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It’s taken until season six, but it certainly appears the penny has dropped within the corridors of NSW Rugby as to the best way of integrating the National Rugby Championship into their professional rugby pathways.
The Rays have made way simply for ‘Sydney’, with the Sydney Rugby Union crest, anchor and all, reborn to take its place as a genuine representative team within the NRC this season.
And it’s not just the SRU anchor. The old-school royal blue jersey with the two gold stripes across the chest and, wait for it, a GOLD COLLAR is back as well.
How good?! Rugby jerseys with collars again!
All that this picture needs is for NSW Country to forget small details like the Laws of the game and run the famous circa-1975 ‘ball up the jumper’ set play again, when the two teams meet at Apex Oval in Dubbo to kick off the 2019 NRC season on Saturday.
The return of the SRU logo and jersey to top-flight Australian rugby is significant, and in many ways, it could be the last missing piece that finally legitimises the NRC in the eyes of rugby fans in the harbour city.
While the Queensland Rugby Union saw the obvious benefits of giving new life to the old Brisbane City and Queensland Country brands from day one of the NRC back in 2014, the landscape within NSW has been one of shifting sands and shrinking ambitions.
Charles Abel of Sydney. (Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)
Four NSW-based teams were required when the competition was born five years ago to reflect the strength of the game in the country’s most populous state, we were told at the time.
Then three teams made more sense from a not-wanting-to-spread-the-talent-too-thin perspective for the next few seasons. For the last few years, two independent teams with more input from the Waratahs was going to make the big difference.
This year, though, the change is real. For many seasons, the evident lack of buy-in of the Waratahs – even when they said they were – has been the biggest bugbear of the NRC, and is almost certainly a major reason why the competition just hasn’t been able to gain any traction in Sydney.
If the state’s Super Rugby side doesn’t seem to give a ‘rats’ about the NRC, why should the average supporter?
This season is already very different.
For one thing, the announcement back in July of the Sydney and NSW Country coaches – Waratahs assistant Chris Whittaker and Sydney Uni’s Premiership coach Rob Taylor, respectively – was actually the first major piece of NRC news for the upcoming season.
But it was back then that we also learned that the Sydney Rays are no more as an organisation, with the new Sydney side coming firmly under the umbrella of NSW Rugby.
The Eagles will remain nominally under the banner of the NSW Country Rugby Union, but like the Queensland teams have done since day dot out of Ballymore, both teams will operate and train out of the Waratahs base at the University of NSW in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.
After the Queenslanders have claimed three NRC title in five seasons, NSW Rugby have realised that that two-team in-house model might be worth following after all.
And it’s had a impact on how the squads have been formed already, too.
In previous seasons, even as the number of Sydney-based teams decreased, there were still loose geographical leanings in play, with the four north shore clubs – who were in a joint venture, in fairness – supplying to the Sydney Rays, and with Randwick, Eastern Suburbs, and Sydney Uni to NSW Country, who were also getting first crack at players of country NSW origin.
???????? NRC is back.
Kicking off this Sat Aug 31.
All matches LIVE on @rugbycomau & @kayosports. pic.twitter.com/fHbov6HFLI
— NRC (@NRC_Live) August 27, 2019
In 2019, the only real criteria in place is that the country origin players are still aligned to the Eagles. After that, the allocation and distribution of contracted players is much more strategic. Which, of course, is exactly what the Queensland Rugby Union do with the Reds players.
And just as is the case north of the Tweed, it remains true that non-country-origin players will pull on a Country jersey. That was always going to be the case when there aren’t enough country-origin players to fill a squad.
But even if you just focus on the halves, you can see the planning in place.
Scrumhalf Jake Gordon remains with NSW Country, while the next no.9 in line for the Waratahs, Mitch Short, will play for Sydney. Exciting young playmakers Will Harrison and Ben Donaldson will pull on the collared royal blue jersey, while the chronically underprepared Mack Mason will again run out in Country orange.
Are NSW sides borrowing a Queensland strategy? (Photo by Brett Hemmings/Getty Images)
You can see it in the other positions, too, and it just makes obvious sense.
Beyond all this though, the return of the old Sydney jumper brings the last little bit of meaning to the NRC for those who lamented the ‘made-up names’ of the competition’s first few seasons.
Never mind that even the oldest names were made up at some point, if what Sydney rugby fans really want is meaning, then there really can’t be much more meaning than the blue jersey, the gold collar, and the anchor crest.
And if that’s enough for people in Sydney to get on board and start watching what has always been great rugby to watch played at the great rugby grounds around the country that we love, then that’s fantastic.
This weekend: Saturday (all times AEST)
12:00pm NSW Country vs Sydney; Apex Oval, Dubbo
1:30pm Melbourne vs Canberra; Box Hill Rugby Club, Melbourne
3:00pm Brisbane City vs Fiji; GPS Rugby, Ashgrove
5:00pm Western Force vs Queensland Country; McGillivray Oval, University of Western Australia