Australians take their sport seriously. They rack up medals at the Olympics -- 58 at the Sydney games, 46 in Beijing -- and they excel at cricket and both forms of rugby.

Even though rugby union struggles for players and support when set against rugby league and Aussie rules football, the Australians have twice managed to win the World Cup. Their goal setting does not include coming second, no matter the sport or the odds stacked against them.

The public funding of Australian sport is more complicated than here, with money coming from state and federal governments as well as local governments, but the arguments are much the same: how much money should be spent on sport? Where should it be spent? And why?

To answer those basic questions, the Australian government commissioned an independent report, headed by David Crawford.

The headlines concentrated on Crawford's contention that Olympic sports probably got too much money while mass participation sports got too little, and the follow-up reports noticed that he and his team also called on the government to 'spill' the board of the Australian Sports Council -- Aussie-speak for sack the lot of them.

The full report, however, goes far deeper. Over the course of some 350 pages it examines sports policy in real detail, its findings and recommendations based on hundreds of submissions and forums held across Australia (the report can be accessed through www.sportpanel.org.au). The result is impressive: a clearly written report that casts light on every area of sports policy and offers a set of recommendations which the Australians are now chewing over.

The lessons from Crawford cannot be applied en masse to Ireland but many of its findings and recommendations are as relevant here as they are in Australia. Crawford says: "There is no agreed definition of what 'success in sport' means for Australia, either at the elite or participation level and thus no clear objectives or plans . . . The lack of a national policy framework and defined measures of success for elite sport and mass participation mean that funding is appropriated without clear and agreed objectives . . . The lack of fundamental data on most aspects of the sport sector substantially inhibits an evidence-based approach to the development of policies and strategies."

It says, too, that the Australian Sports Council's style of "directive leadership" has become "controlling rather than collaborative" with the sports organisations that it is meant to help -- a sentiment that would be echoed by some sports on this small island.

Crawford does not attempt to provide all the answers, but it touches on the critical issues that impact on sport in all countries. It highlights the importance of sport in primary schools, but makes a clear distinction between a few hours each week of PE on the curriculum and a strong commitment to sport as an integral part of a child's education.

Crawford argues that sport improves learning skills as well as a child's health. It concludes that "the delivery of physical education and organised sport should be reinstated as a key component of the school curriculum. Australian governments should make sport in schools an ongoing priority and agree that physical education must be delivered by each school as if it were a separate key learning area in the national curriculum." Who would disagree?

It explores sponsorship, new sports (ultimate Frisbee is popular with Aussie teenagers) and the failure of sports organisations to embrace shorter, more popular versions of their own games. It examines the rising cost of participation and raises lots of possible government interventions, including vouchers and tax breaks.

Crawford should be the catalyst for a vigorous, independent assessment of what has been achieved in Ireland over the past dozen years, and what needs to be done now. With state funding for Irish sport now in decline -- and likely to keep falling for many years to come -- there is an urgent need for an Irish Crawford to set out the future of sport in Ireland. The report will have to be independent of all the current vested interests (there is no point asking the Irish Sports Council to examine itself) and its remit has to be broad enough so it can get to grips with all aspects of sport in Ireland -- from schools to communities and on to elite competitive sports. It doesn't have to take long: by this time next year it would be possible to have a document that would form the basis of the next ten years' investment in Irish sport. Sports minister Martin Cullen should commission it immediately.

Sunday Independent