Guest Column - Gary Tasker: Belief and patience required as we take great game to masses

PEOPLE have got to have confidence in the game. The only restrictions the game has got are the ones we put on it ourselves.

I have had a fantastic time at the RFL, having worked with Super League and, before that, spent 18 years at Bradford Bulls.

I'm hoping to carry on in the game in some other role in the future and I know the sport – which CAN be attractive to the masses – has every chance of succeeding but people must have belief and patience.

Things are happening. For example, when I look back to around 2003, there was only 12 or 14 clubs in the Rugby League Conference.

Part of my role as the RFL's director of community development was to build on that and now there's more than 100 clubs. That's growing every year.

We have people playing in all nine regions of the country as well as the three Celtic nations and there are competition and support structures for the game to develop in all of them.

Now, when the sport goes to Wembley, there are coaches arriving from every county like Dorset, Devon, Essex and the Midlands; for the first 100 years of our existence they came from just three – Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cumbria.

The idea is you have a team in the middle of nowhere but you make it a club with multiple sides and they become consumers of the sport – they watch it on television, buy merchandise, go to the big events. That's how to develop it and for every club you start, you soon have 200 people involved at each.

Rugby union has a head start on us as their history goes back a further 100 years and people must realise what we are trying to achieve takes a couple of generations.

We're starting to push into Europe as well with Catalans and Toulouse, though France have got to start working on their youth structures for the next step.

Some people are impatient and expecting instant returns but if you've got an 11-year-old kid just starting the game you have to realise it will be 10 years before he's 21.

I know what impact can be made with some vision. We had a vision at Bradford in the mid-90s and brought it to life.

It was a really good, close-team effort – me as chief executive, Peter Deakin as managing director and Chris Caisely the driver behind it all as chairman.

It was radical what we did. We wanted to embrace the new summer era and make the most of it. That's what we did. We implemented a successful community programme and our mission statement said 'providing family entertainment' not restricting to sport. We trebled the crowds at Odsal and really led the way.

Super League wanted me to implement those best practices into the sport and it has certainly been an interesting time since. My initial intention was to work three years there but here I am now 10 years on.

Maybe that's because so much happened in the sport over the last decade; it's thrown up so many challenges and opportunities such as the unification process, pulling everything together from the RFL and Super League in 2001.

It was never going to be without difficulties. However, in the major growth we've had since, I hope the proof is there.

In those early days of 2000-2002, we really kicked on with the Grand Finals sold out and the profile of the competition rising.

But it is not surprising; people love the sport when they can access it.

Interview by Dave Craven.