Almost tempted to say they're scrapping the NRC just 'cause the Force won it!!!
:sarcasm:
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Almost tempted to say they're scrapping the NRC just 'cause the Force won it!!!
:sarcasm:
Hopefully it's going to be a force/Fiji final this year and the winner can keep their trophy.
It's the most expensive thing ra has put into nrc apart from the rising
My Guess is that it will not be a full blown league, but a Cup or Shorten league that would be played in the same Period the NRC is played now. I dont see how RA hasnt learnt from Super rugby and lack of "tribalisim" that they always harp on about. A game between melbourne/penrith and Easts in brisbane is hardly going to have tribalisim?
if they play it in the same way as the FFA cup in soccer does , and includes Perth Gold players (ie no pro force guys) in it could work out alright.
But why would they include Perth? Assuming a 32 team competition (5 rounds) and budgeting for the Perth team to reach the final, that requires 5 rounds of someone making the flight across the Nullarbor.
Using even the cheapest flights ($200 each way) then a travelling party of 30 (23 players, plus coaches, etc) would cost $12,000, plus hotels (say $15,000 per trip). For 5 rounds, that's $75,000.
Or they could save that money by simply ignoring anything west of Canberra/Melbourne (because neither Adelaide nor Darwin will get a side entered, either). So the National Club Cup the only covers the eastern 25% of the country.
Be funny if Canberra and Victoria said "Thanks, but if we only have one team you can have the Vikings and Rebels as now...don't want to disrupt our club comp". Even funnier if Q'ld said the same and only put up the existing two teams...
Wonder how many Sydney amateur club players might decide they had better ways to spend a weekend?
When they should have come up with a combined club concept in the 80s, they didn't. Now they're trying to shoe-horn it in when the horse has already bolted.
I have to say, it is this sort of stuff that makes me wish someone had decided a couple of years ago to properly fund a Future Falcons. Maybe even a Future Something or other in Newcastle, although that may be a bit too local to the dead heart of rugby. But even one might have made an NRC sans Sydney a real option.
Exactly that was the plan when they went to Canberra, Newcastle and Penrith went in to the Shute Shield. They were expected to field I think at least five grades in seniors and three in colts. To field those numbers would have destroyed the likes of Uni, Royals, Wests, Easts, etc. Vikings might have had the money but no players to field their squads.
Had that have been properly put forward Illawarra next cab off the rank and then maybe chat to the QRU about potential participation.
Not even the NSWRL expected that many senior grades and colts side for participation in the Winfield Cup.
More from the weekend on what these muppets are planning
Attachment 5524
Care factor zero.