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Sydney clubs will have their funding cut if they pay players because the Australian Rugby Union plans to return club rugby to its amateur days.
Under watershed reforms being considered while top club teams Sydney University and Eastwood prepare to play in the Shute Shield grand final this weekend, the ARU wants to make its funding levels of about $60,000 for each premier club contingent on stamping out player payments, which can be up to $10,000 a season.
The ARU is also poised to formalise the rights of Super Rugby franchises to prevent contracted players from returning to their Sydney and Brisbane clubs at any point during or after the Super season.
The proposed changes are part of a broader plan to build Australia's so-called third tier around a ''national club championship'' that would run from August to October, after the end of the premier club competitions.
It appears the ARU wants to try once more to form its own iteration of New Zealand's ITM Cup and South Africa's Currie Cup but is not looking at the Sydney and Brisbane club sides as the automatic basis of the proposed competition.
Fairfax Media understands the ARU is considering fielding teams from the top echelon of club rugby plus an amalgamation of others, based around regions and available infrastructure.
ARU boss Bill Pulver and his general manager of development, Ben Whitaker, will meet with the Sydney club presidents on Wednesday to discuss the proposals. But the reforms are already causing waves in clubland; several are divided over player payments, which vary wildly, but most agree over player availability.
Sydney clubs say they continue to provide the bulk of Australia's Super Rugby playing stocks and should not lose out in their local competitions.
''We just think it's really important that ultimately clubs in Sydney have access to players they've been nurturing since they were seven years old,'' Manly president David Begg said. ''The system being proposed is effectively asking Sydney clubs to support national clubs and franchises where players don't have the same level of connectivity as they do with the clubs that developed them.''
The Brumbies have quarantined their players for the past two seasons and the Rebels and Force have been moving into that regimen. The ARU believes the key to building successful franchises and depth in the country's playing stocks is to give all Super Rugby teams a legitimate pathway to develop their own players.
Randwick president Bob Dwyer said there was a genuine desire on the part of club presidents to work constructively with the ARU for the betterment of rugby but that the contribution of the Sydney competition should not be overlooked.
''It continues to provide the bulk of Super Rugby players and if you add in Queensland club rugby, then easily the vast majority of players come from those competitions,'' Dwyer said. ''No one knew who [Manly player] Michael Hooper was three years ago and he was a star in his first season at the Brumbies and in the Wallabies two seasons later.''
The ARU's proposal includes giving each Super Rugby team an academy of up to 15 players on about $10,000 a year. Academy development teams would play in a competition at the start of the regular Super Rugby season.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-union/un...#ixzz2eRsFSRrI
OH MY GOD how much do I like that idea!!!!!!!!
C'mon the![]()
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It is so good to see a national competition back on the radar. I will wait until the final structure becomes clear (there is a lot of politics to get through first) before junping on the bandwagon or setting fire to it.
Sounds good ATM by the time it gets though all the BS from all th eastern clubs it will probably be unrecognisable. lets hope Pulver sticks to his guns.
May the FORCE be with you!
It's not going to work like that.
It will involve second tier Force players, EPS and Academy with supplementation from local club playing stocks. Whether they play under the Perth Gold brand or another I'm not sure.
I agree snob I like it currently as Club football gets $60,000 dollars and exists purely to develop the grassroots of the game to a point where players can compete in a national competition.
Judging by the Randwick reaction they would want to suggest only a few modificatons
Multiply the money by a factor of 100
the national competition to be named the Shute Shield and run in Sydney
Reverse the availability requirement so that Club rugby players who might be selected for the Wallabies need to get approval from their club president three weeks in advance.
Apart from that, the same system entirely.
C'mon the![]()
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Imagine it I certainly can! I would imagine the Nedlands team would read something like:
1. Pek Cowan
2. Nathan Charles
3. Salesi Manu
4. Sam Wykes
5. Hugh McMeniman
6. Matt Hodgson (c)
7.Chris Alcock
8. Ben McCalman
9. Ian Prior
10. Zack Holmes
11. Luke Morahan
12. Kyle Godwin
13. Junior Rasolea
14. Dane Haylett-Petty
15. Jayden Hayward
After all, they aren't all just going to sit around twiddling their thumbs from August to October, and one of the primary purposes of any competition in that space is to keep possible Wallabies in good nick. I'd imagine they'll go into the comp with a pretty good win behind them too...
Would they need dispensation though???
80 Minutes, 15 Positions, No Protection, Wanna Ruck?
Ruck Me, Maul Me, Make Me Scrum!
Education is Important, but Rugby is Importanter!
I'm reading the idea is to develop club players for the Super Rugby teams, from what I have read in the OP the clubs will not be permitted to use current WF players as these will now be ring fenced for the Super Rugby tournament only.
So that means if it's a club tournament, after the premier grade season finish, one of two things:
1, The winners enter a national club contest for bragging rights as being the best Club in Australia, whilst at the same time showcasing their players that got them there to the Super Rugby Scouts for next season.
2, The Unions will built a team out of the best players from it's competition and they will play in a comp as above.
If either is being used, whilst 2 has the potential to create better rugby, 1 will see teams who have gelled enough to win their own comps, and have the mentality to fight for each other against the others, and would probably pull more support in as they already have the fans of that club, and most local rugby supporters would support their comps team in this new format, as it will be wanting their comp to be recognised as being as good as, if not better than Sydney or Brisbane.
Bit like Argentina in TRC, still getting beat, but we all know they will beat one of the teams soon (unfortunately probably very soon!), so as they say:
'If you build it, they will come!'.
$10 000 is a good sweetener for aspiring academy players. Will help with the personal costs involved in travelling from Joondalup or Rocky to academy. Hopefully we will develop regional academies in a 2nd tier structure, Northeast, Northwest, SouthEast, Southewest for example, to involve more 15 - 18 yr olds in these programs.
There are 3 types of people in this world, those that can count and those that can't
But will the powerhouse ES clubs be able to pay if their ARU grants are curtailed?
I heard Brett Papworth on Sydney radio today . He said he was going to a meeting tonight about how things will operate next year. He was bleating on about how much money was being wasted running franchises in Perth and Melbourne rather than investing in the Rugby heartland of NSW. Obviously not happy. He used his position as a radio/TV presenter to put this view without mentioning the minor detail that he is the president of Eastwood RFC. Nor did he mention how much it costs to telecast the Shute Shield. Part of which he would collect as an expert commentator.
I hope Pulver keeps pushing these drips into commercial reality and away from their Sydney centric navel gazing.
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