Aussie Pro Rugby
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Fiji to join Australia's National Rugby Championship in 2017
Fiji will play in Australia's National Rugby Championship next year in a historic development for the talent-rich Pacific Island nation. Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama flew into Sydney on Thursday and will link up with Australian Rugby Union boss Bill Pulver to make the announcement at ARU headquarters on Friday. The plan, first reported last month by Fairfax Media, will see World Rugby fund the team to join the NRC from next season. It is a major coup for the ARU who, along with New Zealand, are often criticised for drawing players from the Pacific Islands but not giving much back in return. The All Blacks played a Test match against Manu Samoa in Apia last year, but inviting a team to join a domestic competition on an ongoing basis has the potential to do much more for a country such as Fiji, which has long been at the mercy of the lucrative rugby markets in Europe and closer to home. The announcement has been some months in the making, after Fiji coach John McKee approached the ARU's high performance manager Ben Whitaker, to discuss a way to improve the island nation's development pathway. World Rugby high performance general manager Peter Horne was also closely involved, as the global rugby body is the main source of funding for rugby in the Oceania region. In a pre-cursor to the big move, a handful of Fijian players joined the NRC this year, including sevens Olympic gold medallist Vatemo Ravouvou and Fiji Warriors star Cyril Reece.It is also likely that Fiji have aspirations to join Super Rugby, although no firm timeline or proposal is in place for such a plan, with the future structure of Super Rugby yet to be determined. Argentina's Pampas played in South Africa's equivalent domestic competition for three seasons before joining the Pacific Rugby Cup, where they played alongside teams from Fjii, Samoa, Tonga, Japan and Australian Super Rugby academies. are firmly established precedents. This season Argentina's Jaguares joined Super Rugby. Of all the rugby-playing Pacific Island nations, Fiji is the most natural fit for the NRC, given the large Fijian populations in Sydney and on Brisbane's outskirts.Fiji to join Australia's National Rugby Championship in 2017
Fiji will play in Australia's National Rugby Championship next year in a historic development for the talent-rich Pacific Island nation.
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@Stargazer You can see why Pulver doesn't want these players waiting five years to play for the Wallabies.
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@antipodean Yes! I wonder whether players of this new Fijian NRC team will have a clause in their contract that stipulates that they can't play for Australia/must be available to play for Fiji, or that the time played for this team doesn't count towards the required 3 year residency period. Or something along that line ...
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@NTA said in Aussie Rugby in general - but NRC:
The comp only runs for a couple of months - with Fiji included, will be 9 teams, so 8 rounds + finals.
Wonder where they'll be based?
If they base them out of Sydney, in the southwest area around Canterbury seems to have a good Fijian community.
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both good and bad for Fiji me thnks
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@ACT-Crusader said in Aussie Rugby in general - but NRC:
@NTA said in Aussie Rugby in general - but NRC:
The comp only runs for a couple of months - with Fiji included, will be 9 teams, so 8 rounds + finals.
Wonder where they'll be based?
If they base them out of Sydney, in the southwest area around Canterbury seems to have a good Fijian community.
According to this:
ARU boss Bill Pulver says Fijian rugby players no longer have to leave homeland to pursue career
ARU boss: NRC allows Fijians to forge career at home
The island nation will play all of their home matches in Fiji and host each of the eight Australia teams over two years.
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Perth Spirit (who beat Sydney Rays in their semi) win the Grand Final 20-16 ahead of minor premiers and Shield holders, NSW Country Eagles.
Tense match by the looks, took a while to get going from all reports, and Country finished strong.
That's the comp over for another year. Probably the best one so far. Hope it survives the political bullshit moving forward, because I think its a real value-add in terms of talent identification.
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On the bright side it looks like Australian rugby will have not one, but two championships. That's certainly one way to address decades of not having a Currie Cup or NPC.
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@antipodean said in Aussie Rugby in general - but NRC:
On the bright side it looks like Australian rugby will have not one, but two championships. That's certainly one way to address decades of not having a Currie Cup or NPC.
You mean this supposed breakaway group of the top 4 clubs in Sydney and Brisbane?
I saw that and thought "You're screaming that the ARU gives you no money, yet you have money for your own competition?"
Good luck to them. Once those clubs are out of the reservation, more money can be put into bringing the game west of the M3.
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@NTA said in Aussie Rugby in general - but NRC:
On that note: its no surprise that these initiatives originate in Western Sydney where a lot of rugby talent starts, but can't continue, due to these issues, and the ever-present shadow of loig.
... .
What, pray, is the "shadow of loig"?
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@NTA definitely the best quality competition thus far IMO.
Final was enjoyable and was definitely a lift in intensity from last year.
What will be interesting now is who is selected for next years Super rugby. The consistent filter of players getting their opportunity from the NRC into Super rugby will only improve the quality long term.
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@ACT-Crusader well, Papworth and Poidevin would disagree with us
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this is Aussie rugby in general. clowns.
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[edit] Split from http://www.thesilverfern.com/topic/1435/crusaders-vs-waratahs/ [/edit]
First comments - and all from the northern end of the ground where I was sitting with @dK and Red Beard.
Looked like decent game of rugby. Tahs weren't complete retards, even looked good at points. Jake Gordon is a good 9 and could be great.
Our defensive structure lacks proper cover. Cam Clark was caught out of position a few times, particularly that long kick that put us under pressure toward the end. But the blindside wing was too often not there, or the second last man didn't trust enough. Bench didn't add much either.
Superior ball skills by the Crusaders to finish those tries separated the teams, mostly.
Crowd was decent - anyone got a figure?
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@taniwharugby @Stargazer sorry to say lads, but Australian rugby is not going to get much stronger the way things are.
The basic question posed to me by my guests after the game: does dropping teams improve things for Aussie rugby?
No. Not really. The player pathway is too narrow. 4 separate schools comps in Sydney alone, some of which want nothing to do with the others. Each is a tiny little pissing contest in the bigger scheme of things. Some years a school is dominant on the back of a couple of good players, some years others. It all points to a lack of continuity and aspiration to build good rugby programs.
Politics gets kids into rep squads, and on to greater things. League scoop a few up. The old school ties are just happy to lord it up over other school ties when their alma mater wins. Pretty sure I've said all this before.
Basic skills don't develop in these environments. Grassroots is a disjointed mess where clubs work their arse off to get little tackers involved, then maybe lose half of what's left to schools when they hit their teens. The competitions for juniors are split up everywhere to make things
interestingeasier for parents, but then some age groups are poorly represented in a given region.Around my area the local soccer clubs have over 800 registered players across age groups and into masters. I've got 20 juniors in U6 and U7, and 30 registered seniors so far (three weeks out from season). Maybe I'll get to 60 seniors this year, if they all flood back after trials.
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The pathway for coaches is even worse. Look at our teams right now:
Waratahs: Kiwi ex-Test player in his first head coaching gig
Brumbies: Aussie ex-Test player in his first head coaching gig
Reds: Aussie ex-Test player in his first head coaching gig
Rebels: Aussie club coach in his first head coaching gig
Force: South African coach in his first head coaching gigYou can't blame everything on the coaches of course, but experience is fairly good to have in such positions. Gibson had some shit to deal with tonight in terms of rookies at 10 and 15, but the bulk of the team should have been good enough to make that a contest.
The last-man defence is Nathan Grey's area, and for a guy with a reputation as a defensive coach, he's not delivering.
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The decline of Aussie rugby is a huge shame- in the late 80's earlier 90's pre professional and then just into pro rugby Australia regularly beat us or at least were more or less on par.
Rugby in Oz was seen as a toffs game- elitist. players were university educated smart men, they were innovated and free spirited playing running rugby and leading the way tactically that even we had to try to follow them or try to combat them physically to win.
The 92 series was fantastic (we lost 2-1 but the points scored over the series was even). Before that brilliant minded players like Farr-Jones, Ellas, Campo, Eales had great success over us. Where are those type players now?? Players have got larger so Oz backline players are now becoming big PI guys -a more crash and recycle type. Oz mums are apparently against little Nick,Timmy and Jason playing the sport so less Uni educated players involved because of head injury worries to their potential Doctor/lawyer sons.
My point is now NZ leads the way in back-line play - we while also having many PI players they come through our systems and develop better than their Oz counterparts.
I think OZ decline is a shame we do need them - we do need their thinking and innovation back in the game ... but will we ever see that again - lost generations? Or am I barking up the wrong tree? -
I think to a small degree, you're looking back with rose--coloured glasses.
You're right about the 80s and 90s period BUT there were two factors at play there:
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"Perfect Storm" scenario of a crop of excellent players coming through our remarkably disjointed system. With only NSW and QLD to choose from, combinations were more defined, and usually selected (e.g. NSW front row, QLD second row, QLD halves etc).
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When professional rugby came along, we had coaches like Macqueen who had already been treating the game professionally for years in the coaching ranks. That 1999 RWC winning side, through to the 2001 Lions series win, was based on factor 1 above in terms of talent, and the coach having adopted professionalism much earlier than the rest of world rugby. We basically had to: in terms of playing pool, we were struggling even then.
The player safety thing certainly is a factor, but not as big as anyone thinks. Nobody plays rugby because it just isn't as popular as when we were winning World Cups and beating the ABs regularly.
Kids who can carry a ball and run are much more likely to earn a living from AFL and NRL, and those sports are in the public eye, and fighting in the schools and local parks for market share. Soccer is there too, but while junior numbers are huge, fans at professional level aren't.
After RWC2007 the NZRFU decided to shake up their system and fucking DO something about repeated RWC losses. That focussed everything on making the All Blacks better, and if you weren't on the train, you got left behind.
The ARU hasn't come to this realisation because its still playing politics at the highest level, and letting those politics run things at the lower levels. It isn't going to stop until the rot stops.
I am President of a club with three Grades. For each of those grades this season, we will pay:
- $550 entry fee to the Suburban (amateur) competition
- $1950 insurance
- $775 ARU Participation Fee
And that last one goes up to $1000 next year. They wanted to levy $50 per player registered, and just expect clubs to ask their players for more money.
To put that into perspective: my club is one of the cheapest going for any senior sport at $220 per season (includes shorts, socks, training shirt, polo). I heard today about a First Division club (still amateur) charging players $390. Not sure what it includes, but a fucking handjob would want to be in there for that kind of dosh.
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