Perth Spirit Under Threat

[AndyS]

Well, I can't see us making A-grade semi-pro, although it was interesting watching the semi and final after the ARC last year - a recently arrived pom colleague that attended was blown away by the standard and observed that in England the same level would be fully professional.

So...how about a fully professional WA development side? Send them to Europe and Asia to play national teams - WA v Georgia anyone?

[GIGS20]

A good idea AndyS, but it still limits itself to a very small pool of talent. I would think a competition, at state level, run at a semi-pro level would be the go. There is a high likelihood of gaining some sponsorship, teams could get sponsors. Possibly a regional series (north South East and West), making use of the influx of high quality rugby immigrants we're getting hoping for a berth in the Force. If you give them the opportunity of a small contract with a regional team, entry in train on squads etc and the chance to go from there to the Force Academy (or even make the academy one of the teams) there is a definite option there!

[AndyS]

What I was thinking was that between the Wallabies, A's and the state team, you'd have a pool of maybe 50 players playing around the S14 level or above for the bulk of the year. I considered a club option, but reckon you'd need five or six teams for it to have any real meaning. Effectively you'd be spreading our one ARC team very thin and trying to support all of them on the same weak support base (although you'd hope that would improve). It also assumes you could get that many players prepared to largely give up work to train at a near professional level, otherwise the competition would be a bit above club but still a very long way from S14.