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This format is not new. Been successful in a number of places. 2018 and 2019 will have lots of teething issues and a Premiergrade club ( say seeded 1 ) playing against Champ club ( say seeded 12) will be expected to post a big score in Round 1. However I believe Premiergrade club seeded 8 vs club seeded 12 will be a lot closer. There is now a clear pathway for any junior joining a club to stay with his mates and his club through to 1st grade. There is incentive for clubs losing 150 to nil in 2018 to perhaps halve that loss in 2019. Clubs ending up 9 - 16 and hence Division 2 in 2018 can aspire to progressing on their own merit to Division 1 in 2019.
Is the incentive "Get yourself a Sugar Daddy fast"?
I can see it now:
Round 1 Neddies v Rocky
3rds 86 - 0
2nds 78 - 0
1sts 102 - 0
Round 10 Wests v Rocky
3rds Forfeit
2nds 122 - 0
1sts 132 - 0
Round 16 Baysie v Rocky
3rds Forfeit
2nds Forfeit
1sts 127 - 0
And the Rocky mob saying "gees that was good. Lets do it all again next year".
I am really a Palmyra troll.
Instead of instituting a pointless qualifying system why not just go with a 2 division competition with promotion and relegation?
And the clubs handing out the thrashings of 150 to nil are going to benefit from this exactly how? Are their players going to say "Gee wizz this is a beaut competition. We're going to develop our skills, fitness levels and tactical knowledge immensely by floging these other teams every week. I might even earn a professional contract!"
Or are thet going to say "If I wanted to play social grade I would have stayed home where the competition is better."
This nonsense is aimed only at getting those whining district competition teams with delusions of grandeur off the backs of rugbyWA. Nothing more.
It will reduce the overall standard of rugby in WA to a laughing stock.
Hey, RugbyWA, you don't have the responsibility of running a Super 18 franchise anymore, can't you at least concentrate on running a local comp professionally?
OK, I'm on my high horse now.
In 2006 we had 10 premiership clubs, mostly able to field teams from first grade to sixth grade.
Today we've lost the Force, The ARU is threatening to close the NRC after this season. The Force Academy will exist with no Force, merely for the purpose of channelling our best players to the East Coast to play. Twiggy Forrest's competition, if it ever gets off the ground, will not be under the control of RugbyWA. RugbyWA is left carrying an enormous legal debt to its own solicitors, let alone paying for legal costs awarded against it. It's financial position must be diabolical.
Yet with all these issues facing it, with player numbers at the stage where most clubs can't field colts, where fourth grade is an impossibility, let alone fifth or sixth grades, they want to revolutionise what has been a more or less effective competition of 10 senior clubs and experiment with an untried premier grade competition including clubs that dont even necessarily want to be there, and haven't got the player base to compete in fourth grade?
The mind boggles.
Last edited by fulvio sammut; 05-10-17 at 15:04.
Fulvio, you can bark as much as you want, the decision is made mate.
As I said in a previous post Pally is the team most at risk of losing players (current or future) due to the fact that mainly Southern Lions and Curtin will have the opportunity to have players who live close to their grounds to play there rather than travel to Pally or other prem clubs to play at that level.
Sounds like rugby wa found a way to bring pally down a peg or two to protect their mates in the west and their new friends in the south. Interesting stuff.
Or either getting their own back on Fulvio.
Two plausible conspiracy theories.
I am really a Palmyra troll.
Yungfen, I've yet to see a gourmet bypass the Beluga caviar for the polony, or a mouse eat a cat.
Yep - how many players have the goats lost because they wanted to play at a higher level. Every year a number of our top players end up at a prem club to play at a higher level. This definitely has a chance of helping to bridge the divide. It'll also get rid of all the "rocky aren't prem worthy" rubbish that gets thrown around.
If the club works hard enough to get there - they'll get there, no politics involved.
Wasn’t it Rockinghams fault they dropped out of Prem grade?