Shrink Rap

GH wonders if you can

‘You can’t shrink to greatness,’ runs a familiar maxim of management. Which does not make it universally true, for it is certainly possible to expand to failure. Still, shrinking is seldom a sign of flourishing. And a shrinking of opportunities is usually a sign of decay. Consider two recent examples.

Last week in Brisbane, many proud parents attended Australia’s under-17 National Championship, in the final of which the NSW Country team were narrowly defeated in the final by their Queensland hosts. The championship, like its under-19 counterpart, features ten teams: NSW and Victoria have Country and Metro sides, alongside Queensland, Tasmania, South Australia, Western Australia, Australian Capital Territory and North Territory. Watchers from rural New South Wales learned that their team, a finalist, might be playing their last game, given the likely outcome of a review recommending the competition’s contraction to six teams: one from each of the mainland states, and an ‘Allies’ team amalgamated from the ranks of Tasmania and the territories. It’s already pissed Punter off, and that’s good enough for me.

Too right, Ricky

CA insist that nothing is yet ‘set in stone’, although this usually means we are but a short step from a fait accompli. The intent is purportedly to ‘maximise return’ from the competition, on the basis that states more thinly populated are overrepresented. As it stands, runs the logic, the twenty-fifth best player in Victoria is worse off than the tenth best player in Tasmania although they might be better. Yet what’s mooted doesn’t help either of them. Nobody has ever improved by not playing. And if the proposition is that fewer players will lead to a standard more excellent-er, one looks forward to a four-team Big Bash League.