Force players in the Shute Shield

[TOCC]

Fresh format indeed if it happens, the one and only season was crap. Although personally I've already got my state side, lets beef up the local comp. If you don't play for the wallabies then its club rugby for you. It shouldn't be considered a negative thing, it's not a bad thing going to play club rugby.

agreed, the concept is good, but the format was shocking, you cant alienate the QLD and NSW clubs and expect to be successful.

It is good to see the S14 players back in the local comp, they are having a massive effect on the QLD comp, teams have upwards of 5 S14 players in there side.

[welshrugbyfan]

agreed, the concept is good, but the format was shocking, you cant alienate the QLD and NSW clubs and expect to be successful.

It is good to see the S14 players back in the local comp, they are having a massive effect on the QLD comp, teams have upwards of 5 S14 players in there side.

For sure there's a bit of a different buzz on Saturdays when the Force boys were playing. They need loyalty to a club side, the more the sport grows here and players from club sides end up in the Force the better, it'll make the transition back to club rugby better for everyone. That is if they don't make the wallabies themselves.

Last year there was still a bit of "ooh look they play for the force" stares on match day. I for one told them how good it was to see them playing club games. Pelesasa in a roo dog top was great to see. Photos need to be taken and put up in club rooms.

[Burgs]

So without having all of the NSW and of the Qld Clubs as individual entities how do you achieve that TOCC?
The process may have been wrong but the result would have been the same, there has to be winners and losers to make it a viable sized comp.
Won't get far debating the past formats' merits I guess, but I am at a loss as to what should be different in a new format?

[Burgs]

Wonder if Kennedy is on Mitch's radar?

Pivot who changed codes in a league of his own for Rats

Josh Rakic | July 5, 2009

FORCED out of the NRL's Toyota Cup competition because he was too old, Warringah five-eighth John Kennedy thumbed his nose at former club St George Illawarra with a two-try haul in the Rats' thrilling 31-26 win over Gordon yesterday.

The star-studded visitors, featuring six players with Super 14 experience to Gordon's zero, survived a spirited second-half comeback from the home side.

Western Force-bound halfback Brett Sheehan and Brumbies No.12 Josh Holmes were a class above their opponents, but 21-year-old rookie Kennedy was the stand-out.

The diminutive playmaker was in everything and finished off the most spectacular try of the match, crossing next to the sticks after backing up a Hugh Pyle intercept from his own 22.

The thrilling try was typical of the first half, Warringah capitalising on lazy Gordon play around the breakdown and beating the opposition to the ball on almost every occasion.

After the home side bombed their third try-scoring opportunity of the half, and already down 10-nil, Pyle intercepted the ball and sprinted 15 metres before off-loading to Luke Holmes, who in turn was supported by Dylan Smouha, throwing the final pass for Kennedy.

Sheehan converted the try, Kennedy's second, to give Warringah a 17-nil lead with 12 minutes remaining in the half.

Josh Holmes was dangerous from the opening whistle, busting the home side's defence to set up Kennedy for the first try of the match at just the fifth minute.

Rats had all the possession, and with Sheehan's service and Kennedy's tenacity creating havoc left and right, Gordon were made to look anything but a top-three side.

Wing Jordon Macey benefited from a beautiful Sheehan cut-out ball to score the visitors' second try at the 11th minute and put the lead out to 10-nil. But the score blew out to 24-nil by half-time when Holmes regathered a Sheehan chip-kick on the left flank to touch down.

Gordon looked dangerous when attacking, but simple handling errors and questionable service from the breakdown stunted first-half opportunities.

Five-eighth Josh Keil and No.8 Chris Alcock looked most likely, and it took 53 minutes before the latter notched the home side's first point after a lengthy phase on the Rats' line. A Dave Harvey conversion got the home side within 17.

For the next 25 minutes it was all Gordon, the home side reverting to the structured style that has made them one of Premier Rugby's most consistent teams. Alcock and Keil were simply outstanding.

Gordon crossed twice to make the scores at 24-21 with just 11 minutes left on the clock.

But Holmes and Sheehan combined in the 77th for the big No.12 to blitz the defence and sprint 40 metres to seal the match.

Gordon crossed for a consolation try in the last minute.

[jargan83]

FORCED out of the NRL's Toyota Cup competition because he was too old, Warringah five-eighth John Kennedy thumbed his nose at former club St George Illawarra with a two-try haul in the Rats' thrilling 31-26 win over Gordon yesterday.

I'm fairly certain the St George Illawarra are fairly happy with Jamie Soward at the moment

[TOCC]

So without having all of the NSW and of the Qld Clubs as individual entities how do you achieve that TOCC?
The process may have been wrong but the result would have been the same, there has to be winners and losers to make it a viable sized comp.
Won't get far debating the past formats' merits I guess, but I am at a loss as to what should be different in a new format?

well i can speak for all the clubs, but im sure they all have there own ideas and would appreciate the chance to actually have input

You could do something like the top 2 teams in the QLD comp and top 3 teams in the NSW comp progress through to a ARC which includes teams from WA, ACT and VIC. Obviously there is flaws in that as well, the thing is that in both NSW and QLD there are some very powerful clubs that have strong juniors and corporate support already, this needs to be harnessed.

Sunnybank rings a bell in Brisbane, its the largest in QLD for juniors and its pokies rake in $millions every year, GPS on the North Side of Brisbane is quite powerful as well, Sydney has its fare share of wealthy and strong clubs, why dont they use these foundations to build a national club comp.

Its how the AFL and NRL were built, theres no reason it couldnt work for rugby as well.

Obviously some clubs will miss out, but at the end of the day it will be because they didnt have strong enough depth or enough money, cant really argue with that.

[AndyS]

Yeah, I can just see it - throw Gold Coast and Brothers in there for year one and see how strong the rest of the teams are once all the players finish playing musical chairs. I'm sure all the supporters of the other clubs will get behind them too.

[James]

Wonder if Kennedy is on Mitch's radar?

Playing at Warringah he definitely gets a lot of time with other Force players. The Force has been looking into a lot of players in the SS recently. Adam D'Arcy from Manly is supposed to be coming over but I don't know how true that one is. Good catch though.

[Working Class]

For any National Comp with existing clubs participating their will be a need for some to fall from by the wayside. The things is how do you do that without alienating the supporters. You can't do away with at least one of the Western Sydney Clubs. And a team like University who should not have anything to do with any sort of National Comp will oppose their relegation. Plus 2 from Brisbane and # from Sydney won't work. Here's how I see it.

- Randwick - representing Eastern Suburbs.

- Manly/Warringah - Northern Beaches

- Western Sydney - Amalgamation of Parramatta and Penrith ( This one could happen)

-Eastwood - Northwest Suburbs

- Souths - Southern Suburbs and Sutherland Shire

- Gold Coast - Gold Coast and surrounding areas including Far North NSW

- Brisbane - All of Brisbane and Surrounding areas.

- Sunshine Coast - Sunshine Coast and Surrounding areas

- North Queensland - pretty obvious

- Perth - All of Wa - door left open for a second WA side in the future.

- Melbourne - All of Victoria. Again second Vic side in future.

- Adelaide - All of SA.

- Canberra - ACT and Southern NSW.

- Hunter - Everything North and West of Sydney.

A 14 team national club championship with all the remaining Sydney, Brisbane . Perth, Melbourne, Adelaide and country sides feeding into their local/affiliated club.

[TOCC]

Yeah, I can just see it - throw Gold Coast and Brothers in there for year one and see how strong the rest of the teams are once all the players finish playing musical chairs. I'm sure all the supporters of the other clubs will get behind them too.

It promotes clubs to be more innovative so they can achieve the next level, its the same as every other promotion/relegation comp elsewhere in the world.

For any National Comp with existing clubs participating their will be a need for some to fall from by the wayside. The things is how do you do that without alienating the supporters. You can't do away with at least one of the Western Sydney Clubs. And a team like University who should not have anything to do with any sort of National Comp will oppose their relegation. Plus 2 from Brisbane and # from Sydney won't work. Here's how I see it.

- Randwick - representing Eastern Suburbs.

- Manly/Warringah - Northern Beaches

- Western Sydney - Amalgamation of Parramatta and Penrith ( This one could happen)

-Eastwood - Northwest Suburbs

- Souths - Southern Suburbs and Sutherland Shire

- Gold Coast - Gold Coast and surrounding areas including Far North NSW

- Brisbane - All of Brisbane and Surrounding areas.

- Sunshine Coast - Sunshine Coast and Surrounding areas

- North Queensland - pretty obvious

- Perth - All of Wa - door left open for a second WA side in the future.

- Melbourne - All of Victoria. Again second Vic side in future.

- Adelaide - All of SA.

- Canberra - ACT and Southern NSW.

- Hunter - Everything North and West of Sydney.

A 14 team national club championship with all the remaining Sydney, Brisbane . Perth, Melbourne, Adelaide and country sides feeding into their local/affiliated club.

Cant say that would work for QLD, the thing is that there are individual clubs in Brisbane with more power(money & players) then the collective Sunshine Coast or North QLD region, Sunshine Coast are included in the QLD Comp as a token gesture, Nth QLD were flogged by the Brisbane clubs in the recent state championship.

You seem to have put a bit of thought into the Sydney teams, but not so much the Brisbane teams. You cant paint all the Brisbane clubs with the same brush, they might not be as vocal or powerful as the Sydney clubs, but the political weight that they carry is still quite high. Alienating them will ensure this comp fails again.

[Burgs]

I hate it when you do a long post and then the internet crashes as you post it

Basically saying the problems I see with the other options are:
I don't believe that Australia can sustain a comp with a high enough skill base over 14 teams when NZ can't, they are reverting to a 10 team comp over the next couple of seasons. 14 equals 450 players if 30 man Squads including the Wallabies.

I also believe an all or nothing relegation system would be doomed to fail as sponsors would see it as too risky to commit to the lower teams for multiple seasons as required to create stability. If there was two tier format it may alleviate that problem but would remain problematic. Despite ups and downs of clubs over the years the VFL/AFL has basically stuck by the teams as allocated or moved them, adapting as they go. They haven't shut the entire comp every time there is a problem club.

To successfully form a National Comp you are going to have to have teams in Canberra, Melbourne and Perth, that is a given, so that leaves 5 (in a 8 team comp), 7 (10) or 9 (12) teams to allocate amongst NSW and Qld. Many Clubs will inevitably miss out, alienating those who support those clubs. Having regionalised representative teams is the only logical system that can work.

Personally I believe there was little wrong with the existing format that a few checked ego's and some tweaking over successive seasons couldn't have sorted out. I doubt that anyone under 15 could care less about the politics and just want teams to support. Likewise, inspite of the administrators of the vocal Clubs, players just want to play and, as demonstrated in the call for expressions of interest for consideration of selection for the ARC, there is no shortage of keen players wanting the opportunity.
Given the opportunity I have no doubt the hybrid regional teams would have developed a passionate following.

[James]

There really just isn't the money to support more than 8 teams. Even if there was the competition would take too long- with the expanded S15 we'd be looking at a comp for only around August/September/October. Like Burgs says the Canberra/Melbourne/Perth/2 QLD/3 NSW is the best way to do it if tweaked a little better. Pick smaller grounds to host matches to reduce costs and make it semi-professional rather than paying everyone. Relegation is probably unnecessary as it can be a hassle and young stars could be 'encouraged' to join a weaker team to get more game time. If you made a few changes and didn't take any of the NSW/QLD clubland shit of poor financial management you wouldn't lose $5 mil a season you could stabilise it after a few years at around $1 or 2 million. If it is successful and it improves the quality of our S14 squads then isn't it worth it as that 1 or 2 million will be made up by attendance to S14 games (as the teams will be winning) and hopefully attendance to Wallabies games (as they too will be winning more often).

[GIGS20]

so why the hell can't John O'Neill see it, it's a purely fiscal decision really.

[TOCC]

There really just isn't the money to support more than 8 teams. Even if there was the competition would take too long- with the expanded S15 we'd be looking at a comp for only around August/September/October. Like Burgs says the Canberra/Melbourne/Perth/2 QLD/3 NSW is the best way to do it if tweaked a little better. Pick smaller grounds to host matches to reduce costs and make it semi-professional rather than paying everyone. Relegation is probably unnecessary as it can be a hassle and young stars could be 'encouraged' to join a weaker team to get more game time. If you made a few changes and didn't take any of the NSW/QLD clubland shit of poor financial management you wouldn't lose $5 mil a season you could stabilise it after a few years at around $1 or 2 million. If it is successful and it improves the quality of our S14 squads then isn't it worth it as that 1 or 2 million will be made up by attendance to S14 games (as the teams will be winning) and hopefully attendance to Wallabies games (as they too will be winning more often).

you realise NSW/QLD clubland represent 90% of the rugby players in Australia, its easy to sit there in Perth and say that they need to be ignored, but they really are a massive player in all this.

When i said promotion/relegation, what i should have said is that the top 2 or 3 teams from each competition progress through to the ARC(equivelent) each year. Kind of like the A-League and the Asian Championship.

[AndyS]

So just to be clear, you are saying that any WA or ACT Wallabies not in the match squad would go back to play ARC, while the Q'ld and NSW players would likely go back to the level below (as they surely can't all be playing for the two or three top clubs)?

Personally, I don't care how they do it. For mine, the ARU shouldn't have bought into it - they should have just gone to the respective state unions, told them how many teams they were to supply and let them decide for themselves how it was going to be done. If the QRU and NSWRU wanted to play favourites, that should have been left up to them.