Emus are officially out.
Very sad, but that is what I expect from FURA.
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Emus are officially out.
Very sad, but that is what I expect from FURA.
Remember these?
https://www.theroar.com.au/2016/03/1...of-parramatta/
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/rugby-u...11-gngtuu.html
http://www.espn.com.au/rugby/story/_...y-greg-growden
I await, with anticipation, comments from Mr Zavos, Mr Harris (wherever he may be) and Mr Growden regarding the future of rugby union in Western Sydney.
Have turned up to Grade with 40 players for 4 Grades, disgraceful
The return of Jim Hook and the removal of Julian HUxley hasn't helped
They have noone to blame back themselves in spite of having a VERY good crop of 16/17 who are playing Colts
Bret Harris is writing for The Guardian. Here's his take on Penrith:
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/20...eales-in-rugby
"
Shute Shield axe highlights why there are not more Kurtley Beales in rugby
Bret Harris
The cutting of a club like Penrith reinforces the game’s image as a game for toffs from affluent areas
In the early 1980s in a lower grade Sydney club game for Eastern Suburbs against Western Suburbs at Woollahra Oval in Rose Bay an Easts forward trod on a Wests player’s hand in a ruck and he let out a four-letter expletive. It prompted an Easts supporter with leather patches on the elbows of his tweed jacket to cry out, “come on chap, you’re not in the western suburbs now you know”.
Is that how rugby truly feels about western Sydney? It’s a pertinent question to ask following news that the Sydney Rugby Union has booted the Penrith Emus out of the Shute Shield competition.
To be sure, the Emus had become intolerably uncompetitive with ridiculously high scores recorded against teams from first grade to colts. Player safety was also a genuine concern and clearly, something had to be done. But culling the Emus was emblematic of rugby’s uneasy relationship with the working class western suburbs and perhaps explains why there are not more Kurtley Beales playing for the Wallabies.
Beale grew up in St Marys, which is part of Greater Penrith, and there are hundreds of talented kids like him running around, but they do not play rugby. If not for an Indigenous scholarship to the great Australian rugby nursery at St Joseph’s College in exclusive Hunters Hill, Beale probably would have ended up playing rugby league for the Penrith Panthers.
There are still two Shute Shield clubs in Sydney’s western suburbs – West Harbour and Parramatta – but Sydney does not end at the headwaters of the Parramatta River, but at the foothills of the Blue Mountains. Penrith is 32km west of Parramatta, which is actually the geographic centre of Sydney.
While Penrith may be situated in rugby league’s heartland, the absence of a Shute Shield club in the far west of Sydney is a wasted opportunity for rugby. One of the fastest-growing regional cities in Australia, Greater Penrith has a population of 196,066, which is expected to reach 223,631 by 2031. This is half of Canberra’s population of 403,468, which supports a Super Rugby franchise.
During the history of the Shute Shield clubs such as Hornsby in Sydney’s north and Drummoyne in the inner-west have come and gone. Even mighty Sydney University spent time in the old Sydney second division. But the cutting of a club like Penrith reinforces rugby’s image as a game for private school toffs from the affluent suburbs of Sydney’s north shore and eastern suburbs.
There is a sense that the demographics of western Sydney do not fit with rugby’s traditional supporter base and that it is not really a rugby area, but if rugby is to succeed as a modern professional sport it needs to be truly inclusive. If Australian rugby is prepared to take on the AFL in Melbourne with a Super Rugby franchise, the Rebels, surely it can try to compete with rugby league in western Sydney.
The cutting of the Emus presents rugby with an opportunity to start afresh in Penrith. If the Emus cannot be reformed, a new Shute Shield club should be created in the city. Junior rugby players in Penrith must have a senior club to aspire to. Maybe Penrith should play in the Sydney sub-district competition or in a regional NSW comp to start with, but the aim should be to restore the Emus or whoever to the Shute Shield.
Over the years many players from the western suburbs have played for the Waratahs; Wycliff Palu, Tatafu Polota-Nau and Israel Folau are among them. The talent is there.
There are ways to make it work. Former Wallabies utility back and Emus coach Julian Huxley had a plan to align the Emus with the University of Western Sydney, which has a campus at Kingswood, but it did not come to fruition. This is a good idea and should be re-visited if there are any attempts to revitalise a Penrith Shute Shield club, which must strive to represent the whole Penrith community, not just a section of it.
Penrith is a challenge, but it is also a chance. How does rugby expect the game to succeed in places like Melbourne if it cannot support a Shute Shield club in a fast growing region just 50km from Rugby Australia HQ at Moore Park?"
That is the most coherent article he has put out in a while. There is a picture on the RA website of the Gordon and Penrith players linking arms in a huddle recently. The players are the forgotten people in all of this including those of other clubs who have had their results and point tallies expunged from the records.
Gordon are also struggling and they are based in Australian Rugby's biggest nursery in terms of juniors (which has been that way for a while). What have the SJRU, NSWRU and SRU done about it? Sweet f..k all that's what. There was a story out a few years of a former Wallaby and Waratah pulling his son out of Lindfield juniors as it wasn't safe. The recent weight and height grading came in too late for a numbers of those boys who are now lost to the game. Gordon has only one player aligned to the Waratahs which is frankly ridiculous. Nick Phipps' family has a history with the club going back to the days when they were the strongest club in Sydney and yet he is aligned to Sydney Uni. Why didn't the Tahs send him back to Gordon when he came home from the Rebels? The same goes with Berrick Barnes and Israel Folau when they joined. Barnes should have been sent to Gordon and Folau to Penrith not bloody Sydney Uni.
People bang on about the next Kurtley Beale's but where are the next Jack Dempsey, Stirling Mortlock, Col Windon, Trevor Allen, etc are going to come from?
Pappy tries to explain it and covers his backside
http://2smsupernetwork.com/rugby-syd...-penrith-emus/
I reckon we might have found a NSW team for the IPRC.
Hmm....
Western Sydney Barbarians to form, play in Sydney Premiership
"NSWRU and the Sydney Rugby Union will facilitate the formation of a Western Sydney Barbarians side, which will compete in the Sydney Premiership's third grade Colts division.
The team will be made up of eligible player in the region and they will wear the NSW Gen Blue jerseys, provided by the NSWRU.
Having axed the Penrith Emus earlier this week, NSWRU CEO Andrew Hore said the move be a small step in continuing to support the region.
"At the time of making the hard decision to remove Penrith from the Sydney Premiership, the Sydney Rugby Union and NSWRU were both very committed to supporting players from the Western Sydney area to continue to be involved in rugby," Hore said.
"This is just one way for us to allow players in the area to stay involved in our game, but it is by no means the only steps we will be taking to support and grow rugby in Western Sydney.
"We are working with all stakeholders, including SRU and Rugby Australia, to look at ways to develop rugby in Western Sydney."
The first Western Sydney Barbarians match will be this Saturday against Eastern Suburbs at Lidcombe Park."
Somebody said at the end " Money they (read RA) are spending in Melbourne, move some of it out there"
At last the media in Sydney, might be beginning to realise where rugby's money is going. ( thanks to the investigative work of Alison and Nick Taylor from right here in Perth.).
Western Sydney Rebels! You know it makes sense! Where's Spiro?