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The Rebels, if I remember correctly, were allowed up to 10 foreign players in their first year, 8 in their second, 6 in their third, etc. I don't know how many of the foreign players had to be marquee or development (5 & 5?).
I'm not sure if they used all 10 spots in their first year, but certainly in their 1st season they had Somerville, Robinson, MacDonald, Delve, Lipman, Du Plessis & Cipriani (pretty sure not all are marquees). They seem to have 6 foreign players this year (Robinson, Horie, Delve, Fuglistaller, King & Woodward).
Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon
Bringing in more imports is not what the Force needs for long term stability and success. We've been bringing in sub standard FDPs for too long now. It hasn't helped us yet and won't help us in the future. We seem too focused on plugging gaps in our roster with players looking for a last ditch contract instead of looking for better young talent within Australia. Getting back our Academy funding and letting us develop our own players is the best thing the ARU could do for the Force. For as little as $350 000 a year we could have a potential production line of future talent. There is plenty of talent starting to come through junior rugby in WA. We just need a better academy structure to harness it.
Next years squad should have Longbum, DHP, Godwin, Holmes, Burton, Lacey and Hoskins as WA bred players.
At Kala there is Pereira, Birch and Kohinga who are there abouts. Surely there's a few more around the clubs who are in the same boat.
There are 3 types of people in this world, those that can count and those that can't
Having the academy is well and good, but they need somewhere to play as well. Club rugby is great to a point, but they then need a regular game at a higher level to bridge the gap. We can't just throw them all straight into Super rugby - it'd be a bit like trying to scramble eggs with an oxy torch. The ARU doesn't look like it's going to do anything sensible - in any case, they'd be more than happy with the status quo where we pay for them to go play in Sydney. If we want to keep a number of developing players here, we need to find something (or a series of somethings) for a Spirit/Gold team to do.
Cheap fix for the ARU to throw more development players into the mix where if they're any good they can offer a top up contract for Wallaby selection rather than commit funds to an academy. To get a decent academy going is going to take corporate dollars. Corporate ain't going to pay for a few pre-Force warm up games which leads back to a national competition. Maybe they'll get this up and going as part of developing local talent under Ben Whitaker but whether an academy in Perth is considered sustainable remains to be seen. Seems like all the money is going into 7's. maybe the ARU see a twenty20 style state comp in their future?
Rugby and sex are the only things you can enjoy without being good at them
Yeah, that's what sh*ts me about it. They tell the Force that they are allowed to go find players from other countries, but only developing ones under the salary cap because that doesn't cost them anything or threaten the status quo. But they don't do anything about actual development of players, or about addressing the massive discrepancy in wages between teams.
They talk about a development comp, but then pick one that won't and can't ever be sustainable. They'll expect the Super teams to pick up the bills, two teams will claim it is too expensive and they'll shut down again telling themselves they've again proven it can't be done. It is not leadership; it is technically management, but not one that uses its whole arse.
The ARU is in huge debt so I don't imagine we'll see anything that means spending a lot of money. It sucks donkeys', but that's the reality of the situation.
Proudly Western Australian; Proudly supporting Western Australian rugby
There was a report somewhere last week (possibly The Australian) that Pulver was considering ditching the two national academies to fund his 'Super B' competition.
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Here is a what if?
If the Force had an academy and the guys not playing that week were to be playing played in the WA comp as a WF team (rather than split amongst all the teams that don't really want them).
Could this help and let the clubs keep their own identity ?
May the FORCE be with you!
Can't imagine the clubs being too keen on this. get the same old chestnut of diluting the local competition etc... pretty much like the AFL ballet guys have been saying this year with the WAFL. you'd have a strong club and then the other Pindan league clubs will head to NZ to fill up the spaces to compete giving us a more lopsided count on locals here. Maybe someone can tell Force there are teams actually playing outside the Western Suburb purple circle and they could spread their players around more to make the overall competition more competitive. could even do something super radical like tell them that there are juniors that don't play at britannia and they could possibly think about going north or south and developing them as well!
Rugby and sex are the only things you can enjoy without being good at them
Well you'd seem to be better placed if that's the case, Beige. I don't recall it. What I do recall is that the local comp just about died on it's knees after News Ltd put the Reds to the sword and both they and the ARL stopped supportimg the WARL.
I'm a little more hopeful than some others seem to be that Bill Pulver is dinkum about a "reserve grade" competition. Hopefully he won't persist with his crazy ideas on law modifications.
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Which is why I felt safe making a non comment about Perth Mungos.
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