Aussie Community Rugby
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I'm hearing grim things about the Rugby scene here in Sydney, particularly the amateur ranks.
A club just up the road from us, Hawkesbury Ag College, with a history stretching back to 1891, folded after a rapid decline in the last few years. Covid hit them hard as they are part of Western Sydney Uni and recruit their Colts from the student population. However there were other factors, mostly a lack of volunteers - common story.
I've sent over 30 messages today to try and get their players to our club. Part of it is selfish to build our numbers. Part is it is to stop the bleeding for the whole code.
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Further to this: First Division clubs who could previously field 5 Grades + Colts U21 are struggling to fill their Colts quota because nobody wants to get injured before their planned European vacations.
I was contacted by someone at a Premier club about the difficulties they have getting and keeping Colts U20 from across NSW. One phone call from a big club like Randwick or Sydney Uni and all the work he put in evaporated. He reckons he's spent 200 hours on 600 phone calls just to get a squad of 40 together when he should have 60 or more.
Meanwhile the bigger clubs in Premier Land are talking about putting on a 4th Colts U20 side because they're warehousing U20 players to the shitter. That's in addition to the 4-5 Grades they've got with spares.
Why these kids pay $400-500 to sit on the fourth grade bench is beyond me. Really beyond me.
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@NTA said in Aussie Rugby:
I'm hearing grim things about the Rugby scene here in Sydney, particularly the amateur ranks.
A club just up the road from us, Hawkesbury Ag College, with a history stretching back to 1891, folded after a rapid decline in the last few years.
That's disappointing. I played against HAC in our traditional fixture which is the oldest college rivalry in Australian Rugby, dating back a century.
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@antipodean said in Aussie Rugby:
@NTA said in Aussie Rugby:
I'm hearing grim things about the Rugby scene here in Sydney, particularly the amateur ranks.
A club just up the road from us, Hawkesbury Ag College, with a history stretching back to 1891, folded after a rapid decline in the last few years.
That's disappointing. I played against HAC in our traditional fixture which is the oldest college rivalry in Australian Rugby, dating back a century.
They were basically down to the bones of their arse in terms of volunteers before Covid hit. Then a couple of coaches strip-mined some clubs in the area to win a couple of titles a few years back and the culture bombed.
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Two interesting phone calls today:
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Premier club who needed a ground to run their Colts trial in a week. Advised they'd need to get it cleared with the Eels, but Internal NTA was telling them to fuck off. When the conversation turned to the fact they were having trouble selecting 3 teams from the 80 Colts they had at training every week, Internal NTA had to be sedated.
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Competition organiser for our Union. Things were difficult in the COVID years, and our attempts as a Board to realign the Divisions into something stable for the future might just die on the hill of player apathy and volunteer burnout. It's grim.
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@NTA said in Aussie Rugby:
@voodoo said in Aussie Rugby:
@NTA boo. Kudos for all the effort you put in mate
Cheers. It doesn't seem to be getting any easier...
In the "win" column this week: I found a Team Manager. Knows nothing about rugby but just wants to get involved.
i dont remember you signing me up
@NTA said in Aussie Rugby:
I'm hearing grim things about the Rugby scene here in Sydney, particularly the amateur ranks.
A club just up the road from us, Hawkesbury Ag College, with a history stretching back to 1891, folded after a rapid decline in the last few years. Covid hit them hard as they are part of Western Sydney Uni and recruit their Colts from the student population. However there were other factors, mostly a lack of volunteers - common story.
I've sent over 30 messages today to try and get their players to our club. Part of it is selfish to build our numbers. Part is it is to stop the bleeding for the whole code.
thats really shit, honestly wold have thought there might be some more support from RA with RWC money on the horizon, they need to keep interest up
side point, committee for our club told me last nigt they were getting managers and coaches jackets with our initials etc as a present.....the same one we all ordered a month back for ourselves....looks like im not paying for beer or sausage sizzle this season!
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Some days - particularly the last month, I wonder why the fuck I'm working my arse off, running a rugby club. Recent incidents have made me (and other committee members) question our life choices.
But then, there are also days like yesterday against Sydney Irish.
They're a pretty strong group, back to 2 grades this year now that borders are open again. They humped us in reserve grade 31-7 as they were fitter than us and our lineout had no jumpers - another week where guys didn't show so we had to reshuffle trying before kick off. I started on the wing! Also our discipline was poor at critical points. Anyway flush the toilet on that.
First grade however was a fucking epic game. Irish had all the early running and our guys - mostly new to the club this year - were playing a bit of catch up. 31-7 not long after halftime.
Long story short, we get it back to 39-38 with a kick to come on the buzzer from wide out. The video tells the story...
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@NTA Good stuff mate, real pleased for you, isn't it funny how a great game can make you forget a lot of the struggles!!
Always pleased to read of this kind of game when work seems worthwhile for a change, because as I know there are enough times when it feels like you banging head on concrete wall. -
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so...very weird game of club on saturday
we were 0-3 for the season and so 1s and 2s had a big re shuffle. i manage the 2s and after 25 minutes we were 10-3 up and had just made a huge run down the right to get to their 5m again, hot on attack....their 13 then proceeded to do a proper 90's league type spear tackle on ours...i mean jordie laning on his head and scopioned over boots to face....
...our 9 who admittedly love a scrap comes in but only pushes the tackler/attemped murderer off jordie as he'd gone straight for the ball, no consideration for him injured on the floor...
...brawl ensues, we're up the other end and so thats all we see clearly, lasts a few minutes and so the coach and i start walking down to try and break it up and check on jordie, we see the physio has him sitting up and our captain charging in pulling everyone out....so we leave them too it
we see two of theirs come down and site on half way, two yellows, one for the card and one for the first person to throw punches....
...so we're on their 5m and their down to 13 and behind on the scoreboard...
....then we see our guys all start patting each other backs and the ref blows for time off and walks off.
apparently the other captain had demanded that our 9 also be binned for shoving their attempted murderer and when the ref refused they said they didn;t feel safe and so didn;t want to play....ref said fine, you forfeit....
fucking mad...good thing though we all got to go watch the womens team on the other pitch
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i'd heard their dude bragging about what a good tackle it was whilst sitting on the naughty chair so i took a bit of pleasure in getting everyone together to sing our song standing on their pitch...normally i wouldn't take a cheap shot after a win like that....but fuck em
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@antipodean body language tells me he did it and meant it 100%.
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@antipodean 100%, you dont look down at him and walk off if its an accident
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@Kiwiwomble said in Aussie Rugby:
apparently the other captain had demanded that our 9 also be binned for shoving their attempted murderer and when the ref refused they said they didn;t feel safe and so didn;t want to play....ref said fine, you forfeit....
What a muppet.
Lucky someone didn't see red (maybe 2 reds) and they want "justice"? Fuck off...
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i had forgotten the trickle down rule! just found out that because the second grade forfeited the third grade goes down as a forfeit (4 try loss) too, their 3rds had a bonus point loss but have now lost that point...ouch
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Some people think the world revolves around them. I had a club ask if our fixture in a few weeks could be played an hour earlier because they had something on after the game.
Checked with the group, no dice; the issue is an hour earlier fucks us bc of work and kids sport. So I said we'd go with the competition start times as scheduled and communicated at the start of the year (and basically since time immemorial).
Their coach gets the shits and wants to move to one of our reserved wet weather rounds. "That's in late July, and another 7 rounds away, so it might be needed for another weekend. No thanks."
Supercoach wants to go complain to the comp admin. I wished them the best.
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you have wet weather rounds?....we play in the rain
we have asked another club to swap home and away fixtures, we have a club lunch later in the season and just want a home game that week so all the old mates can come....they have said yes but only if we play on the friday night...2s and 3s at 630pm and 1s at 830pm....going to be a right arse ache to get to the other side of the city
I assume they think it will be harder for us to get a full squad over their for a friday night game
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@Kiwiwomble said in Aussie Rugby:
you have wet weather rounds?....we play in the rain
Not the Field Of Dreams, but other clubs don't have the surface (or drainage) we have
and they have to deal with Councils who refuse to invest in good drainage, therefore close grounds if a dog pisses on it.
