Category: Beyond the Book

Survival Becomes a Numbers Game — The NRL Criteria

Editors Note: The tables reproduced in this article are based on Panthers’ internal working papers prepared during 1998 and 1999. They were management documents used to estimate the club’s position under the NRL Selection Criteria and were never intended for publication. While some financial measures necessarily relied on informed estimates, they provide a rare insight into the information available to Panthers’ leadership as critical decisions were being made.

The settlement that ended the Super League war did not guarantee the survival of every club. In fact, it guaranteed the demise of some teams.

Twenty-two teams competed in the 1997 Season — the split competitions season — twelve played in the Australian Rugby League and ten in Super League.

Before the new National Rugby League competition began in 1998, the South Queensland Crushers and the Hunter Mariners were wound up, leaving twenty clubs to compete in the frist season of a unified competition.

The unity was conditional.

The NRL would operate with twenty clubs during 1998 and 1999, but from the 2000 season the competition would be reduced to just fourteen. The peace agreement had ended one conflict while immediately beginning another — a contest for survival.

To determine which clubs would be admitted to the new fourteen-team competition, the NRL introduced a formal assessment process known simply as the Criteria. (Download PDF: Admission Criteria National Rugby League Competition )

The NRL described the Criteria as a “fair and reasonable” method of selecting the clubs that would comprise the future competition. They consisted of three separate components.

The Basic Criteria required clubs to demonstrate that they met, or had plans to meet, minimum standards relating to playing facilities, administration, solvency and development.

The Qualifying Criteria examined financial capacity, including minimum revenue requirements of $8 million together with five-year business plans demonstrating the ability to sustain those revenues.

It was the third component — the Selection Criteria — that attracted the greatest attention from Panthers and most other clubs.

Selection points were awarded across six categories:

  • Home crowd numbers
  • Away crowd numbers
  • Competition’s points
  • Home game receipts
  • Sponsorship and other income
  • Profitability

Not every club was required to compete under these Selection Criteria.

Brisbane, Newcastle and Auckland were given exemption, leaving seventeen clubs competing for the remaining eleven places.

There were two further provisos that influenced the process.

Firstly, any club created through the merger of two or more existing clubs would also receive automatic admission to the fourteen-team competition. The deadline for merger submissions was 31 July 1999 — a date that becomes critically important later in this story.

Secondly, there was to be a minimum of six Sydney-based clubs. Of the seventeen clubs still subject to the Selection Criteria, twelve were Sydney clubs. While there was no predetermined list of clubs to disappear, it was obvious that the greatest competition for survival would occur within Sydney.

After studying the Selection Criteria, Panthers pursued two parallel strategies.

The first was to prepare submissions challenging aspects of the Criteria that the club believed were flawed or unfair.

The second was to construct an internal model to estimate where Panthers ranked against the other clubs.

The Modelling

Of the six measured categories, three could be obtained directly from publicly available information – home crowds, away crowds and competition points. A fourth category, home gate receipts, could be estimated with reasonable confidence because it was closely related to attendance figures. The remaining two categories – sponsorship and other income, and profitability – required informed estimates based on the information available.

Points were then allocated according to each club’s ranking in every category, with bonus points applying in some areas.

Although the NRL never published progressive rankings, Panthers developed its own working model using the published Selection Criteria and the best information available at the time.

The following table is reproduced from a report for Panthers management explaining the modelling and its results — it shows the estimated rankings at the end of Season 1998. (Download PDF: Working Paper on NRL Selection Criteria – this is the Panthers working paper produced at the end of Season 1998)

Panthers internal estimate of club criteria rankings at the end of Season 1998

The purpose of the modelling was not to predict the future with certainty. It was more to provide information that might guide decision-making and strategy development leading into the final declaration of the 2000 NRL line-up … the merger deadline of 31 July, 1998 was another critical point in the calendar for which this information could prove useful.

Where did Panthers appear to rank? What categories could Panthers take action to improve? Could those areas realistically be improved?

If no potential improvement could be seen or planned, what strategic options needed to be examined before the 31 July 1999 merger deadline expired?

Despite relying on estimated figures in three categories, the analysis painted a concerning picture.

Panthers appeared to be ranked fifteenth — just below the 14-team cut-off. Significantly significantly the team hold fourteenth position, Balmain, was estimated to be around thirty points ahead. Even allowing for some estimation error, the modelling suggested that Penrith faced the genuine threat of being axed from the top rugby league competition.

The calculations did not stop there.

By the beginning of the 1999 season, the Gold Coast Chargers and Adelaide Rams had left the competition, while St George and Illawarra had merged to form the St George Illawarra Dragons.

Those changes did little to improve Penrith’s position.

Both the folded clubs had been ranked below Panthers, while the St George–Illawarra merger simply created another club guaranteed admission under the merger provisions.

So, the 1999 season began with seventeen clubs competing, four of them already guaranteed a place in the 2000 competition. That left thirteen clubs — nine from Sydney — competing for the remaining ten places.

The following table shows the standings as at Monday 26 July 1999 — after Round 21 of Season 1999 — five days before the merger submissions deadline.

Panthers internal estimate of club rankings after Round 21, 1999 Season (26th July 1999)

At this late stage of the process the modelling still had Penrith in fifteenth position.

However, the gap to fourteenth (Balmain) had been narrowed — from 30 points to 4.6 points. And Norths fortunes had them dropping from eleventh position to thirteenth, a reachable (though difficult) 12.75 points ahead of Penrith.

There were still five rounds of the season to be completed.

BUT …

The day after this table was distributed to Panthers management, Balmain and Western Suburbs announced a joint venture — the Wests Tigers were born and another place was taken.

To be sure, throughout 1998 and 1999 there was speculation about potential mergers, so this wasn’t a surprise. So, Penrith now had to close a gap of 12.75 points on North Sydney — given their slide and Penrith’s gathering momentum, there was hope.

However, no internal analysis could predict the final outcome. Some financial measures remained estimates and therefore likely had errors, more mergers could change the landscape and the NRL still retained discretion in applying the Criteria.

Nevertheless, the modelling consistently pointed to the same conclusion.

The Penrith Panthers were vulnerable.

The significance of the Panthers modelling and their companion working documents is not with their accuracy.

Their importance is that they demonstrate commitment by Panthers management to ensuring information was available to maintain their evidence-based approach to decision-making. It was not reacting to to rumours or speculation despite the fact that some influential people were.

Panthers had constructed a detailed assessment of its position using the published Selection Criteria and the best information available at the time. No other club had taken this approach.

That assessment suggested Panthers was outside the projected fourteen-team competition.

Whether the analysis ultimately proved right or wrong is almost secondary.

It explains why management believed the threat was real, why alternative strategies had to be considered before the merger deadline expired, and why simply waiting for the NRL’s final decision was never regarded as a responsible option.

Resources

Related Topics

Related Themes

Conflict · Financial Management

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Counting Crowds to Chase Survival

When the Super League war finally ended, it was conditional.

Twenty clubs would compete in the National Rugby League during 1998 and 1999 before the competition contracted to just fourteen teams for the 2000 season. Which clubs survived would not be determined by tradition, supporter loyalty or even on-field performance.

There was an attempt to determine the clubs that would compete from Season 2000 onwards by more objective means. So, a detailed set of selection criteria was created to decide who’d be eliminated.

Although Panthers’ management was pleased the NRL had tried to apply some science to the process, there was great concern that it was compromised right from the start.

The criteria relied upon historical information that could not easily be audited. For example, attendance figures formed an important part of the assessment, yet clubs reported their own crowds and there appeared to be no independent verification.

In fact, Panthers was encouraged, by the game’s governing body during Season 1997, to “boost” the attendances. They resisted but believed the practice was widespread.

Panthers repeatedly challenged aspects of the criteria, arguing that several measures lacked transparency. Panthers raised its concerns privately and directly with the NRL rather than through the media.

The attitude within Panthers was to formally advise the authorities of the Club’s concerns about serious flaws in the criteria, alerting them that they could easily be challenged. The internal emphasis on evidence, analysis and measurement was applied to this problem — and although there was no solution in sight, the management and Board at least had a solid understanding of the challenges.

That philosophy gave birth to one of the more unusual projects undertaken during the fight for survival.

A War of Words

The immediate catalyst arrived in early May 1998.

Sydney City (The Roosters) chairman Nick Politis publicly criticised Penrith — labelling the Panthers, and Canterbury, “basket cases”. The restrained approach consciously adopted by Cowan had been interpreted as weakness.

Not wanting to exchange insults in the public arena, a decision was made to present evidence that would serve as a “return shot” at the Roosters while alerting Panthers fans that the Club’s public silence did not mean they were sitting on their hands.

Importantly, it also would send a message to the NRL, the other clubs and the general public about the fragility of the measures that were being used to cull clubs.

This was an opportunity for Cowan and the Panthers to go public with evidence demonstrating one of the significant flaws in the criteria.

Cameras Instead of Opinions

The Roosters were scheduled to play the Auckland Warriors at the Sydney Football Stadium on Saturday 2 May. Panthers managemtn team knew the crowd would be relatively small and also had a strong suspicion that their official crowd would be inflated.

So, photographer Neil Billington was dispatched to the Sydney Football Stadium with the task of photographing every section of the stadium. Neil’s media accreditation allowed him to take the photos from the field area and his instruction was to take the photos 5 minutes into the second half when attendees would have returned to their seats.

The resulting enlarged photographs allowed individual seating bays to be examined and the spectators counted manually. The counting was done by members of the Panthers management and marketing teams — sometimes with magnifying glasses deployed. Each count was verified against the others.

The conclusion was clear, the official attendance announced by the Roosters significantly overstated the number of spectators actually present.

The photographs became the basis of a dramatic Daily Telegraph back-page story under the headline “Where Are They?”, accompanied by enlarged photographs of the stadium and detailed comparisons between the official crowd and Panthers’ own calculations.

Daily Telegraph — click image to read article. The article continues here.

What began as an off-the-cuff comment aimed at belittling the Penrith Panthers, became a public debate about the integrity of the selection criteria.

The Project Expands

Encouraged by the clarity of the photographic evidence, Panthers broadened the exercise.

Contrary to later recollections that suggested almost every match was photographed, the research concentrated on two or three Sydney-based games each round, particularly those involving clubs competing with Penrith for the final places under the criteria. The process was painstaking. Every photograph had to be examined manually and individual spectators counted section by section.

The objective was not to embarrass rival clubs.

It was to determine whether attendance figures—the very figures helping decide which clubs lived and which disappeared—were reliable.

According to Roger Cowan, the accumulated material may eventually have supported a legal challenge if Panthers found themselves excluded from the competition. He never regarded it as a particularly attractive strategy, but believed the circumstances justified examining every possible option.

Roger and Nick Declare Peace

Within days, the public dispute subsided.

Correspondence between Roger Cowan and Nick Politis helped calm tensions, and both clubs publicly agreed to move on. There was nothing personal about the exchange — both men were doing what they saw as necessary for their clubs.

The underlying issue, however, remained unresolved.

Whether official attendance figures accurately reflected the crowds attending NRL matches was never independently tested.

Daily Telegraph 8 May 1998 — click image to read.

Looking Back

With the benefit of hindsight, the crowd-counting exercise could appear excessive.

Yet it reflected the reality confronting Panthers during 1998.

Management believed the club was sitting outside the fourteen places destined for Season 2000. Every point on the criteria mattered. Every category was scrutinised. While substantial resources were invested in increasing Panthers’ own crowds and commercial performance, management also continued examining the assumptions upon which the criteria rested. At the same time the club quietly but substantially increased the budget for marketing initiatives designed to improve attendances and strengthen its own position.

Ironically, the photographs were never called upon.

When South Sydney later challenged its exclusion from the competition, Panthers’ collection of crowd photographs was not requested. Whether they would ever have carried legal weight remains unknown.

Perhaps that is not their greatest significance.

The Panthers / Roosters “Where Are They” conflict may have been a dispute over attendance figures, but it was evidence of something more important — a management team, led by Roger Cowan, determined and prepared to investigate every possible avenue in the fight to preserve first-grade rugby league in Penrith.

Postscript

Nick Politis added a postscript to the letter he sent Roger Cowan. It said:

I hope all this controversy between our clubs results in a great crowd for you when the Roosters visit the Panthers in Round 18 (July 10-12)!

The attendance at Penrith Stadium for the Rooster’s game was 11,156—around 20 per cent higher than the club’s average home crowd for the 1998 season. Whether the controversy contributed is impossible to know, but the irony was sweet.

Final Note: The fate of the hundreds upon hundreds of photograph prints from those 1998 games? It is said they were burned.

Related Topics

Related Themes

Conflict · Financial Management

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Major Player: Royce Simmons

Royce Simmons OAM

Royce Michael Simmons OAM

Rugby League Player, Coach, Mentor, Ambassador

Over more than forty years Royce Simmons has beome one of the most enduring figures in Penrith Panthers history, as player, captain, premiership winner, coach, mentor, ambassador and community leader. His player and coaching statistics alone can’t paint his true portrait or explain why generations of Panthers supporters speak of him with such affection and respect.

Royce represents something beyond football. His determination, humility, loyalty and connection with the community reflects the culture Panthers spent decades trying to build. As the club evolved from perennial battlers into premiers and one of Australia’s leading sporting organisations, Royce Simmons became its most recognisable human face.

Few individuals have become so closely woven into the identity of a sporting club.

Role in the Narrative

Royce Simmons occupies a unique place within Panthers Passion & Politics because his involvement spans many of the defining periods of the club’s history.

He first appears as one of the emerging players who would become central to the football transformation initiated during the 1983 Strategic Reset. As captain, he became the on-field leader of a club that was consciously reshaping its culture, systems and expectations. The success of those reforms ultimately culminated in Penrith’s first premiership in 1991, with Royce scoring two tries in his farewell match.

His importance to the narrative does not end there.

Returning as head coach, Royce led the football club through one of the most turbulent periods in rugby league history. The Super League conflict, the introduction of competition criteria, financial pressures and the difficult rebuilding years all form major themes within this series. Throughout those challenges, Royce provided continuity, stability and leadership at a time when the organisation faced extraordinary uncertainty.

Royce through leadership, example and an unwavering commitment to the club became one of the constants in the Panthers story.

More broadly, Royce represents one of the central themes running throughout Panthers Passion & Politics: that lasting organisational success depends as much upon culture and character as it does upon talent or strategy. Repeatedly, teammates, coaches and commentators describe him not simply as a champion footballer but as the embodiment of what it meant to be a Panther.

Country Beginnings

Born on 2 May 1959 in the small central western New South Wales town of Gooloogong, Royce grew up immersed in country sport and the values that accompanied it — hard work, resilience, mateship and community. Rugby Union initially occupied much of his attention and he represented NSW Country at under-16 level before turning his focus to Rugby League. After playing senior football for Cowra and Canowindra, he travelled to Sydney seeking an opportunity in first grade.

Trials with St George and South Sydney failed to produce a contract, but the Panthers coach, Len Stacker, got a tip about Simmons from former Parramatta teammate Barry Rushworth. It was a good tip – and would prove to be one of signings in the club’s history.

Growing with the Club

Royce arrived at Penrith in 1980 when the club was still searching for both consistency and identity. Success remained elusive and Panthers were still regarded by many as one of the competition’s easy-beats.

As Panthers undertook the organisational reforms that occurred in late 1983, Royce emerged as one of the players who best reflected those changes — in fact he played an influential role in developing those reforms, and in ensuring Tim Sheens changed his plans and stayed to coach the Panthers.

Initially playing at lock before establishing himself as the club’s first-choice hooker, he became captain in 1983 and quickly developed a reputation for leading through actions rather than words. While representative honours followed—including ten State of Origin appearances for New South Wales and ten Test matches for Australia—his greatest contribution was arguably the standards he set within the club itself.

Phil Gould would later declare:

Royce Simmons is the heart and soul of this club.

That description has been echoed repeatedly by teammates, coaches, journalists and supporters.

The Embodiment of Panthers Culture

Within the story told throughout Panthers Passion & Politics, Royce Simmons represents something more significant than an outstanding football career.

The Panthers of the 1980s were intent on turning the club around through building a new organisational culture. The cultural values were being developed throughout the club, from the Board and administration to coaches, staff and players.

His leadership displayed the standards the club’s administrators and coaches were working to establish throughout the organisation.

John Cartwright later reflected:

Royce was our glue. He held the whole thing together.

Greg Alexander described him as:

The toughest bloke I ever played with. He never took a backward step.

Mark Geyer perhaps captured his influence most simply:

Royce taught us what it meant to be Panthers.

Those comments describe a footballer and, more importantly, a cultural leader.

Two leaders – both knock-about blokes — photo: Craig Golding (SMH)

A Fitting Farewell

Royce captained Penrith through 1980s during the Club’s transformation, an played in its first Finals Series appearance, first Grand Final appearance and first Premiership.

His two tries in the 1991 Grand Final helped secure Penrith’s first premiership and provided one of the most memorable farewells in Australian rugby league history. He retired immediately afterwards, having helped transform the club from competition battlers into premiers.

Royce’s celebration after scoring his second try in that grand final win is one of the most iconic images in Panthers’ history … and perhaps in Rugby League history.

Returning to Lead

Retirement from playing did not end Royce’s service to Panthers.

When Royce returned to coach Penrith in 1994, he inherited a club coming out of a very unstable era where club culture had drifted badly. As well, the Club was entering another period that would prove difficult to navigate.

His coaching tenure coincided with one of the most turbulent periods in rugby league history. Super League divided the game, the salary cap reshaped recruitment, and Panthers entered another rebuilding phase.

Despite those challenges, Royce guided the club to finals appearances in both the 1997 Super League competition and the 2000 NRL season. He remained fiercely loyal to his players during difficult years and was reluctant to publicly criticise individuals when results deteriorated.

At the end of the 2001 Season his tenure as Panthers coach finished but the impact he had on the Club had not. Following the 2003 premiership victory John Lang, Panthers premiership-wining coach, credited Royce Simmons with some of that victory praising the work he’d done creating the core of that winning team.

Simmons’ value as a leader during his coaching tenure should not be measured by win-loss statistics but through the stability, integrity and belief be inspired.

Beyond Football

Despite having some successful coaching stints away from Penrith — Hull (1992-94), Wests-Tigers (2003-10), as Assistant to Tim Sheens, and St Helens (2011-12) — he never lost touch with Penrith.

He has remained one of the Club’s most respected ambassadors, supporting a stack of community initiatives and continues to show the younger Panthers what it means to be a Panther.

Following his diagnosis with Alzheimer’s disease in 2021, Royce transformed personal adversityinto public advocacy. Through fundraising walks and awareness campaigns, he has helped raise both funds and understanding for dementia research while continuing to inspire the broader community.

His appointment as Brand Ambassador for The Royce retirement communicty reflects the qualities that have endeared him with Panthers supporters and the wider rugby league community — down-to-earth honesty, humour and humility.

Perhaps his greatest achievement has been the initiation and development of the Royce Simmons Foundation which is dedicated finding a cure to dementia and supporting those wh are affected by it. His Big Walks have very quickly eastablished themselves as legendary, just like the man hwo has choreographed them You can get involved through donation or participation — for more see https://www.roycesimmonsfoundation.com.au/.

Background

Born: 2 May 1959, Gooloogong, New South Wales

Profession: Rugby League player, coach. Ambassador.

Panthers Involvement
• First Grade Player (1980-1991)
• Club Captain (1983-1990)
• Head Coach (1994-2001)
• Club Ambassador

Representative Honours
• New South Wales (10 State of Origin matches)
• Australia (10 Tests)

Honours
• Penrith Panthers Player of the Year — 1981, 84, 86, 87 (renamed Merv Cartwright Medal in 2006)
• John Farragher Award for Courage & Determination — 1982, 85 (shared with Matt Goodwin), 89.
• 1991 NSWRL Premiership
• Panthers Life Member (1992)
• Panthers Team of Legends (2006)
• Panthers Hall of Fame (2016)
• Australian Sports Medal (2000)
• Centenary Medal (2001)
• Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) (2025

Relevance to Events Described

Royce Simmons presence throughout the Panthers, Passion & Politics series is significant. He features in:

  • As captain during the Club’s 1983 transformation and strategic reset.
  • Evolution of the Club’s culture — especially as Coach when his leadership positively impacted the connection between licensed club and football club teams.
  • Simmons was instrumental in the development of the “Five-by-Five” focus on local talent and leadership.
  • Super League – helped guide the Panthers through this tumultuous era, including the rationalisation trauma.

Related Topics

Related Themes:

Football Club · Leadership · Culture

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Editorial Note

This profile is presented as contextual background.
Additional material may be introduced as the narrative progresses.

Super League — When Panthers Faced the Community

Leaving the ARL and signing with Super League was one of the most difficult decisions in the Club’s history. It was difficult for the Board, Cowan, the management team, the players, and the staff of both the football and licensed clubs.

It was also difficult for the members, fans and the local community. The extreme reaction of some individuals reflected the depth of feeling that existed within parts of the Panthers community. Many saw the decision as a betrayal driven by greed.

The administration building of the Club had faeces smeared across the glass entry, Roger Cowan was sent an envelope filled with nail clippings, and at the next Penrith Panthers home game fans displayed a sign that read “Betrayed”.

More sober reactions included critical letters and phone calls to the club and some staff resigned in protest. A Penrith Press telephone poll also reported overwhelming opposition, with around 90% of respondents opposing the decision.

Cowan’s response to the divisive environment was to schedule a forum in which the reasoning behind Panthers’ decision would be presented to club members and fans who could then seek answers to any questions they may have.

The meeting took place in Reactor 1 — the very popular nightclub downstairs in Panthers World of Entertainment — on 28th May 1995.

It was a Sunday morning. It was game day — the Panthers were scheduled to play the Gold Coast at Penrith Stadium. Reactor was a very dark, enclosed area – large enough to comfortably hold over 500 people. Only a few hours earlier, more than 500 people had probably filled the room. The air and even the carpet still carried the unmistakable signs of a busy Saturday night.

Several hundred people attended to hear why the Board had taken Panthers into Super League after previously declaring its loyalty to the ARL. It was tense, you could feel the anger about the decision and anger that members were not consulted.

Penrith Press Back Page 26 May 1995 – click image to read articles

As I write this, I’m reminded of the Panthers song Go the Mighty Panthers. Its opening line is:

Tension’s running high, it shows on nevery face.

While those attending were overwhelmingly against the Super League decision, the opposition was emotional but not hostile … and there were pockets of support for the Club’s move. The presence of some players perhaps took the edge off the sentiment and those present listened intently to Cowan’s explanation of the Club’s position.

The final word came from Club Captain, John Cartwright who spoke of his own doubts about the move, doubts persisting up until the meeting which had finally convinced him he’d made the right decision and so had the club.

Even the supporters who had displayed the “Betrayed” banner left expressing support for the Club’s position.

The forum did not eliminate disagreement, but it appears to have reduced some of the anger by allowing members to hear directly from those responsible for the decision.

Penrith Press 30 May 1995 — click image to read article

It would, however, be wrong to suggest that the community’s opposition had completely turned to support. Some supporters maintained a deep sense of betrayal by Panthers’ decision, others, after reflecting on the events, reached a different conclusion. One letter published in the Penrith Press in early 1996 acknowledged discomfort with the way Super League had unfolded, yet concluded that Panthers’ administrators had acted out of concern for the club’s future rather than self-interest. Steve Wharton’s letter was published in the Penrith Press on 12 March 1996, in part he said:

I am still not comfortable with what happened. But through it all I saw only concern for what was best for Panthers, when it came to the efforts of our team and administrators.

Steve Wharton’s letter is not evidence that community opinion had swung decisively behind the Board. Rather, it is a reminder that community opinion was more varied and nuanced than later accounts sometimes suggest.

Continue Exploring the Super League Story

These companion Historical Context articles examine different aspects of Panthers’ decision to join Super League:

  • The Panthers Move — How the Penrith Panthers came to join the new competition.
  • The Real Money Fight — The corporate battle that lay behind the Super League War.
  • When Panthers Faced the Community — How Panthers’ decision affected its members, supporters and the wider Penrith community.

Related Topics

Related Themes

Football Club · Conflict · Governance · Financial

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Readers who hold recollections, documents, or material relevant to this history are welcome to contribute via the Commentary & Contributions page.

Project Updates

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Super League — The Real Money Fight

For most rugby league supporters, the Super League War is remembered as a bitter struggle between the Australian Rugby League and Rupert Murdoch’s News Limited.

That description is accurate—but it tells only part of the story.

Looking back three decades later, it is easy to view the conflict simply as a battle over the control of rugby league. At the time, however, respected financial journalist Robert Gottliebsen argued that the game itself was not the real prize. In an article published in the Australian Financial Review in April 1996, he described Super League as just one front in a much larger corporate struggle involving Australia’s emerging pay television industry, the nation’s two largest telecommunications companies, and two of its most powerful media empires.

In Gottliebsen’s view, rugby league had become one of the weapons in “the real money fight.”

A Bigger Vision

The origins of that conflict can be traced back several years before the first Super League contracts were signed.

Around 1992, Rupert Murdoch and Frank Blount, the Managing Director of Telstra, began discussing the enormous potential of cable and satellite technology. Their vision extended well beyond television. They believed that broadband networks would eventually carry not only entertainment but also telephone services, banking, retailing, medical services, gambling and countless other forms of communication.

To pursue that vision, Murdoch suggested bringing Kerry Packer into the venture. The proposal became known as the PMT consortium—Packer, Murdoch and Telecom.

For a brief period, Australia’s two most influential media families appeared to be working towards a common future.

It did not last.

The Alliance Breaks Apart

As Australia’s telecommunications industry prepared for competition, Optus recognised the strategic value of Kerry Packer’s media interests and encouraged him to align with its own plans.

Murdoch, meanwhile, ultimately partnered with Telstra.

What had begun as a shared vision quickly evolved into competing alliances.

Telstra and Murdoch established Foxtel.

Optus assembled its own powerful consortium, supported by Kerry Packer and eventually the Seven Network.

Suddenly, the emerging pay television market had become a battleground between rival telecommunications companies, rival media organisations and rival strategic visions for Australia’s communications future.

Billions of dollars were now at stake.

Gottliebsen reported that Telstra’s own internal modelling suggested as much as $7–8 billion of corporate value could be affected depending on which side prevailed.

Why Rugby League Suddenly Mattered

Pay television needed something that could persuade Australians to subscribe.

Movies were important.

News was important.

But live sport was essential.

Existing broadcasting arrangements meant Kerry Packer’s Nine Network already held the free-to-air rights to rugby league. When Murdoch’s executives struggled to secure premium sporting content for Foxtel, creating a new national rugby league competition became a commercially attractive option.

From this perspective, Super League was far more than a football competition.

It became part of a much larger contest over subscribers, broadcasting rights, market share and ultimately the future of Australia’s communications industry.

This does not diminish the genuine rugby league issues that also existed. Questions about the game’s administration, its national expansion, club structures and commercial future were all real and important. However, Gottliebsen argued that these football issues had become intertwined with a much broader corporate struggle that most supporters could neither see nor fully appreciate while it was unfolding.

What It Meant For Penrith

None of these corporate manoeuvres were visible to most Panthers members or supporters.

They saw clubs changing sides.

Players signing confidential contracts.

Court battles.

Television cameras.

Public accusations of betrayal.

Behind those events, however, some of Australia’s largest corporations were fighting over far more than rugby league.

Understanding that broader context helps explain why events moved so quickly during 1995 and why the decisions confronting clubs became so significant.

For Penrith, the immediate question was never which media company would ultimately prevail.

Would Panthers still have a place in the highest level of rugby league when the dust finally settled?

That was the question management sought to answer in Part 29.

Continue Exploring the Super League Story

These companion Historical Context articles examine different aspects of Panthers’ decision to join Super League:

  • The Panthers Move — How the Penrith Panthers came to join the new competition.
  • When Panthers Faced the Community — How Panthers’ decision affected its members, supporters and the wider Penrith community.
  • The Real Money Fight — The corporate battle that lay behind the Super League War.

Related Topics

Related Themes

Football Club · Conflict

To receive new Parts and occasional project updates by email, you may subscribe below.

Readers who hold recollections, documents, or material relevant to this history are welcome to contribute via the Commentary & Contributions page.

Project Updates

Receive updates when new parts are published.

Super League — The Panthers Move

Part 29 — Joining Super League begins with a deceptively simple statement:

“In May 1995 Panthers had resolved to leave the Australian Rugby League to join Super League…”

Read in isolation, it almost sounds like an ordinary administrative decision. In reality it followed months of uncertainty, strategic analysis and one of the most turbulent periods in rugby league history.

It would be easy for a reader to miss the nuance and significance behind that statement — it sounds almost as simple as resolving to change the club’s soft drink supplier.

The opening phrase is followed up with a hint that this was, in fact, a major decision and noting that Super League was a new competition established by News Limited.

Many simplify the establishment of this new competition as an attempt by Murdoch to attain the broadcast rights of rugby league for his pay television platform, Foxtel. This was true. Kerry Packer’s Consolidated Press held those rights but they were not being used — and it was commonly believed that the Packer deal did not represent the true value of the game.

It’s worth briefly doing a quick history — to take us up to that point in May 1995 when the Penrith Panthers made their resolution to join Super League.

Just over a year before Penrith’s resolution, in April 1994, John Ribot (Chief Executive Officer, Brisbane Broncos) sent Ken Cowley (Chief Executive, News Ltd) a report outlining the concept of a new structure for rugby league in Australia. This was followed up in May 1994 with discussions of the concept with some leading players.

By August 1994 News Ltd had moved well beyond an idea. It had developed an outline for an entirely new national competition. The main points of this outline were:

  • To establish an elite national competition (including New Zealand) between 12 privately owned teams. Up to 4 of these teams to be owned by News Ltd.
  • Superleague Ltd would get revenue from sponsorship, free-to-air and pay television rights, gate receipts and merchandising. New Ltd would receive a 15% management fee and the profit shared amongst the 12 clubs.
  • The 12 clubs would be:
    • 4 based in Sydney
    • 4 continuing teams — Brisbane, Canberra, Newcastle and Auckland
    • New teams in Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne

The greatest challenge was reducing eleven Sydney clubs (plus Illawarra) to four Sydney franchises. News Ltd proposed grouping clubs into sets of three and inviting them to jointly own a single Super League franchise.

For example: Wests, Parramatta, and Penrith could be grouped together and offered a franchise. Ownership would be split evenly between those clubs taking up the offer. The owner of the old club eg Penrith Rugby League Club Ltd would be entitled to 50% of its share of the new club, the other 50% would be offered directly to members.

Over the remaining months of 1994 there was considerable media speculation and News Ltd and ARFL Ltd executives held private discussions.

Following those discussions, Ken Arthurson (ARFL Ltd Chairman) and John Quayle (ARFL CEO) issued agreements to each of the 20 existing club aimed at securing their loyalty to the ARL for the 5 season starting 1995. All 20 clubs signed these agreements by November 1994.

On 6th February 1995 News Ltd presented their proposal to the ARL — offering the ARL positions on the Super League Board as well as the ongoing rights to administer various rugby league programs.

On that same day Kerry Packer addressed the 20 clubs declaring his ownership of the broadcasting rights (free-to-air and pay television) until the year 2000. Part of this address was a threat to sue any club that joined a Super League competition. A short time later in February 1995 all 20 club signed another agreement — the so-called Loyalty Agreements — reinforcing those signed 4 months earlier.

Packer’s declaration made one thing abundantly clear. The dispute was no longer simply about rugby league administration. Rugby league had become the battleground in a much larger corporate struggle over broadcasting, telecommunications and pay television. Robert Gottliebson in an Australian Financial review article in April 1996 suggested this was a battle where $7 billion dollars was at stake.

Packer’s declaration made one thing abundantly clear. The dispute was no longer simply about rugby league administration. Rugby league had become the battleground in a much larger corporate struggle over broadcasting, telecommunications and pay television. Robert Gottliebson in an Australian Financial review article in April 1996 suggested this was a battle where $7 billion dollars was at stake.

By late March 1995, after having their momentum slowed by the reaction of Packer, the ARL and the club, News Ltd resolved to press on. In their eyes they had three strategic choices as shown in the table from Super League Case Study a 2003 research paper for Victoria University written by Robert D, McDonald.

News Ltd elected to take the third approach and start a “rebel competition”.

Their attack was on two fronts:

  1. In late March, early April News Ltd launched an aggressive and clandestine campaign — a ”blitzkrieg” — to sign players and coaches for the rebel league.
  2. Legal action commenced challenging the validity of the two agreements clubs had signed in November 1994 and February 1995.

The early targets for Super League were Brisbane, Canberra, Auckland and Canterbury. When news broke that players and coaches from these four clubs had signed with Super League, there was a flurry of signing activity from both Super League and the ARL.

Neither side approached the Penrith Panthers.

Here’s how the Super League clubs fell:

29 March — Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs. Key players signed contracts. Two day later an 1st April, Bulldogs CEO Peter Moore resigned his position on the Board of the NSWRL after aligning the club with Super League.

1 April — Brisbane Broncos. This is the date the Broncos defection broke publicly.  Broncos CEO, John Ribot, left the Broncos to become CEO of Super League at around the same time.

1-2 April — Cronulla- Sutherland Sharks. The Sharks’ players were signed after playing the Western Reds in Perth on 31st March.

2 April — Auckland Warriors. The players signed on this date. Coach John Monie had signed late in March. The Board signed the club to Super League on 20th April.

2-3 April — Canberra Raiders. Following the news breaking on April Fool’s day, most of Canberra’s high profile roster signed.

Early April — Western Reds and North Queensland Cowboys.

During all this activity and publicity there were no communications, offers or invitations for teh Penrith Panthers — from either the ARL or Super League.

The management team at Panthers was very concerned by the silence and paid close attention to every piece of information that could be found about what was happening on both sides of the battle. A comprehensive critical analysis of the situation facing Panthers was undertaken — despite the fact reliable information was scant.

The analysis process was steered by Outcomes Thinking. Rather than beginning with today’s problems, Outcomes Thinking began by defining what success would look like several years into the future. (See Beyond the Book: Education by Experience.)

The highest-level outcome was simply:

“In the year 2000 Panthers is competing in the highest-level rugby league competition.”

Our first step towards survival was to ensure that at least one of the two sides were interested in having Panthers in their competition.

Super League represented the best opportunity to create that interest — among the reasons for this conclusion was that their team list, to date, only included two Sydney-based clubs, Canterbury-Bankstown and Cronulla-Sutherland.

There was also a strong belief Panthers had a compelling case that News Ltd had not yet fully appreciated — while the ARL had had many years to understand the strengths of the Penrith club.

Cowan requested a meeting with Ken Cowley and John Ribot. At that meeting he let them know Panthers hadn’t made any decisions about its future and that we’d be an important club to either Super League or the ARL. In particular, rugby league in Penrith had strong financial backing from the largest licensed club and it also ran junior rugby league with the strongest participation anywhere in the country.

The meeting achieved its immediate objective. Super League, which until then had shown no interest in Penrith, quickly reassessed the club’s strategic value. Negotiations followed and an agreement was reached within days.

That brings us back to the opening of Part 29, where the Penrith Panthers formally resolved to become the eighth club to join Super League.

Continue Exploring the Super League Story

These companion Historical Context articles examine different aspects of Panthers’ decision to join Super League:

  • The Real Money Fight — The corporate battle that lay behind the Super League War.
  • When Panthers Faced the Community — How Panthers’ decision affected its members, supporters and the wider Penrith community.
  • The Panthers Move — How the Penrith Panthers came to join the new competition.

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Football Club · Conflict · Financial Management

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The 1983 Strategic Reset — Did it Work?

The companion article explained how Panthers changed the way it thought. This article asks the obvious next question: did that change in thinking actually change the club’s fortunes?

One of the earliest outcomes of the strategic reset was the appointment of Tim Sheens as Manager-Coach

The “Coach” part of Sheens’ role delivered quickly, the team performance in the 1984 season was in stark contrast to the seasons before. His impact was roundly recognised and applauded by all, including his peers.

Sydney Morning Herald 20 Sep 1984 — click to read

But the “Manager” part of the Manager-Coach role was more strategic, as was the role of the Five by Five Committee.

The stated goal — to have five local juniors named as Kangaroos within 5 years — was really about something far more valuable:  to shift the Club’s trajectory.

Was it successful?

Let’s look first at that main goal.

PlayerRepresentative TeamFirst ChosenPenrith Junior
Royce SimmonsAustralia1986No
Greg AlexanderAustralia1986Yes
John CartwrightAustralia1990Yes
Mark GeyerAustralia1990Yes
Brad FittlerAustralia1990Yes
Brad Izzard*NSW1990Yes
Steve CarterNSW1992No
Graham MackayAustralia1992No

*Brad Izzard had represented NSW in 1982 — before the strategic reset.

The Committee narrowly missed its stated target. More importantly, however, the effort reflected a broader ambition—to create a football club that the district could believe in and one capable of producing representative players consistently rather than occasionally.

Winning Games

The following table shows the results of the regular season games for the 10 seasons before and after the 1983 strategic reset. The Panthers won almost twice as many regular-season games during the decade following the strategic reset as they had during the preceding decade.

1974-19831984-1993
Games Played228228
Games Won66123
Win Percentage29%54%

Attack and Defence (Tries Scored & Tries Against)

The following table shows the tries scored and conceded during the regular season for the 10 seasons before and after the 1983 strategic reset. Note: I’ve used tries rather than points here because the value of the try changed from 3 to 4 in 1983.

The Panthers attack improved by 4% which is inconsequential. More importantly defence improved by 38%.

1974-19831984-1993
Games Played228228
Total Tries Scored614638
Total Tries Against872539
Tries For – Tries Against-258+99

The improvement in defence is extremely important – Strong defensive records are widely regarded as one of the defining characteristics of premiership-winning teams. Defence speaks volumes about the character and culture of a club – the change represents a distinct shift in both for the Penrith Panthers.

Overall, the Panthers’ tries-for-and-against differential moved from –258 to +99—a turnaround of 357 tries. In other words, they went from consistently being outscored to consistently outscoring their opponents.

Final Ladder Position

The numbers above suggest a big difference in performance of Penrith team before and after the changes put in place between the 1983 and 1984 seasons.

As to the trajectory. The graph below shows the finishing position of the Panthers for the 10 years before (red) and the 10 years after (blue) the late 1983 changes.

There is a distinct and positive difference between the two decades in being compared.

A further consequence of the change …

The following table shows average home crowd for regular season games, comparing the 10 seasons before and after the 1983 strategic reset. Crowds increased by 20%.

Home Games1974-19831984-1993
Played114114
Total Attendance871,0421,047,261
Average Crowd7,6419,187

Conclusion

No single committee, coach or governance reform can claim sole responsibility for the transformation of Penrith Panthers during the 1980s. However, the evidence strongly suggests that the strategic reset undertaken in late 1983 fundamentally altered the club’s direction. The Five by Five Committee did not achieve its headline target exactly as written, but the broader ambition—to reshape the football club’s future—was overwhelmingly realised.

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The 1983 Strategic Reset

The Low Point

In the 2001 publication Hooked On League: Royce Simmons1,  Royce tells the story of Darryl Brohman asking his advice, at the end of 1983, about an offer he’d received to move to Canterbury-Bankstown. Royce’s advice paints a clear picture of the state of the Penrith Panthers at that time:

… thanks for thinking of us but right now we’ve got five players on contract and you’re a free agent being chased by probably the best club in the world.

The reasoning behind Royce’s that advice is also telling:

I don’t think he wanted to leave us high and dry but we told him that we were high and dry whether he stayed or not.

Simmons’ view was that “things were looking bleak” for Penrith.

In fact, things were so bleak, even the independently run Panthers Supporters Club had dissolved at the end of 1983 and needed its own reset. The supporter’s club had two Panther diehard supporters — Cathy O’Kane and Berryl Moss who took on the task of whipping up wider support for the 1984 Season and beyond.

Penrith Press 12 Oct 1983 — click to read

And Panthers had Roger Cowan who had finally been granted the governance structure he’d so long been advocating.

The Change

One of Cowan’s first steps under the new One Board, One CEO structure was to involve more people in finding solutions to serious problems. Problems like the performance of the rugby league team.

Royce had been weighing up whether to leave Penrith when he was invited to join the effort to find those solutions. He described that first step to a reset of football fortunes.

Prior to the start of the 1984 season Roger Cowan organised a series of seminars at Penrith Leagues Club — a ‘think-tank’ involving prominent Penrith business people, junior rugby league administrators, past and present players, and local community leaders. In one of the groups, Tim Sheens’ name came up as a possible coach.

It was an approach that mirrored what he had done with the licensed club in the early days of his tenure.

This symposium produced a range of strategies and goals, two of the goals had a significant impact on Panthers football performance.

The first, most immediate, goal was to secure Sheens for the coaching position — it was late in 1983, training for the 1984 season needed to begin soon yet Penrith had few players and no coach. This was a pressing need. And it was a challenging task given the fact Sheens had sold his real estate business and was preparing up to move his family to Queensland.

Royce worked in the background to get Sheens to stay, but says:

I’m sure Roger Cowan worked the hardest to convince Tim to take on the job.

[He] really went out of the way to chase hard and talk Tim out of going. The players played a supporting role in letting Tim know that we’d support him.

Tim signed on as the club’s first Manager-Coach.

Appointing a Manager-Coach was unusual in the rugby league world — although it was a pressing short-term need to appoint Sheens as coach, expanding the role was a strategic move.

The second goal was more long-term and strategic — to have 5 Penrith juniors selected for the Kangaroos — the Australian Rugby League team. A Five by Five Committee was established to take responsibility for developing initiatives to achieve this goal.

Penrith Press Front Page 26 October 1983 — click to read

Don Feltis was a member of this Committee:

We talked about strategies and all the rugby league development issues … like making sure our best juniors were selected into representative squads; to set up development squads — age groups between the representative squads — like 13s, 15s and 17s and give them personalised coaching; panels to interview possible coaches and to have only the best coaches — and to have all our coaching techniques standardised so that all our juniors from 13s to  19s were getting similar tuition … under the guidance of Tim Sheens.

It was a great exercise and made a lot of difference to the future development of our club. … it made us all wake up and realise all the things we had to do to be successful. Roger had always been a dreamer … a visionary. He realised we had to lift our club up from the level we were performing at.

A Different Way of Thinking — from Goals to Outcomes

The stated goal of the Five-by-Five Committee was to have five home-grown players represent Australia within five years.

Looking back, this appears to have been an early example of a planning philosophy Roger Cowan would later apply much more broadly throughout the Panthers organisation. That philosophy centred around “outcomes thinking“.

This goal was an outcome – a description of a future that would be proof of a successful project. During the 90s at Panthers this would have been framed:

 In November 1999 (5 Seasons away) the Australian Kangaroos have included five representatives from Panthers who were developed in the Penrith Junior Rugby League District.

Working backwards from that future enabled a more creative approach to uncovering the initiatives, programs and strategies that would have a positive effect on creating that future. Initiatives like those described by Don Feltis above.

The Five-by-Five goal was never intended as a prediction. It was a deliberately ambitious picture of what success would look like if the club fundamentally changed the way it developed players in their huge junior catchment area.

Quite quickly early indicators drove some optimism —  the governance model reduced conflict, Cathy and Berryl re-launched the supporters’ club, Tim Sheens had players wanting to stay, and the team began making its way up the competition ladder.2

Sydney Morning Herald 28 May 1984

Continue: The 1983 Strategic Reset — Did It Work? examines whether the strategic changes introduced in late 1983 produced measurable improvements in the Panthers’ football performance over the following decade.

  1. Hooked On League: Royce Simmons with Alan Whiticker published 2001. Chapter 19.
    ↩︎
  2. The headline in the SMH clipping is dramatic but not accurate – Penrith had been in the top 5 before, a few times but only once before had they been there after at least 5 rounds of a season. ↩︎

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Education by Experience

A removed section from the original Chapter 9: An Urgent Need for Research and Change.

IN THE COURSE of more than a year and a half of research and writing for this book, I conducted a large number of interviews. For obvious reasons, more than one of those was with Roger Cowan. Many of our discussions focused on the way things were done at Panthers.

On one occasion, I asked a very specific question. How did that little club evolve into the half billion dollar enterprise that is Panthers today? What made the difference, what did he see as the most important parts of the management philosophy during his 40 years at the helm?

It was an important question, and he wanted plenty of time to consider. Eventually, we decided that it would work better if Roger answered it in his own words.

It is difficult to answer this question because 40 years is such a long time. Many changes have occurred along the way — in knowledge, attitudes, technology, even the way the industry is regulated. In the earlier days  I used a calculator for payroll.

To multiply by seven, for example, we turned a handle seven times. Accounting and stock control were all done manually. The management tools available today demand a much different approach to the use of management time and the expectations of administrative productivity. In many ways, management change has been driven by the changing environment.

The other difficulty I have in answering the question is that I was always inclined to try something new if it looked good. Some things were effective for a while, and made a significant difference at the time, but failed to see the long distance. Some became permanent influences and some failed completely. Some seem too small to mention, yet they held a lot of significance for me.

Applying a very strong filter, I came up with what I considered to be the three most important influences. I am sure it would be an interest­ing debate if members of our management teams were asked the same question. But there is a common thread that runs through the three I have chosen. Each one has quite a lot to do with the need to manage evolu­tionary change rather than merely cope with it. We tend to cope with the results of evolution in our private lives, but business requires a different level of thinking.

Thinking in Outcomes. The success of the human race has depended on the ability to take in information and make rapid decisions. Imagine if our hunter and gatherer forefathers had held meetings to evaluate the knowledge they had gleaned from their observations and then debated what action should be taken. They would have died of starvation or been eaten, and we would not be here to write about it. The natural decision making process for humans is still the same. Our senses collect informa­tion, feed it into our brains in an amazingly short time, and this central processor quickly decides on the options and tells us what to do. Just as well we have that power. You see a car hurtling towards you, out of control, and there is no time to hold a brain storming session to work out how to survive.

Quick thinking is important to us as individuals. My theory, though, is that when it becomes the predominant thinking style used in business, it is often inappropriate and can be downright dangerous. Looking back, I think I harped and nagged about this principle more than anything else in management meetings and training sessions. I was never better than partially successful. It is actually quite difficult to break out of the natural thinking style. It requires discipline and technique. And as soon as you relax the discipline, the natural way of thinking takes over again.

The difference between quick thinking and thinking in outcomes is demonstrated in the following example. The Security Manager puts a proposal to a meeting: there has been an increase in behaviour problems in the club, and the security staff should be increased to deal with the situation. Others in the meeting, respecting the expertise of the Security Manager and seeing the logic of his suggestion, support the proposal. The Finance Manager agrees that the extra cost is affordable. A quick vote and it is all done.

But someone skilled in Outcome Thinking says, “Hold up there. Let’s first agree on what we are trying to achieve. Is it just to cope with increased behaviour problems, or is there more to it?”

The best way to answer that question is by imagining another meeting, some point in the future -say three months ahead. You sit in that meeting, and ask, “What evidence can we find today that proves we made a great decision three months ago? Not just a good decision, but a great one?”

One person might say there are more people visiting the club now than there were three months ago. That proves it was a good decision. Another might suggest that the cost of security has decreased. Others might add that there are fewer incidents of bad behaviour now, the people causing the problems three months ago have gone, there have been no negative stories in the newspapers, and so on.

The challenge is now much different. It is no longer about coping with increased behaviour problems by increasing costs. A great decision would achieve fewer problems, less cost and increased patronage.

The most important debate is about what outcomes the group is willing to support, and what it believes it can achieve. They will usually be much more challenging than expected. When there is an agreed set of outcomes, the next challenge is to find every possible idea for achieving them. That then brings out the creativity in management and usually achieves a better result.

The number -and quality-of ideas might be surprising. In this case it might mean changing the entertainment mix, increasing public relations, zero tolerance in some issues, a different marketing approach, or any number of bright ideas that would never be raised in the quick decision scenario.

The point is that the natural process of quick decision making is the killer of creativity, and often provides solutions to the wrong problems.

Thinking in outcomes ensures that the best goals are set and that they will be creatively pursued. It also encourages creative opposition, and avoids the dangers of ‘groupthink’, where people tend to go along with each other because of respect for expertise or position.

In this situation, you are able to manage the thinking processes, rather than going along with nature.

Values, Beliefs and Culture. Our deep-seated beliefs and values are mostly developed in the very early years. Culture develops from experi­ences, and dictates how people treat each other and expect to be treated. The behaviour in an organisation is a reflection of its culture. The combined beliefs and values of the staff, managers, board, and custom­ers form a rich cultural soup that has to meet the needs of everybody. We see examples every day, and in every part of the world, of the enormous problems caused by clashes of culture, most of which can be traced back to differences in beliefs and values.

Beliefs and values are not impossible to manage. We cannot ask people to change what they believe or how they feel, but we can structure an organisation around the differences. Being aware of the differences allows us to manage them, and achieve a positive culture without the clashes.

Recognition and understanding of values was one of the topics of man­agement training at Panthers. There are many ways of finding out what drives people. When there is better understanding, people work together more harmoniously. There are some good programs and tests available, and most of them are interesting and non-threatening.

One important advantage of setting agreed outcomes is that they define what the group wants to own and achieve in working together. Where there are opposite values, the list will be more limited, but there will still be common purpose.

There is another element in play in the club industry – one that is much less likely to affect other businesses of similar sizes. There is a much stronger board influence on culture, varying significantly from one club to another. Some directors in some clubs enjoy socialising with staff, talking to them during breaks and even – in ways ranging from very subtle to quite demanding – interfering in the way they work. The impact on culture can be profound. Even worse, the influence can be difficult to see until it is entrenched and starts to show up in behaviour.

That is one of the good reasons for clearly separating the responsibili­ties of management from those of directors. A good culture is built on consistency —what is said and done has to be within consistent patterns and plans, and everyone has to be singing the same tune. A good management plan can easily be undermined, quite unknowingly, by directors getting too close to staff and not knowing what the tune is.

The cultures and sub-cultures throughout an organisation will affect the behaviour of people, their satisfaction and productivity. One important subculture is the relationship between board and management. It is the one most difficult to manage. Some of the chapters in this book spell out the type of problems that can arise when it is not well managed.

Panthers workshops involving both management and board always centred on strategic issues. If I had the time over, I would try to interest the directors in joining other workshops that focused on values and culture. In learning to recognise values and understand their impact, everyone could work together to build a shared vision about the cultural objectives of the business. It would not be an easy task, considering that directors often have many other commitments, and the difficulties in getting all the key players together for the time required, but it would be worthwhile.

Evolution and Revolution. Larry Greiner wrote of his theory in 1971, and it was almost 20 years before I discovered it. I wish I had studied it much earlier. It would have helped my understanding of periods of stag­nation and other difficulties.

When a business only has a few employees, the style of management is not as important. The entrepreneurial manager with one assistant and lots of subcontractors can be autocratic and successful. As a business grows and matures, it requires adjustment. Autocracy will not be as effec­tive in a business employing 3,000 people, where the best results come from communication, delegation, participation and good controls. That is not to deny that some successful larger companies are run in a very autocratic fashion. It simply says that Greiner’s research influenced his theory that growth should be handled differently.

There are several stages in the path from small to large, and from young to mature. The needs change through the range of creativity, direction, delegation,  co-ordination and collaboration, each one building on the previous phase. As the business evolves naturally through one stage, pressures start to build almost to bursting point. This causes its own crisis. It is a case of success creating its own problems.

Had I understood the principles much earlier, it would have allowed a smoother transition between the Club’s evolutionary phases. It would probably also have meant a quicker and more effective pathway to what I eventually hoped to achieve — on the democratic ideals of an organisation driven by principles of collaboration. In our case, it was probably more spectacularly noticeable because of the rapid growth of the business over a relatively short period.

Those three principles stand out in my mind because of the impact they had on my thinking. I was influenced about outcomes by reading a great little book on outcomes and performances in my first few years at the Club. I read a lot about culture and did some courses on values and beliefs. In everything you read, you will probably find some gem of wisdom that can improve how you do things. A chance meeting, a brief conversation, a quick word of advice – can plant the tiny seeds that grow into the ideas and concepts that become part of your life.

In my first year at the club I met a director of the City Tattersalls Club in Sydney. One of the things he said that struck a chord in me was that each of us is a totally different person in the eyes of every person who knows us. This had quite an impact on me. It changed not only the way I saw others, but also how I saw myself. We are many, many people living inside the same skin.

In my first year at the Club, I also received some advice from a man named Ken Charlton.

Ken had been a big name in rugby league in the 50s. Around the same time that I started with the Club, he was, if I remember correctly, working as a representative for one of the breweries. He seemed genuinely inter­ested in seeing me make a success of my radical move from teaching to club management. I came to respect him, and when we talked I listened carefully. He told me one day that it is much more effective to ask ques­tions than to make statements. It was simple advice that sounds no more than good common sense. I don’t think that either of us knew just how profound it was at the time. I had an amusing example of its power some years later.

The Club was in the middle of one if its extensions, and I was walking through the work area. We had employed a very clever air conditioning expert, and I wandered up and stood beside him – basically just for a chat. I had no idea at all of what he was doing. I have never been mechanically or technically intelligent. He was explaining some of the work, and I said, purely to show him that I was interested in what he was saying, “Why do we do it like that?”

He stopped for a minute, looked back at the job, and looked at me again. After a pause he said, “You know what? You’re right. That’s not the best way to do it. It would be better if I …

I had asked a dumb question, he mistakenly thought it was an intelligent observation and took it as a challenge to find a better way. Meanwhile, I stood there trying to look as if I really was intelligent. His final disillusionment might come if he reads this book.

But over the years I found that asking questions was important to culture as well as results. Imagine an assistant in the marketing depart­ment prepares a corporate design and presents it to the CEO for approval. The CEO could say, ‘No, I don’t like that. Change the red to purple and make the yellow stronger. Use upper case in the title.’ After the time and effort that has been put into that design, how does the assistant feel about that reaction?

What if the CEO asked questions instead? “Do YOU think the red sends out the message WE want? What if WE tried a bit of purple? How do YOU think that would go?” Plenty of YOU clarifies who still owns the project. Plenty of WE says we are here to work together and help each other.

Questions involving YOU and WE raise the odds in favour of a more motivated assistant, a higher degree of ownership of the design job – and a better design. It is the cultural difference between the organisation being driven autocratically from the top and people collaborating for a better result.

The three main issues I chose are closely linked. They are all about people. Setting outcomes before deciding what to do smooths out values and cultural differences. Some of the essential components of a good, productive culture are well constructed forward plans, logical decisions, and ownership of the plans by all who participated in their making. Outcomes thinking is an important tool.

In some ways the three concepts are a little idealistic. Despite the efforts of a committed management team, we never really reached our own measure of satisfactory. Some sections at Panthers were always closer than others, but we never stopped having to remind people to think in Outcomes. Culture was constantly on the agenda for testing, meas­uring and improvement. And having an organisation fully embrace the Greiner concept of Collaboration is a really challenging dream. Culture and decision-making work in a similar way to systems in a business. Without constant review and discipline, they gradually revert to chaos. What is certain, though, is that we were much closer to those ideals than we would have been had we not been conscious of them, and committed as a team to their pursuit.

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Club Structure · Culture

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1991 — Shadows Behind the Story

The text [in Part 27 – From Left Field] simply says that Roger contacted his long-time friend Norm Bowers looking for two people who could help research management theory, distil complex ideas and assist with communicating organisational change. Norm suggested two tutors from his coaching college. One of them was me.

That summary is accurate enough, but it leaves out a much bigger story.

For as long as I can remember Roger held a firm principle that close family members should not work together at Panthers. Unlike many family businesses, he believed employment should never depend upon bloodlines. It protected the organisation from accusations of favouritism and, just as importantly, protected the family from the pressures and complications that inevitably arise when work and home become entangled.

My brothers and I experienced that principle long before employment was ever contemplated.

As children we watched children from families of Roger’s Panther colleagues enjoy privileges that were simply unavailable to us. The children and grandchilren of some Panthers’ officials could wander into dressing rooms. Other children became ball boys or travelled with teams. We remained outside those circles. At the time it felt unfair. Looking back, I understand that Roger was drawing a line he was determined not to cross.

So why did he cross it in 1991?

The simple answer is that he believed Panthers had reached a point unlike anything it had previously faced.

The move to Mulgoa Road had been spectacularly successful in one sense. Sales had exploded. The club had become one of the largest in the country. But behind those impressive numbers Roger could see problems that few others recognised. The organisation had outgrown the management systems that had served it so well in earlier years. The challenge was no longer simply managing a licensed club. It was understanding how organisations evolve, why they stall, and how they successfully reinvent themselves.

He needed people who could immerse themselves in ideas, research widely, challenge assumptions and then translate abstract concepts into practical language that managers throughout the organisation could understand and use. Club management experience was almost beside the point. In some respects, it was an advantage not to have it.

By 1991 Roger was carrying burdens — some were widely visible, others were not so obvious.

The public could see the club’s growth and football success. The long hours were seen by the Panthers staff — especially the management team who shared the search for answers to the dilemmas faced by the Club. This commitment was hidden from the wider public.

Hidden from all but those closest to him was the stress of discovering that he had serious underlying health issues. The most serious of these was polycythemia, an incurable blood disorder in which the bone marrow manufactures too many red blood cells.

The combined challenges of the Club’s financial stress and the newly diagnosed health issues are sufficient to drive unhealthy levels of stress. But, by mid-year 1991 a huge shadow was cast across this picture — Peter, the third of the four Cowan boys, was dying.

Through the second half of the eighties, Peter was diagnosed HIV/AIDS. Remember, by 1987 big budgets were directed towards advertising that elevated concerns about the spread of AIDS – lifting the feeling from concern to horror and fear.

Imagine being the parent of someone with the virus, imagine thinking about their future while watching their physique reduce to the skeletal, imagine seeing the grim reaper repeatedly visiting your living room.

By the early part of 1991, Peter’s withering physique made his destiny clear. Roger & Mum were regularly taking trips between Penrith and Sydney, spending time with Peter.

On July 15, we gathered at St Vincent’s Hospice for what we suspected would be his last hours. Our time with him was one-on-one, holding and stroking his skeletal hand, listening as he ranted against some imaginary barman who would not serve him a drink, or some incompetent cabbie taking the wrong route.

We laughed with him, crying inside at what we were about to lose.

He couldn’t hear us; he couldn’t see us; but I’m damned sure he felt us.

He left us just before the sun went down that day.

Three months later, Panthers took their first premiership lap. Peter would have loved that.

I started at Panthers a month after Peter left us.

Beneath this shadow and amidst all the turmoil and stress swirling around Roger’s worklife, his focus on the future health of Panthers didn’t falter – in fact his dedication and commitment to this ambition may well have increased.

It would be wrong to suggest these private events somehow caused my appointment. They did not.

But they formed part of the context in which Roger found himself confronting perhaps the greatest organisational challenge of his career while carrying some of the heaviest personal burdens of his life. For someone who had always preferred solving problems himself, this was one of the few occasions where he openly acknowledged that he needed help.

Even then, abandoning his principle about family employment was not a decision he made lightly. Before I joined Panthers he took the proposal to the Board. Approval was unanimous.

Looking back, I don’t think this episode says very much about me.

It says far more about Roger.

He had principles, and he took them seriously. They were not ornaments. They were not things to be put on display when convenient and packed away when awkward. But he also understood that a principle should serve a purpose. It should not become a cage.

In 1991, Panthers needed something different. Roger needed something different too.

I think he knew both things.

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