New look Palmyra Has Unfinsihed Business - Round 2 'Match of the Round'

[Hansie]

How do you define an 'import' There are players who move clubs, move cities, countries for a variety of reasons. While it is still amateur @ club land it would be very very difficult to control. People still need to have freedom of choice as to where they wish to play. I understand your intentions but would not see them working in reality.

Any player arriving into WA to play senior rugby for the first time and has the skills to be Premier Grade is an Import. If in Season 2 he moves clubs, styas where he is - then we either say he's no longer an import or we open the discussion further. In the last 3-4 years, rumour has it, 3 clubs (which remain unnamed) spent around $500K on imports with not too many premiership flags between them. Imagine if half that money was spent on imports and the other half put into local talent development, maybe pay a few coaches to come from the East. The old saying give a team a fish and it lasts one meal, show them how to fish and give them a rod or three and they feed for a lot longer.

[pruc]

Any player arriving into WA to play senior rugby for the first time and has the skills to be Premier Grade is an Import. If in Season 2 he moves clubs, styas where he is - then we either say he's no longer an import or we open the discussion further. In the last 3-4 years, rumour has it, 3 clubs (which remain unnamed) spent around $500K on imports with not too many premiership flags between them. Imagine if half that money was spent on imports and the other half put into local talent development, maybe pay a few coaches to come from the East. The old saying give a team a fish and it lasts one meal, show them how to fish and give them a rod or three and they feed for a lot longer.

so ur going to penalise guys that move here from other states/countries and want to play rugby, that makes sense....

[Homer J]

The Sydney comp has a limit on how many players can transfer to a club from other premier clubs per season. It stops wholesale abandonement of players chasing cash. Also there is a points system depending on how long you have been ata club, I don't have all the details but the crux is (this is an example only) that three players from Rockingham couldn't all run off to Neddies creating one strong team and weakening another, it also promotes development of your players.

The same rule also helps with imports as they find it increasingly hard to jump from one club to another.

If a club wants to spend their hard earned trying to buy a premiership (no FS I am not directly speaking to Paly) then good luck to them, but as Hansie said, it rarely works and is more detrimental than anything.

[fulvio sammut]

I see a lot of merit in what you say, Homer, in so far as it relates to players already in the local competition.

[Hansie]

so ur going to penalise guys that move here from other states/countries and want to play rugby, that makes sense....

Not at all, these guys could play reserve grade and if good enough to play Premier Grade then...yup...they fall into the 2 import category. The crux of my discussion is to question the success of those clubs who have spent 1000's of dollars on imports who don't stay back for after match presentations, add very little to the club culture, many don't even front club awards nights or support the club in other ways such as assisting to coach juniors etc.

[MI5_Dog]

If you hire mercenaries you can't really complain when they act like mercenaries. Either RWA bans imports (a difficult job at best) or in some other way limits the importing of players or we can watch the talent of WA start playing GAYFL