say, well, if I'm operating at
(35:19):
my best, I will perform to give you my best and you get some
really interesting feedback. Have you ever asked out of your
partner or or you know, what is the best version of Chris look
like for for his partner or partner, ETC.
And and when, when when it came back to what is the best version
of me look like it came back to how do I set myself up for
success? What are your goals?
(35:41):
Where do you want to get to? But looking at looking at your
personal growth, not just about my career.
That's just one pillar of me. What about me as a father?
What about me with my with my mother?
My dad passed this year. So what are the things that are
important for me with Mum movingforward, you know, and then
obviously the career and as I mentioned before, so you start
(36:02):
to look at it and then you breakit down.
Well, if they're all my goals and actions that I want to
achieve, there's this point people talk about being high
performance. And what is high performance?
Well, to me, it's being being able to operate when the squeeze
is on, when the pressure's on ata level consistently not.
A blip, not a blip. Yeah, not this one.
Off going. Oh I I nailed the exam.
(36:24):
Great. And then the next three months
you crap and then, yeah, so. So you know, what does that look
like? And obviously, you know, then
you say, then you break down your week and go, what is the
best week look like? The physical side of it, You
know, the, the emotional side ofit.
For some people, it might be thespiritual side of it.
So you start to frame your week up and it's the little habits.
It's all I always find. It's the little things done
(36:44):
often that sort out the big things you have your eye on the
big things. I want to achieve this, this and
this. These are my goals, but a tower
operate each time. You're an incremental person.
You're A1 percenter. You.
Yeah, I. Was a fan.
If I got myself back, it's the it's the little things that got
me back. Yeah, probably going.
I've got to get that big audacious girl.
I'm not gonna eat chocolate, right.
Instead of you have 4 bits of chocolate, you bring it down to
three and then next month you bring it down to two.
(37:06):
Then you bring it one. Then three months later you're
like, oh, I can, I don't need any chocolate percent.
As opposed to like get it out. Oh, this is tough.
I can't do coffee. Yeah, alcohol or whatever it
might be. And you beat yourself up and all
this sort of stuff. So, you know, physical, you
know, swim gym, Yeah, I do that regularly.
And I find the swimming's a goodmental part, like I don't do it
for, you know, trying to, you know, with A50 metre freestyle
because that ain't going to happen.
(37:26):
But that's great for me, you know, recovering, you know,
obviously there's the standard hot and cold stuff that we've
got. We've got sawn, what do?
You use your own facilities, yeah.
We've got that at Ballymore, so you utilise that, staff can
access that, you know, people do, I do breath work and I find
that to be a really good sort ofway to just to decompress.
You do it at. Traffic lights.
I sometimes do traffic lights onthose shit.
(37:46):
There's a green light better. Go.
You're in a state of relaxation.Yeah, you're doing it well.
So, yeah, I mean, all those, allthose things are sort of like
things, resources that you've got access to.
And and, you know, I wish, I'll probably look back and think, I
wish I had that insight of all of that when I'd started the CEO
job. Too often people get shoved into
leadership positions. They're told the technical and
(38:09):
tactical, these are the goals, this is what we want to achieve.
But they're not given the sort of the coaching and the support.
Yeah, the toolkit or how do you deal with all of that?
Like, yeah, you can. And your ego, my ego can get in
the road early days where you'relike, I can handle all this,
bring it on. You can't.
Do you look at do you look at other people within the group
and go, oh, not want to be like them?
(38:29):
But some of the habits, I mean, for instance, you have you've
got Brett Clark as chairman, like, you know, you look at
people like successful people indifferent aspects of life and
go, I want to Terry, pick a little bit of that.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's sort of for me.
You take the good and bad out ofanyone, don't you?
Like, you know, sometimes thingsyou see in leaders that you
don't admire, that you learn from, as well as the things you
do. Brett's an amazing chair.
He's, I mean, what he's achieved, you know, him and
(38:51):
Maria have achieved in their personal life with the growth of
the business, Chemist Warehouse and where they're at now.
But Brett's obviously very philanthropic and loves to give
and, and support. You know, he's, he's had some,
you know, personal challenges with, with one of his daughter's
early days. Yeah, Olivia.
So like, you know, how we, how they've dealt with that
adversity and, and you know, people see, it's often they see
(39:15):
the result at the end where, youknow, there's a there's success,
but the challenges and the hard decisions is, is really
important. I saw a really interesting thing
the other day about choose your hard.
I thought it was a good analogy is like, you know, you can
choose being healthy is hard. Being ill is hard.
Choose your heart, you know, andit's a great way of it's not
(39:35):
easy being yeah, healthy. You got to get up, you got to
exercise, you got to have good routine, you got to recover
well, nutrition, nutrition, all that sort of stuff.
And it's hard to also be there being I'll.
But you've just, which one are you going to choose?
So yeah, I I sort of admire the different leaders over time and
that and not just within QAU people that I've been supported
or mentored by. Business leaders, CEO's of
(39:56):
Santos's, etcetera. You know you can.
You have access to these people as well.
You just it's a wonderful job when you get to talk to all
these people that have been successful in different ways,
business entrepreneurs, people that have just are really
community led and purpose driven.
I've. You take as much as you can, but
you've got to ultimately come back to what's your what's your
(40:16):
purpose? What's your plan?
Going to stick on you for a second.
I have this section called the school board moment, which is a
moment in your life which is very vivid and very clear.
And from that moment you're like, I remember that so
clearly, but my life changed after that.
Well, I've probably already saidit.
I remember. I'll go back one step.
So the Churchy moment being the electrician when I was working
(40:36):
in Churchy. So before that I was working at
ACE as a development officer. So after that I was working at
ACE as a development officer. I remember I was a bit lazy.
I would say, you know, and did. You get a car by the way you
like driving around in. The but I didn't I had AI, had
AI, didn't get a car. I had a What was my die hatsel?
(40:58):
Called. That's a.
Bit personal, but I was going toget, I was going to get a Ford
Laser from my brother. I have three older brothers.
By the time it got to me, mate, I'm surprised it had four wheels
still on it. It's Tony.
I got this used anyway. But yeah, back to the back to
the job. I remember I was just being lazy
and I got the GM at the time came in and just said, but you
(41:19):
don't, you don't pull your socksup.
You're going to lose your job. And it was the very kick in the
butt that I needed and I never looked back from that day.
But but it was a great, it's probably the best, the best
lesson learnt is that, you know,if you don't put the effort in
and you don't show commitment tothe cause and you don't drive
(41:40):
the success of the business, then you're not going to be part
of the future. And and it was, it was that was
the sort of that was a turning point very.
Vivid and you're like, that advice is gold.
Do you remember who said it? Yeah, it was a guy called Adrian
Thompson. Who who?
Who's now working as the GM of Netball QLD for High Performance
and he worked in Rugby Australia, so it was just.
(42:02):
They gave a big shout out to him.
Yeah, I will. Yeah.
Thanks, Tom. That's it.
Now two other things. Your favourite all time sporting
moment? This is a tough one.
I reckon there's plenty of rugby.
Oh, it might be rugby, right? No, Yeah, yeah.
Well, there's probably 21 personal and one that from a
career perspective, the 2011 Super Super Rugby grand Final.
(42:22):
Like oh semi. Final and final double.
Semi final, I mean that year wasjust I'll look back at the skill
like a quad doing a kick in the dead ball zone to Digby Yuani on
the other side ran full a full afull field score.
It wasn't. It wasn't the goose step that
Clay did, but it was something similar in terms of his little
little stutter. You.
Just you, you, you just have your mouth open.
Look at some of the stuff, the things he could do that that
(42:44):
moment, that crowd 52,000 roaring at Suncorp, you know,
chanting, we are red Crusaders. When we had the floods,
Crusaders had the earthquakes. They they didn't play at home
all year. Thorny was actually Brad Thormus
in the team for The Crusaders. And you know that magical moment
with Guinea? The try, yeah.
So that, that that and just all keep.
Going. Just keep going just keep going.
(43:06):
Keep. Going yeah.
So that that was an amazing moment for a number of of
reasons. And I think the the other
sporting moment for me was actually when we were rowing at
school. So we're in the first day and we
hadn't obviously GPS, you know, the Head of the River is the
only race you can win every race, but that's the one you got
to win. We lost all year and we ended up
(43:27):
winning the Head of the River that year and we won by .36 of a
second over Gregory Terrace. .36of a second.
Yeah, a bow ball that that big much.
But it was just, it was a good like rowing was one of those
really tough sports where you put so much effort in the early
mornings. It was probably, you know,
harder than rugby I found, in the sense of teaching your
resilience and dedication to your craft.
(43:50):
Yeah. To then put all that effort in
and then, you know, win. I can only imagine what the
terrace boys feel like after that as well.
Won all year and then lost. Lost the lost the final dance,
the big dance. Yes.
Thought you might have been saying the churchy bidding
grammar at Northgate that you. I do remember that.
I didn't want to bring that up. I didn't want to.
Yeah. That was actually a good game.
It was a great game. It was a good game.
(44:11):
Ended up. Yeah, A.
Good team that. Year tucking off about 10
minutes to go with a broken cheekbone that day on Mother's
Day, Who? Did that for tell you?
Joel Madge, did he? Yeah.
You'd want someone. Maggie's a great man, but he
wasn't. He wasn't the most.
Important. No, it was just a it was a knee.
Me picking up a loose ball came through with his knee.
Body on the line stuff body on the.
Line stuff, he's deeply apologetic.
I think he's he is a good man. Now we've got the a new segment,
(44:35):
which is the bucket list, which is powered by Swiftx, our new
partner. He's powering scoreboard.
Big shout out to to Swiftx, but the bucket list is something a
sporting event you'd love to getto eventually at some point in
time. I'd love to either an NBA or an
NFL final. Grand Final.
Like a final series, Like a Super Bowl?
Yeah, Super Bowl or just NBA Finals.
(44:56):
Next level. Just the way they put their
events on is spectacular. It's a it's a full show.
And yeah, I just, I would love to feel even college football or
some of the NC. AA games, yeah.
Some of them are music. Oh, it's unreal, you know.
100,000 for a college game. I know.
And they're singing and chanting.
I was just, yeah, some great, great atmosphere.
I think they do it extremely, extremely well.
(45:18):
I went to a Boca Juniors game over in Argentina.
That was great. That was, that was a great
experience, you know. So America's the place to be for
for a bucket list for David. Yeah, I reckon so for a
sporting. NFL something something.
We've just finished the NBA Finals pretty big, 2 new teams,
which is good for good for things.
But David, thank you so much forcoming on Scoreboard today and
(45:38):
having a having a chat about your life and your involvement
in rugby and also some leadership techniques and things
that you're taking abreast of a huge moment for rugby in the
next couple of years. And tomorrow, obviously with the
lines, this podcast might not beout before tomorrow.
So you've got a prediction on the result.
Bookies are putting us out. It's a 20 point 27.27.
(46:00):
Points, so I reckon under that. Mate, we will.
We will find a way to kick the last goal to win the game.
Oh, OK. This would be great if we play
that back. Thank you and looking forward to
catching up and congratulations on your success that the Qiu so
far and looking forward to keep in touch.
Great. Thank you.
Thanks for having you doing.
Hi, it's Chris Tipley here and on today's episode of A School
Board, the podcast, I'm joined by David Hannon, the CEO of the
Queensland Rugby Union, the QRU.David, thank you for being part
of School Board and what is a glorious morning here on Tuesday
the 1st of July. Beautiful Brisbane morning.
Up early this morning going for a walk through Bricky Creek.
Beautiful. Magic, isn't it?
(00:22):
Every day is apart from yesterday.
Yesterday. Yeah.
Miserable. Actually, it was cold.
I was in Townsville on the weekend and I remember I came
in, it was actually cold in Townsville so it was cold and
brizzy. But mate, beautiful place to
live. Beautiful place to live and a
big 2448 hours for you with the British and Irish Lions in town.
Playing Queensland tomorrow night at Suncorp Stadium.
Are you pumped? I'm pumped mate, I reckon you
know for people that haven't been to a Lions game, 40,000
(00:47):
Lions fans hitting our shores. It'll only continue to grow
heading into the Wallabies Lionsgame.
But massive for us. The last time we beat them was
1971, right? They came over, they were flying
to play New Zealand in the series and I thought they'd play
one game to get themselves readyfor the New Zealand series.
They played against Queensland at Ballymore and they actually
(01:11):
put this little toy line up for grabs thinking we're just going
to trance these bikes in Queensland on our way through,
get a little bit of a curtain raiser game and.
Just a warm up. And just a warm up didn't didn't
realise the Queensland spirit. 1611 we win.
No tries, no tries. Well, there's a, there's a four
point tries back then, wasn't it?
Yeah. So, but there again, that's just
(01:31):
a great moment in our history and that was kind of a turning
point. But this game on Wednesday, you
know, there'll be 52,000 people at Suncorp.
Yeah, it's bloody exciting and yeah, it's the spirit of that
Northern hemisphere singing songs and just great.
Yeah, I think you mentioned in apress conference yesterday it
was like schoolies for 50 year olds.
That's right. That's the best way to explain
it. Schoolies Week for 50 years.
(01:52):
It's their time away from, from work.
They've they've come well, they're leaving their summer,
but they're coming over here to a beautiful winter as well.
And and and some other big news as well with Jock Campbell today
as well. Yeah, no Jock's re sign, which
is good. We've got pretty much that's
that sort of rounds off our listnow for for next season.
And now we're Jock's a great player.
He's he's been part of it. He wants to continue to play
(02:14):
good football here. And you know, we're, we're
really pleased. We've got a good list.
Obviously Les is around for another year.
So that's, that's that's been a real positive for us.
And, you know, we're excited that Les gets the transition to
become the Wallabies coach, and we've been part of that journey.
So, yeah, good. Yeah.
Good times ahead. Yeah.
Which is which is positive. Yeah, I was going to say just
rugby's had its ups and downs and we've got some good events
(02:35):
coming. We've got the Women's World Cup,
the men's World Cup, we've got the Lions like it's we had a
pivotal point for rugby. I reckon we are like, I mean, I
know in Queensland, you know, we've got, I reckon we've got a
great foundation. We've got probably close to
80,000 players that participate in rugby across the state.
You know, you've got a line series coming, 40,000 fans
because I said, as I mentioned, 52,000 at Suncorp got a Rugby
(02:57):
World Cup in 2027 here in Australia, which again, you
know, will be a massive event, third biggest global sporting
event in the world outside of the the soccer World Cup in the
Olympics in 2029, you got the Women's World Cup, which you
know, the growth of the women's game has been, you know,
phenomenal. And then in 32 rugby sevens in
the Brisbane Olympics. So we're we're not going to get
(03:19):
in rugby a better runway of 10 pole events to set our sport up
for success. And I think the next three
years, I know the next three years for us in Queensland from
this line series to a World Cup are critical.
So yeah, I, I think there's, there's all the opportunities
there. We just got to execute that
that. Yeah.
And we're in a pretty competitive era with
broadcasting rights and and the other codes sort of rising from
(03:40):
grassroots and and in Brisbane we've got the AFL, which the
Lions took a little, you know, the premiership and little
eyeballs, et cetera and bandwagon, et cetera.
What are we doing as a rugby, doing as a state, as supposed to
kind of get more eyeballs, more engagement, et cetera?
Yeah. Well, I mean, I think as I said,
the first thing is creating great content that people are
attracted to. So yeah, we're lucky to have
those big events that I mentioned before.
(04:01):
I think from a Reds perspective,from from our side, the unique
sort of part of Queensland rugbyis we're a connected pathway to
the community game. So we've got that that tribalism
that's there. Team performance has been a big
part for us is getting our team performance up to a point where
we're actually a top three team on a regular basis.
And we've had blips of success with Connolly and then you and
McKenzie. But we're building, you know, I
(04:24):
think we're building a really sustainable way to being a top
three team. We had, you know, the era of
Brad Thorne, which was a really good cultural reset.
You know, some controversial decisions.
Probably back in 2018-2019 when Brad came on, there was a few
players that he felt that didn'tfit the culture and standards
and behaviours. So we backed a young group and
that young group now are your Fraser, Mick writes, your Harry
(04:46):
Wilson's, you take Mcdermott's, etcetera.
So that was a pivotal moment forus.
If I look at sort of the historyof where we are today, Brad got
us to 7th on the table and did an amazing job to get to that
point. And then we identified that,
well, how do we go to that next level when we needed to pull in
a coach that had experienced, you know, professional rugby
globally and had had success. So we looked hard and obviously
(05:09):
there was a sort of sliding doormoment when Les was coaching at
London Irish over in the Premiership Rugby in the, in
the, in the northern hemisphere and the club went into
administration unfortunately. So Les became available when we
were in market and you know, he happened to be a Queenslander.
That was a nice fit. Obviously played rugby league
for, for the Maroons and the Bears in his early years.
(05:31):
And getting Les on board with the, the coaching group he's put
together has taken us up and obviously we, we didn't finish
where we'd like to have finishedthis year.
We we finished fifth. We've had two fifth places under
Les's tenure. Ultimately, we want to be top
three. And you know, it's probably two
or three games this year that, you know, we should have won
that we didn't. That would have put us in a
strong position to get there. So we've got that now.
(05:52):
And obviously, Les comes, you know, again next year and then
we're now looking at what's the next evolution.
And and a new coach, obviously, because he's taking that next
step up. That's right.
So but they're building blocks and you know, people want
success. We all want success really
quickly. But if I look at it, we've
actually built some some good foundations.
So team performance is another driver of how do we grow the fan
base. And and I know, you know, I was
(06:13):
around was lucky enough to be around in 2011 when you and
Mackenzie took on the role in 2010, you know, a quick rise to
winning competition and we were having average crowds of 2528
thousand. In fact, in fact, back then, I
think we were. Late teens, I remember, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. So like that, that's a key
driver of it for us. And then the broadcast is has
(06:36):
been an interesting one. I think, you know, Stan have
done a good job. And Channel 9 that's been
renewed the Super Rugby competition this year.
Yeah, there were some big decisions, you know, choose your
hard decision. Do you, do you keep the Rebels
in the competition 5 Super Rugbyteams in Australia or do you do
you restructure it? I mean, my personal view is it's
the right decision. We don't have enough talented
(06:58):
athletes in a competitive landscape, as you mentioned, to
support five teams when you're playing the best country in the
world in rugby. So yeah, we had to reduce the
number of teams down from 5:00 to 4:00 that that strengthened
the four teams with better talent.
So they gave them more depth, you know, and obviously there's
the funding and the distributionof funds for that as well.
(07:19):
So that was a that's a key moment for us.
And we're seeing the benefit of that decision by by Dan Herbert
and Phil War. So it's a people want to know
what's the silver bullet? It's a number of things that you
need to put in place to build long term success and you know,
for us at the Reds, you know, that's everything from a strong
Academy. So, you know, attracting young
(07:40):
talented players, boys and girlsthese days and securing them,
Yeah, you're looking at now. Now the age of contracts are
starting at the age of 15. Wow, OK, it's a bit different to
our. Yeah, well, we were lucky mate.
We might have got we might have got a hamburger.
And yeah, that's right. Just to you know.
Hang around a little bit longer.So they're the building blocks.
But look, it's, you know, I think we've got an opportunity
(08:02):
if we can, if we can stay as a top three team and we can
leverage the World Cup and the line series, we can build off
the back of that into a women's World Cup and then the Olympics.
During the the time that you mentioned the 20 eighteens
etcetera and the growth of othersports, you've seen sort of I
suppose different products from different sports.
We've seen the 10/20/20 explode.You've seen new rules, new
(08:23):
innovation, the golden point andtwo point field goals in league
etcetera. Rugby has got the sevens, has
always had the sevens. How important is that I suppose,
in terms of a different product and and boosting that into
awareness of rugby? It's interesting like so just to
answer the the first question onthe product, like one of the
advantages of rugby is it's a global game.
(08:44):
But one of the challenges of rugby is a lot of the a lot of
the decisions around the laws ofthe game get get sort of made it
in the northern hemisphere. Now they're happy for a game to
be decided by penalty kicks. That's their style, that's their
style. But over here when you're
competing against, you know, products like the NRL and AFL,
which is free flowing, we've hadto really look hard at how do
(09:06):
we, how do we fix that and make the game more free flowing?
So there's a bunch of stuff we've done in Super Rugby
around, you know, quicker scrum resets, get the ball out of the
back of a rock so the ball doesn't sit there too long.
Just game management, you know, goal on dropouts, 20 minute red
cards. So you don't have a red card and
then it just ruins the whole game.
(09:27):
So that's been a positive on theproduct.
On the sevens side of it, it's the sevens is, it's an Olympic
sport, it's a Commonwealth game sport.
It's the fastest growing participation sector for our
game at a community level and particularly women.
And it's quite simple. I mean sevens is the easiest
product to pick up as a new product.
(09:48):
You know you've got 7 people on a field, you know you can catch,
pass, run, tackle. There's not the complexities of
what a 15 aside game is. You only need probably 10
people, couple of reserves and so it's easy for schools to
adopt it rather than 15 asides. You probably need to have a
squad of 1819. It's it's safer just
statistically with injuries and those bits.
(10:08):
So and it's global. And yeah, the women's players,
they were probably not unknown factors after the Rio Olympics
when they won gold, that was thecatalyst moment for them to
become full time contracted athletes.
So I know NRL and AFL will talk about their players being full
time or that rugby was probably the first mover on that.
And now women's sevens, he got Charlotte Kozlik, Maddie Levi.
(10:31):
Yeah, they're getting posted. On as well.
As NASA, yeah, Yeah. So, yeah, it's been a, it's a,
it's a critical part and, you know, it's an offering that we
can give at a community level that grows the game.
But then there's, you know, a pathway to the biggest global
event in the world being the. Olympics and we are the
Queensland Reds. How Brisbane based centric head
office etcetera, but how important is the the rural and
(10:53):
regional areas in Queensland to grow the game?
Oh, it's passive. It's huge.
I mean, I was up in Townsville on the weekend, we had our
Queensland country championshipsthere and it was just, it was a
really pleasing moment, you know, to sort of look out.
You had, I was watching the under 18 girls and like 5-6
years ago that didn't exist. Now there's pathways.
Yeah, they would say, Oh well, you cannot come play rugby
because there's no teams. You can't play against anyone.
(11:14):
Sorry, I'll do another sport. You can't see it.
How do you, how do you get involved in it So that there's,
there's great pathways there now, you know, and I think
that's, that's critical. If you're going to be strong in
Queensland in any sport, you gotto have, you got to have, you're
going to have to make the game more accessible.
We launched yesterday with the government, we launched A
programme to get into more primary schools in regional
areas. That's where we're going to
(11:35):
allocate the investment. So, you know, Gimpy, Burdekin,
Innisfail, you know, some of these areas where kids might not
have played rugby before at thatlevel.
So it's almost like it's the, it's the widening of the funnel
that we said if we can start, ifwe can give a kid, a boy or girl
access to the game. And sevens is the programme
we're going to run there and their willingness in there.
You know, I mean, I've, I've, you've played rugby, I've played
(11:57):
rugby, right. So my connection to rugby came
through. My father, who was from New
Zealand, came over when he was in his 20s.
I was obviously destined to playrugby.
It was probably no choice. But you know, in the blood these
young girls are going to be mothers of young children and if
they've participated in the sport, playing is one element
could be as a fan, the likelihood of their kids playing
(12:19):
rugby are going to increase. So we just that that's where our
focus needs to be is a long gameon participation.
In terms of youth participation and having kids that are my
oldest is 12, that a lot of themplay touch, right?
And then they sort of play touch, they go, where do we kind
of go now? There's a bit of a pathway now,
I suppose. That's right.
Yeah, into sevens it is. And like from an elite
perspective, I know speaking to to our guys, the one that run
(12:41):
the Queensland Academy of SportsSevens, they say it's
interesting that that that will recruit athletes for for the top
level and teach them rugby. So right, there's touch skills.
Yeah, touch football players are, are great.
It's a great pathway. I mean, you can play rugby
league, you can keep playing touch, you can play rugby union,
you can be fully contracted as afemale player to play for
Australia. So there there's great pathways
(13:02):
and opportunities. Now that didn't exist when we
were when we were going through the system.
No, some of these things just don't exist.
So there's more offerings and more opportunity.
There was definitely no structured touch competitions,
probably speaking apart from theUQ on Wednesday or something
that was about social touch, social touch you.
Pull your hammy if you Yeah, well, your calf that's.
Definitely. Now David, you're involved in
rugby, you've been in the qiu for 22 odd years now.
(13:25):
How did that come about? And you're obviously, as
mentioned, your father involved in rugby.
You played a little bit of rugby, You're interested in
rugby beyond the game of playing.
Yeah, look, I I got involved. I mean obviously rugby's been
part of my life and I was, I wasactually when I left school I
went in to do an electrician apprenticeship.
(13:47):
So my father owned a commercial fit out business, Co owner of a
commercial fit out business and I got involved in that. 2-3
older brothers, two were, two were chippies, I was the sparky
and my other brother went off and worked in the tax office.
So obviously a different path for him.
But I remember doing it for two years and then sort of sitting
(14:07):
there, I was actually, ironically, I was back at
Churchy doing a job for Churchy in the electrical industry.
And I was sitting there and, andI remember listening to one of
the guys I was working with, he would have been in his 50s
complaining about, you know, howmuch he didn't enjoy his job.
And I, I just, I was only what, 1920 at the time.
And I just was sitting there reflecting, going, I just don't
(14:29):
want to be that. I don't want to do a job if I
don't, if I'm not enjoying it today, I don't want to be
sitting there reflecting in my 50s or 60s.
I wish I didn't. I wish I didn't do it.
So yeah, I was, that was a moment for me when I look at
back to the impact of the game for me.
And I sort of reflected going, well, what, what do I want to
do? I didn't know at the time an
(14:50):
opportunity came up to to be a development officer at East
Rugby and I thought I'll give ita crack because I love rugby.
It was obviously a pretty obvious fit and yeah, what I'll
reflect on it now what the the thing for me was that I've got
to do a job that is purpose LED.I can't just do a job for the
sake of earning an income and kicking a box.
(15:11):
So the passion and purpose is really make an.
Impact as well. Yeah, yeah.
Knowing that you're doing something that's greater than
your own self and you can support others and and make a
difference. And, you know, that's 23 years,
you know, different roles and different opportunities.
That's what's kept me engaged inthe game and and the role
particularly. So yeah, it's been, it's been an
(15:32):
interesting journey, but one that started off going down the
trade path but ended up. Yeah, it was, it was the start
or the sort of end of the goldenera of rugby.
First it was Mullaby. This wasn't the 99 O3 and you
probably you start an O3 or two.Oh well, I started at 02 at
East. O2 at East yeah and then the 03
World Cup we had a few had Matt Coburn on recently talking about
(15:54):
yeah that experience the sort ofthe highs and lows of the World
Cups from 03 and. 9 But it was it was a golden era.
A. Golden era And then what was
your first role at QR? Yeah.
I came in as the. Well, I was at East, yeah.
And then Brisbane development manager.
So basically my job was to manage the development offices,
coach the coaches, coach the coaches, yeah.
(16:14):
And then I went from that role into heading up coach education,
so running coach and match official education.
So that was interesting. I was a coach but trying to run
the match officials as well. Was was that did you?
Get on the tools as a coach. Yeah, yeah, I coached.
I mean I coached all the way through.
I probably haven't coached for the since 2008.
I coached obviously premier grade down at East Rugby, which
(16:39):
was which was great fun. I love coaching and it was funny
again when I finished coaching what I reflected on, I loved,
you know, the highs and lows of a game day, the adrenaline of
making a final and winning or losing and what you what you
learned out of your losses and and your wins.
But what I miss about it is the people part, the human part of,
you know, again, helping people be better and advancing.
(16:59):
And yeah, it's as you know, if you've been involved in coaching
in any form, it's it's sort of you can move away from these
guys. And then I'll catch up at a
reunion. And you?
It's a deep connection there you.
Just pick back up where you were.
It's it's a great part of. And remember this on the stories
that that didn't happen, but youexaggerated.
Yeah. Yeah, I remember that time you
ran 40 minutes. Yeah.
Yeah, it was 45. But those bonds, right, they're,
(17:21):
they're lifelong bonds. And, and I think that's the, the
beauty of coaching in any form. It's helping people, you know,
improve and, and being part of that and to, to, to allow that
to happen. My best coach is, you know,
that, that trust equation. Are they credible and reliable?
And, and have they, have you gota connection?
You can trust trust them to, youknow, support you and develop
you. And and so, yeah, it was, it was
(17:42):
a really fun time. I do miss the coaching part.
I've sort of applied it now moreto the the work side of it.
But yeah, the on field coaching was great fun.
With the, the, I mean just on the the coaching and the
volunteers and the referees etcetera.
Are you seeing any patterns, I suppose, in terms of shortages
or or supply and demand? Yeah, the coaching is actually
quite strong. We'd love to see more female
(18:04):
coaches and again, you know, andthat's starting to to come to
fruition. Actually, a lot of the clubs now
are making the decision to appoint for female coaches for
the female teams and that's beena positive.
But we'd love to see more, encourage more of that.
I'd love to see more female participation at committee
levels at clubs and it's starting to develop.
(18:24):
The match official part is actually quite interesting.
It's just it's getting in the younger generation to to
participate in in refereeing andin certain parts of the state
it's been really strong, which is which is really good to see.
And what's I think also the other part is actually
encouraging players that finished their playing career to
get involved in refereeing. And I don't know if you remember
(18:46):
these guys are probably a bit younger than us, but in now that
they're now international referees.
Nick Berry played for the Reds. He's now an international
referee. Half back.
Dallin Murphy played for brothers at fullback, played
ten, you know, then international referee.
So, you know, it's great to see that there's a pathway into that
(19:07):
side for, for people that are wanting to go to the next level.
Yeah. And as CEO of the Reds, how, how
do you sort of view grassroots? Do you keep an eye on things?
Do you keep an eye on the club system?
How do you sort of from above? Yeah, oh, it's an interesting
part of my role. So QIU own the Reds and and are
responsible to grow the game. So, you know, you're always
looking at both, you know, how do we get the Reds?
How do we get the team to perform on the field at Suncorp
(19:28):
Stadium? We've got a network of
development offices that are allacross the state of Queensland,
so their role is to work with the clubs and schools to grow
the game. We're constantly looking at what
you raised before around sevens.What are the different
programmes or products that we can put out into the market to,
you know, stimulate and encourage growth?
(19:48):
How do we work with our clubs tomake sure that they become more
resilient businesses? You know, there's 140 clubs.
There are effectively 140 businesses.
Yeah, yeah. The P&R, yeah, yeah.
So and the more successful that clubs are, the better the game
goes. So yeah.
And David, so 22 years, you've seen the ups and downs of rugby.
You've been CEO for six years. Yeah.
(20:09):
Six years since the back end of 1819.
Six years now the the success ofa club you mentioned on field
performance is one thing. Behind the scenes, what else
needs to make a good club and a legacy for you to say I've I've
left it at near X and it's a good spot.
That's a good point. Like, I mean, obviously for us,
a little bit of context. So obviously the, the financial
(20:29):
piece for us is really critical.So you know, 6-6 years ago,
seven years ago, we had a fairlysignificant debt profile.
So we had to really focus on strategies leading into COVID,
actually ironically to consolidate and reshape the
business and looking at how do we how do we create a point of
difference in our model as we move into this sort of golden
(20:51):
runway. So once we got rid of all that
debt through just some cost saving measures and some, some
on field performance, we looked hard at our, our commercial
framework. So our sponsorship one, one of
the, one of the unique selling points of our sponsorship for
QRIU is that when you invest in you looking at the sponsors
like, you know, Santos, Rio, we've got BMS, Alliance Airlines
(21:13):
currently as just to name a few.How do you involve them in both
parts of the business? So the Reds, but also the
community game and there's a lotof corporates, as you know,
looking for their ability to connect with community, but also
tell their story through the brand or the retail brand.
So that's been a really key part, the relationship side of
it and how we engage and retain those partners and, and grow
(21:37):
their investment over time and grow their value in return.
The other part was also looking at 11 of rugby's I guess
uniquenesses is there is a, there is a, a wealth within the
game that are that love the games, the people that have got
the capacity to give. So we established 4 years ago
Foundation, so a philanthropic part of our business, and we're
(21:59):
now able to generate $1,000,000 of donations that are
effectively going towards both the Reds Academy and Community
Game and also supporting Ballymore.
So that's been from a commercialperspective that they're
probably two things that really stand out outside of more ticket
sales, more hospitality, all that sort of stuff.
The other part for us is Ballymore.
(22:21):
So that's the other part of our business.
And Ballymore has been around for over 50 years.
But one of its issues was an asset with great memories and a
lot of nostalgia that people often talk about the experience
of Ballymore, which is which is a great sort of selling point,
but the challenge of the asset is losing $1.5 million a year.
Oh wow. Yeah, OK.
And so, yeah, if you looked at the financial performance of the
(22:44):
QAU, the Reds had to make a final every year to offset the
operating loss of Ballymore. So it was set up for for for
failure, You know. So that was probably, from my
perspective, one of the key focus.
If we can turn the financial fortunes of Ballymore around and
it becomes a profitable asset that supports our core business,
which is to grow the game and toget the Reds to perform, then
(23:05):
we're going to be more resilientand we're going to be able to
make those investments. And and I think it's pretty
simple that the sporting organisations with a balance
sheet that's strong enough to toinvest and be resilient are the
ones that will ultimately rise, rise to the top over time.
Yeah. So, yeah, that, that was really
just the the commercialization. We we got funding to build the
new high performance centre at Ballymore called the the BMS
(23:26):
National Rugby Training Centre. Our old offices were able to
tenant those commercially and now we've got this wonderful
master plan where we can developover 4000 square metres of
either health education. So, you know, anything from, you
know, radiology, sports physicians, you know, a medical
preset, a hub. It's a hub, yeah.
(23:47):
So Ballymore's future is really about high performance.
It's about, you know, health andwell being and a commercial
engine that supports the the thesustained success of Reds in the
community game. And what sort of what other
sports do you think would be a good fit for Ballymore or home
or use case for Ballymore? Yeah, well, look, our our
strategy obviously Reds are at Suncorp.
(24:08):
People who often ask me are the Reds going to come back to
Ballymore? It's like, well, in, in reality,
owning stadium is a very expensive exercise, the reason
government owned them. So yeah, reviewing sort of what
we need from a sports perspective, that we feel like a
smaller venue of around 8 to 9000 in the core of the stadium,
(24:29):
it would be, would be the capacity level we think
Ballymore supports, which then opens it up for women's sport.
You know, going and hiring Suncorp, if you're getting 6000
people is not the right venue tobe hosting those games.
It's a loss making exercise you're.
Going to lose money and the fan experience is going to be pretty
pretty rubbish. So smaller venues, better
(24:49):
atmosphere, more community oriented.
Ballymore's got 3 fields. We want an extra field.
So you could have anything at Ballymore from a touch football
championship? Yep, right through to the
Wallaroos playing, you know, against another international
team. Soccer.
Or football. Soccer.
Football. Yeah, exactly.
Yep, whatever it may be. Yeah, we've had, we actually had
(25:12):
an NFL flag football there. Yeah, they're national champs
there. So our view is it's multi sport
and multipurpose, but it needs, yeah, we need to turn the
financial tide around. So we've got it back to being a
break even venue in the next sort of five years as part of
this sort of, you know, ignite phase for rugby with the World
Cups is to turn it into a profitable asset.
Just going to touch on the sponsorship side of things.
(25:32):
You, you some sponsors come and go, but there's the ones you
want a long term. What are you offering or how are
you getting them to sign longer term deals?
So it's not a chopper change every year.
Yeah, you're back on the the road again, knocking on doors.
Yeah, I think it's what I said before.
It's, it's, it's identifying firstly what the partner is
looking to achieve. I, I often see working in the
sports industry now for 20/22/23years.
(25:56):
The issue with a lot of sports is they come in with the
transactional attitude of, well,I'm going to put your logo on
the jersey and you're going to get this many people view you
and, and that's, that's OK when you've got scale.
We don't have as big a scale as the NRL and AFL do in
Queensland, so we've got to lookat other ways to generate that
return on investment. That could be business to
business opportunities where we can sit down with them and
identify well what clients are you trying to make that fit our
(26:18):
audience and then work with themon some.
Data some overlay. Data overlay, but also VIP
experiences. How do we build relationships?
I mean, I'm amazed the people that we can go and meet with
that are industry leaders and business CEOs of major
corporations that we have the ability to talk to and connect
with and organisations would love that opportunity to come in
(26:40):
and elevate their discussion with those people.
So that's, that's that we can enable that.
And I think that's that's definitely a core part of it.
The business to business side. I mean, outside of that, I'd say
that the the ability to invest in both the professional arm and
the community side of the game. And so yeah, if you're like, I
look at a partner like Santos. Santos's major objective with us
(27:01):
is to work in 2 communities. 1 is Roma in in Narrabri in NSW.
And each year we run a festival of rugby, which is this amazing
event which they invest into. The Reds and Waratahs play a
preseason game, the sevens go there and play.
So the national sevens team playtheir carnival and this becomes
a big corporate event but ultimately gives them a chance
to engage with their clients butusing rugby as the vehicle to
(27:23):
create an event that enables them to build relationships and
and opportunities. So the.
Activation of that actual sponsorship as opposed to just
like here's a, here's a check, see it.
Yeah, good luck, you know, Yeah,give us give us the metrics.
Yeah, and they're going to Roma.It's an area for us.
They're. Probably interesting if Chris
Latham turned up, which I know you'd wear.
Yeah, well, he'd have to wear red of her own.
That's it. I learned the other day he did
play Britain, Matt Cohen said. He played one game for NSW.
(27:46):
Yeah, yeah, I know you would seehim as a right Queenslander.
That's right. Yeah, and the social media side
of things and the content and the storytelling, sponsors might
be looking at that. Now how important, I mean this
22 three you guys didn't exist in Myspace probably, you know,
or schoolmates, Stockholm or whatever, school friends,
etcetera. Now if it's just the era, right,
what are sponsors looking for that sort of stuff?
(28:07):
And what are what Q are you doing in terms of being front of
mind as. Well, I find now where it is.
It's human interest stories, youknow, just doing, you know,
highlights of, you know, how many tries you scored and all
that. Yeah, that's for for a tribal
audience. Yeah.
We love to see the highlight reel.
But from a from a partner in engagement and and growing fan
base. They want to know who the person
is behind the jersey. They want to know what their
(28:28):
likes and dislikes are. That's, that's the market for
us. Our most engaging content is
more about the human interest lifestyle part of the person,
rather than who the. Person being the player, the.
Player or it could be it could be anyone.
Staff. Yeah, it could be staff.
It could be the player. Could be the coach Yep.
You know who is Les Keys? Yeah, you know him as the the
(28:48):
coach, but what what what are his interests?
What does he love doing on the weekend?
Yeah, he he loves, he loves music, he loves going to
concerts, the whole. Relatable.
It's sort of this a deeper connection with someone as
opposed to student teacher or like, oh, they're the, you know,
Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness. It's now actually, I can relate
to that. If you're a human person.
They got fishing. I got fishing there.
Yeah. Oh, wow.
I didn't know that. Oh, next time I'll say G'day A.
(29:10):
100% Oh, they love surfing. I love surfing too.
I didn't realise that, you know,so that that's the sort of stuff
that I feel if sports are going down that path and the, you
know, the and this is not new stuff.
I mean, the F1 did it with theirshow, yeah.
The Netflix, yeah, they, they want to go, they want to go
behind the scenes and understanda little bit more.
So that that to me is the value proposition.
And then how do you integrate that to campaigns?
(29:30):
So if you if you're doing a dealwith an organisation that's got
a campaign around, you know, a certain interest story or what
players have that interest and how can we elevate that?
Yeah, and the behaviour on on social media, it's a it's pretty
easy to give feedback now and and it can go dark and it can go
into things. Do you read anything on social
media about yourself, about the team's performance, about the
(29:50):
players? We've got, I mean, I, I, I can
scan the Facebooks and, and those bits and pieces, but it's
funny, isn't it? Like you kind of can look at
stuff and you got to pull, you got to put your ego to the side
and go what, what's, what is this feedback actually focused
in on? And, and how do we learn from
it? And you know, you could have 99
people give you a really good say on the podcast, 99 people
(30:13):
say this was great and one person gives you negative.
But what people tend to focus inon is the one negative.
So we just look at. Trends, share portfolio.
Yeah. How's it going?
Well, what about this one? It's down to 40%.
And how much time are you spending on that and is that a
value or are you just worried about it because one person said
one bad thing. So we can I I say to the guys,
let's just look at is there a consistent issue and if there
(30:34):
is, what have we learned from that versus it's one person just
having a whinge versus 99 that has said something really
positive. So more more I said the answer
are we more look at it on a trend basis, What is it telling
us? And the feedback that you get
from people, how you as a leadernow take it all in and
prioritise. Yeah, it's interesting, like,
(30:56):
you know, probably my journey asthe CEO over the last six years,
like you know how I would have taken feedback at the beginning
verse. Now I kind of back to it, see
it, it's all relevant information for growth, you
know, and you're either going tohave a growth mindset that this
is actually going to inform a positive impact to the next
phase of the business or not where you know, if your ego's at
(31:18):
the front of it, you tend to brush it off and hit it back
and. You're not right.
I'm right? Yeah, correct.
Like just just take it in, take a breath, listen and observe and
and then identify what can we dowith that personally or
collectively as a as a business.And that comes from getting
things wrong and copying a blackeye and going, well, actually,
(31:39):
you know what your ego got in the front of that.
So pull back, think about it, and then let's reassess it.
I mean, the one thing I've learned, I mean, probably my
biggest learning in the last sort of two or three years is a
strength based leadership approach rather than, you know,
just looking at everyone and focusing on what can I improve
in Chris? What are Chris's strengths?
And yeah, there's, there's a, there's formulas and, and and
(32:03):
research you can do to identify that and give, give give more
structure to it. But if you start a conversation
with someone on these are all the great strengths you have and
I want to elevate and focus in on that.
And as a team, we've all got different strengths.
So how do we now elevate and work with our strengths as a
team? It's a very different
conversation. You're starting with rather than
Hey, Chris, look, I've, I've listened to everything you've
(32:23):
done, but these are these are four things that you need to do
better. So you know, I've found that if
you. Shift in mindset about the
strength versus the like point, pinpoint, pinpoint.
Yeah, correct. Yeah.
And I know Les spoke about that philosophically in his part of
his interview process of coming in, of elevating people's
strengths and focusing in on that rather than spending your
time on, you know, what they're not good at.
(32:44):
Yeah, it's interesting. Paul Ruse called it his
superpower about what he did well and he needed to elevate
what he did well to be remembered by.
And yes, he needed to keep fit and do other things around the
game. And then he sort of talked about
Steph Curry, the three point shooter.
Yeah, like Steph still has to worry about defence and
rebounding, etcetera, but he wasjust honing in to become the
best 3 point shooter. Like, yeah, doubling down on
(33:05):
your strengths. It's a really interesting kind
of thought. And you had to be remembered by
something for your strengths. Not about.
Oh, you. Steph's still lagging defence,
mate. Get there and be a generalist.
Yeah, correct. Like you have to be remembered
for something I suppose. Yeah, and, and, and actually
sitting down and, and talking tosomeone about what they think
their strengths are, you know, even just reflecting what are
your strengths? You know, and, and we did this
(33:27):
Gallup Strength Finder exercise,which is a bunch of questions.
It spits out, you know, here's your top 34 strengths, but these
are the top 4 to focus in on. And it was interesting with our
our executive team, we did it across the five of us.
And one thing that was consistent across all of us was
this strength called relater. And a relater is effectively in
simple terms, people that that build strong connections on a
(33:49):
one on one basis. And you know, we identified that
if if we maintain that connection between US and it's
not just the CEO dealing with myindividual exec cross across
each other. You're not up and down also side
to side. We would, we would continue to
elevate and keep connected as a team.
So there's and with each strength, they've got what they
call a balcony, which is when you're operating at your best.
(34:12):
So that would be you and me. I'm, if I'm connecting with you
one on one, I'm a relater. I need to build that bond and
then that will maintain. But the basement when you're
not, when you're not operating is your best is you can form
cliques so you don't extend outside of your little network
of people and start to build other relationships.
So it's quite interesting that astrength can have a really
positive impact, but equally thesame strength can have a
(34:34):
negative impact. And, and it's the, it's the self
awareness. You've talked about leadership
before. It's the self awareness to know
when you are actually operating well, but also the self
awareness to know when you mightmight be falling back into some
old traps. Yeah, the, the balcony in the
basement, I haven't heard that before.
Yeah. That's excellent.
And in terms of your leadership and getting on top of you and,
and being the best at what you do, Yeah.
What are some traits? You get a good night's sleep,
(34:56):
You drink coffee. What's the.
Yeah. What's the routine for Dave?
But it's a good, it's a good question, like the first
question I asked, I got asked about this just to lead into
what I do like, what does it? What does a good week look like?
Was someone said to me, what's the best version of you for me?
So it's basically me asking you that question, What's the best
version of me for you? And it's quite interesting to
get that feedback for people to say, well, if I'm operating at
(35:19):
my best, I will perform to give you my best and you get some
really interesting feedback. Have you ever asked out of your
partner or or you know, what is the best version of Chris look
like for for his partner or partner, ETC.
And and when, when when it came back to what is the best version
of me look like it came back to how do I set myself up for
success? What are your goals?
(35:41):
Where do you want to get to? But looking at looking at your
personal growth, not just about my career.
That's just one pillar of me. What about me as a father?
What about me with my with my mother?
My dad passed this year. So what are the things that are
important for me with Mum movingforward, you know, and then
obviously the career and as I mentioned before, so you start
(36:02):
to look at it and then you breakit down.
Well, if they're all my goals and actions that I want to
achieve, there's this point people talk about being high
performance. And what is high performance?
Well, to me, it's being being able to operate when the squeeze
is on, when the pressure's on ata level consistently not.
A blip, not a blip. Yeah, not this one.
Off going. Oh I I nailed the exam.
(36:24):
Great. And then the next three months
you crap and then, yeah, so. So you know, what does that look
like? And obviously, you know, then
you say, then you break down your week and go, what is the
best week look like? The physical side of it, You
know, the, the emotional side ofit.
For some people, it might be thespiritual side of it.
So you start to frame your week up and it's the little habits.
It's all I always find. It's the little things done
(36:44):
often that sort out the big things you have your eye on the
big things. I want to achieve this, this and
this. These are my goals, but a tower
operate each time. You're an incremental person.
You're A1 percenter. You.
Yeah, I. Was a fan.
If I got myself back, it's the it's the little things that got
me back. Yeah, probably going.
I've got to get that big audacious girl.
I'm not gonna eat chocolate, right.
Instead of you have 4 bits of chocolate, you bring it down to
three and then next month you bring it down to two.
(37:06):
Then you bring it one. Then three months later you're
like, oh, I can, I don't need any chocolate percent.
As opposed to like get it out. Oh, this is tough.
I can't do coffee. Yeah, alcohol or whatever it
might be. And you beat yourself up and all
this sort of stuff. So, you know, physical, you
know, swim gym, Yeah, I do that regularly.
And I find the swimming's a goodmental part, like I don't do it
for, you know, trying to, you know, with A50 metre freestyle
because that ain't going to happen.
(37:26):
But that's great for me, you know, recovering, you know,
obviously there's the standard hot and cold stuff that we've
got. We've got sawn, what do?
You use your own facilities, yeah.
We've got that at Ballymore, so you utilise that, staff can
access that, you know, people do, I do breath work and I find
that to be a really good sort ofway to just to decompress.
You do it at. Traffic lights.
I sometimes do traffic lights onthose shit.
(37:46):
There's a green light better. Go.
You're in a state of relaxation.Yeah, you're doing it well.
So, yeah, I mean, all those, allthose things are sort of like
things, resources that you've got access to.
And and, you know, I wish, I'll probably look back and think, I
wish I had that insight of all of that when I'd started the CEO
job. Too often people get shoved into
leadership positions. They're told the technical and
(38:09):
tactical, these are the goals, this is what we want to achieve.
But they're not given the sort of the coaching and the support.
Yeah, the toolkit or how do you deal with all of that?
Like, yeah, you can. And your ego, my ego can get in
the road early days where you'relike, I can handle all this,
bring it on. You can't.
Do you look at do you look at other people within the group
and go, oh, not want to be like them?
(38:29):
But some of the habits, I mean, for instance, you have you've
got Brett Clark as chairman, like, you know, you look at
people like successful people indifferent aspects of life and
go, I want to Terry, pick a little bit of that.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's sort of for me.
You take the good and bad out ofanyone, don't you?
Like, you know, sometimes thingsyou see in leaders that you
don't admire, that you learn from, as well as the things you
do. Brett's an amazing chair.
He's, I mean, what he's achieved, you know, him and
(38:51):
Maria have achieved in their personal life with the growth of
the business, Chemist Warehouse and where they're at now.
But Brett's obviously very philanthropic and loves to give
and, and support. You know, he's, he's had some,
you know, personal challenges with, with one of his daughter's
early days. Yeah, Olivia.
So like, you know, how we, how they've dealt with that
adversity and, and you know, people see, it's often they see
(39:15):
the result at the end where, youknow, there's a there's success,
but the challenges and the hard decisions is, is really
important. I saw a really interesting thing
the other day about choose your hard.
I thought it was a good analogy is like, you know, you can
choose being healthy is hard. Being ill is hard.
Choose your heart, you know, andit's a great way of it's not
(39:35):
easy being yeah, healthy. You got to get up, you got to
exercise, you got to have good routine, you got to recover
well, nutrition, nutrition, all that sort of stuff.
And it's hard to also be there being I'll.
But you've just, which one are you going to choose?
So yeah, I I sort of admire the different leaders over time and
that and not just within QAU people that I've been supported
or mentored by. Business leaders, CEO's of
(39:56):
Santos's, etcetera. You know you can.
You have access to these people as well.
You just it's a wonderful job when you get to talk to all
these people that have been successful in different ways,
business entrepreneurs, people that have just are really
community led and purpose driven.
I've. You take as much as you can, but
you've got to ultimately come back to what's your what's your
(40:16):
purpose? What's your plan?
Going to stick on you for a second.
I have this section called the school board moment, which is a
moment in your life which is very vivid and very clear.
And from that moment you're like, I remember that so
clearly, but my life changed after that.
Well, I've probably already saidit.
I remember. I'll go back one step.
So the Churchy moment being the electrician when I was working
(40:36):
in Churchy. So before that I was working at
ACE as a development officer. So after that I was working at
ACE as a development officer. I remember I was a bit lazy.
I would say, you know, and did. You get a car by the way you
like driving around in. The but I didn't I had AI, had
AI, didn't get a car. I had a What was my die hatsel?
(40:58):
Called. That's a.
Bit personal, but I was going toget, I was going to get a Ford
Laser from my brother. I have three older brothers.
By the time it got to me, mate, I'm surprised it had four wheels
still on it. It's Tony.
I got this used anyway. But yeah, back to the back to
the job. I remember I was just being lazy
and I got the GM at the time came in and just said, but you
(41:19):
don't, you don't pull your socksup.
You're going to lose your job. And it was the very kick in the
butt that I needed and I never looked back from that day.
But but it was a great, it's probably the best, the best
lesson learnt is that, you know,if you don't put the effort in
and you don't show commitment tothe cause and you don't drive
(41:40):
the success of the business, then you're not going to be part
of the future. And and it was, it was that was
the sort of that was a turning point very.
Vivid and you're like, that advice is gold.
Do you remember who said it? Yeah, it was a guy called Adrian
Thompson. Who who?
Who's now working as the GM of Netball QLD for High Performance
and he worked in Rugby Australia, so it was just.
(42:02):
They gave a big shout out to him.
Yeah, I will. Yeah.
Thanks, Tom. That's it.
Now two other things. Your favourite all time sporting
moment? This is a tough one.
I reckon there's plenty of rugby.
Oh, it might be rugby, right? No, Yeah, yeah.
Well, there's probably 21 personal and one that from a
career perspective, the 2011 Super Super Rugby grand Final.
(42:22):
Like oh semi. Final and final double.
Semi final, I mean that year wasjust I'll look back at the skill
like a quad doing a kick in the dead ball zone to Digby Yuani on
the other side ran full a full afull field score.
It wasn't. It wasn't the goose step that
Clay did, but it was something similar in terms of his little
little stutter. You.
Just you, you, you just have your mouth open.
Look at some of the stuff, the things he could do that that
(42:44):
moment, that crowd 52,000 roaring at Suncorp, you know,
chanting, we are red Crusaders. When we had the floods,
Crusaders had the earthquakes. They they didn't play at home
all year. Thorny was actually Brad Thormus
in the team for The Crusaders. And you know that magical moment
with Guinea? The try, yeah.
So that, that that and just all keep.
Going. Just keep going just keep going.
(43:06):
Keep. Going yeah.
So that that was an amazing moment for a number of of
reasons. And I think the the other
sporting moment for me was actually when we were rowing at
school. So we're in the first day and we
hadn't obviously GPS, you know, the Head of the River is the
only race you can win every race, but that's the one you got
to win. We lost all year and we ended up
(43:27):
winning the Head of the River that year and we won by .36 of a
second over Gregory Terrace. .36of a second.
Yeah, a bow ball that that big much.
But it was just, it was a good like rowing was one of those
really tough sports where you put so much effort in the early
mornings. It was probably, you know,
harder than rugby I found, in the sense of teaching your
resilience and dedication to your craft.
(43:50):
Yeah. To then put all that effort in
and then, you know, win. I can only imagine what the
terrace boys feel like after that as well.
Won all year and then lost. Lost the lost the final dance,
the big dance. Yes.
Thought you might have been saying the churchy bidding
grammar at Northgate that you. I do remember that.
I didn't want to bring that up. I didn't want to.
Yeah. That was actually a good game.
It was a great game. It was a good game.
(44:11):
Ended up. Yeah, A.
Good team that. Year tucking off about 10
minutes to go with a broken cheekbone that day on Mother's
Day, Who? Did that for tell you?
Joel Madge, did he? Yeah.
You'd want someone. Maggie's a great man, but he
wasn't. He wasn't the most.
Important. No, it was just a it was a knee.
Me picking up a loose ball came through with his knee.
Body on the line stuff body on the.
Line stuff, he's deeply apologetic.
I think he's he is a good man. Now we've got the a new segment,
(44:35):
which is the bucket list, which is powered by Swiftx, our new
partner. He's powering scoreboard.
Big shout out to to Swiftx, but the bucket list is something a
sporting event you'd love to getto eventually at some point in
time. I'd love to either an NBA or an
NFL final. Grand Final.
Like a final series, Like a Super Bowl?
Yeah, Super Bowl or just NBA Finals.
(44:56):
Next level. Just the way they put their
events on is spectacular. It's a it's a full show.
And yeah, I just, I would love to feel even college football or
some of the NC. AA games, yeah.
Some of them are music. Oh, it's unreal, you know.
100,000 for a college game. I know.
And they're singing and chanting.
I was just, yeah, some great, great atmosphere.
I think they do it extremely, extremely well.
(45:18):
I went to a Boca Juniors game over in Argentina.
That was great. That was, that was a great
experience, you know. So America's the place to be for
for a bucket list for David. Yeah, I reckon so for a
sporting. NFL something something.
We've just finished the NBA Finals pretty big, 2 new teams,
which is good for good for things.
But David, thank you so much forcoming on Scoreboard today and
(45:38):
having a having a chat about your life and your involvement
in rugby and also some leadership techniques and things
that you're taking abreast of a huge moment for rugby in the
next couple of years. And tomorrow, obviously with the
lines, this podcast might not beout before tomorrow.
So you've got a prediction on the result.
Bookies are putting us out. It's a 20 point 27.27.
(46:00):
Points, so I reckon under that. Mate, we will.
We will find a way to kick the last goal to win the game.
Oh, OK. This would be great if we play
that back. Thank you and looking forward to
catching up and congratulations on your success that the Qiu so
far and looking forward to keep in touch.
Great. Thank you.
Thanks for having you doing.
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