Aussie Pro Rugby
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Contract freeze lift 'no panacea' but a positive step: RUPA
Australia’s Super Rugby players have welcomed a lift on a national contracting moratorium, but Rugby Union Players’ Association (RUPA) boss Ross Xenos says it’s not a silver bullet for long-term anxiety. The ARU and RUPA had agreed on a contracting freeze, believed to have started in February while the Super Rugby saga played out, but with European contracting time closing and teams no clearer on their future, that has been thawed. Should the Force or the Rebels be cut in 2018, existing player contracts would be honoured, whether that player agrees to move to a new team or stay put, regardless of whether there’s a Super Rugby franchise there. Xenos said while it wasn’t a perfect solution, with no more certainty on which teams would be in Super Rugby in 2018, it was a step forward. -
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State of my club: we've been released from playing First Grade in our Division. Means we play 2s and 3s each week. Very unusual but the stipulation on other clubs is to rest legit First Grade players.
So it'll be slightly easier, but we're still up against it. At least my old blokes still get a trot against a measured opposition in Thirsty Thirds.
Only 8 weeks to go in this shitty season.
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Pulver survives and an Aussie Super Rugby moving to 4 teams is confirmed
"There were three topics on the agenda at ARU HQ on Tuesday.
The first was whether it is in Australia’s best interests to have five Super Rugby teams until 2020, the second whether the ARU should reconsider its decision to axe a team and the third whether it should create a Super Rugby commission to help govern that aspect of the game.
Clyne said the first two motions were defeated and the third was upheld, meaning the commission will be created with details yet to be confirmed."
Bill Pulver survives ARU EGM and four team Super Rugby future is confirmed
Pulver survives, four team future confirmed
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@KiwiMurph That's unsurprising; they literally can't afford five teams. The quality of the product is a nice side issue that's permitted this debate to exist.
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@antipodean I agree. Its the only way forward. I understand Pulver's contract isnt too far from expiring so I imagine he wont be around all that much longer.
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@KiwiMurph gotta love bureaucrats having a meeting that results in them deciding that they need an extra group of bureaucrats to have more meetings.
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@NTA Fuck that is a tough time. I feel you as my club is also struggling for numbers big time, two years ago we got kicked out from the championship(to be more precise we pulled the plug before the axe came) then to go on and win div 1 last year, only to be relegated to div 2 due to being unsure if we could field 15 players per game. But now there has been some good hassle around to recruit more players and so far we have had a full XV for all games.
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@reprobate said in Aussie Rugby in general:
@KiwiMurph gotta love bureaucrats having a meeting that results in them deciding that they need an extra group of bureaucrats to have more meetings.
I have it on good authority that the Committee responsible for Sub-Committees will get increased budget is required to fund its own Sub-Committee.
This newly-formed Sub-Committee of the Committee for Sub-Committees will take on the lesser duties of the Sub-Committee Committee and allow the Sub-Committee Committee to focus more properly on the Sub-Committees requiring more focus.
The next meeting of the Committee for Sub-Committees is on Thursday week, while the new Sub-Committee of the Committee for Sub-Committees meets every third Tuesday and second Wednesday. This is to avoid a clash of the meeting of the Committee for Managing Committees.
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Following on from Nick's club issues, I can see that this is being replicated across many of the Rugby Clubs in Sydney.
My club, in Sydney's upper north shore, is now struggling to get players to turn out for most grades including Golden Oldies which I play. Where once the club had enough kids and teens for two or more teams for many of the age groups, there are barely enough kids for one team now.
At GO's we are struggling to get a full team each fortnight for game days and most often we are scratching for players from other clubs to get a full 15 on the field whereas only a few years ago, we'd have a full team plus another 6 - 10 players on the sidelines waiting for their turn to get on the paddock.
We see this across most of the teams we play in GO's. Seldom does a side get 15+ to turn out for a match or gala day and instead most of the 15 that line up for a game are a hybrid of two or more teams.
Sure there are some clubs out there in Sydney that will always be traditionally strong, Mosman for one which my son used to play for, but many of the more borderline clubs that are in areas where young players are being lured away from Rugby by Soccer and AFL are really struggling for players and supporters.
This is the big issue that the ARU is not really addressing. -
Could be off mark here, but I think the safety aspect is becoming a massive factor for all age groups and that's reflected in lack of participation. Let's face it, this is a sport where there is a very good chance of you getting a serious or semi-serious injury. I'll bet all of us who played the game for a decent period have a list of injury stories.
For the young kids, a nervous parent isn't going to be any less nervous by the fact that there's a paramedic on permanent standby.
When I was a kid we would play full on tackle in the yard, oval or wherever. If there was a lot of rain, wet weather footy was a must. No mouthguards, no adults nothing. I can't see that happening now. The council would freak out if they even heard it was happening.
Ironically though the game is probably much safer than it ever has been.
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RS I think it's also affecting the other end of the game too. It's totally anecdotal, but I just don't see many blokes above the age of 30 lacing up the boots any more. Maybe it's the rise of non-contact sports like touch/oztag or the shift in the nature of work in places like Sydney (more and more white collar).
I think there is just a society-wide move away from heavy contact sports like rugby.
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@barbarian said in Aussie Rugby in general:
or the shift in the nature of work in places like Sydney (more and more white collar).
I have the exact opposite: cannot find young, white collar players like some clubs can. These are the guys with Saturdays free.
Instead I've got blokes turning up 5 minutes before kickoff due to work shifts. And if they're shift workers, getting them to both training and game day is a hell of a juggling act.
Its desperate out here to the point Blacktown ran three guys with ankle bracelets against our 2s!
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Going back close to 15 years now but i played junior rugby for Newport on the Northern beaches. Juniors went up to under 17s and from memory our u15/u16/u17 teams were all very different each year with large movements of players coming and going usually based on which private school they went to. Two mates and I took the year after u17s off to concentrate on the final year of highschool but wanted to play the next year in colts(u21s) problem was that there wasno colts team because we were pretty much the only 3 players in that age range. We did go and sit on the bench of one game, against liverpool i think, which took about 2hrs in traffic to get to and was made up of 100kg + islanders who just wanted to fight and smash people. It didn't seem worth it so that was the point 3x rugby careers ended. As far as i know one of those mates ended up playing Aussie rules and i stuck to Cricket.
I did have ideas of playing in the years since but by that time i was working a physical job which i wouldn't have been able to do if i got injured playing rugby so it never happened.By comparison the cricket club i played for was one of the bigger and more successful ones around in the park cricket comp. we would have up to 7 teams across the grades some years. Having said that there were definitely times where a certain team would struggle for numbers and the club treasurer was always chasing unpaid fees.
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@NTA said in Aussie Rugby in general:
@barbarian said in Aussie Rugby in general:
or the shift in the nature of work in places like Sydney (more and more white collar).
I have the exact opposite: cannot find young, white collar players like some clubs can. These are the guys with Saturdays free.
Instead I've got blokes turning up 5 minutes before kickoff due to work shifts. And if they're shift workers, getting them to both training and game day is a hell of a juggling act.
Its desperate out here to the point Blacktown ran three guys with ankle bracelets against our 2s!
Bloody hell, things are so rough they need to bring in league players!
