How an Australian domestic rugby competition could look

Nrl has always been massive there its the heartland! Note i said ‘ stem some of the flow’ , not destroy league. Theres plenty of kids who follow rugby also and with more pathways available which at present are evaporating would be a much needed and long overdue step forward.

Thought about additional playing and coaching costs?

Morsie, You talking myoptic, very hippocritical of you.

Yeah that's a good point I hadn't thought of, but agree - if they won't get on board, leave them behind!

I also really liked the NRC, but if the Sydney clubs won't co-operate I bet those players who do see a rugby career for themselves will happily come into the system I have outlined above, if invited to join. I can't think of a better f.u. to those club managers etc., than when a player selected to have a crack at a higher level season, chooses to forgo his club for a week or two, and if good enough for a season. This gets over the problems of clubs having to co-operate with each other (heaven forbid) in the interests of advancing the rugby playing lives of their more ambitious young players.

I like this. It was the way Rugby League worked when I followed it in my youth (no women's teams but each club had 3 teams, A, B and C). More recently my son played Aussie Rules in regional leagues, where there was always a curtain raiser between the reserve teams before the seniors came on. It made a great day out, and it was interesting to see the players moving up through the clubs.

Yeah absolutely Tez, the amount of kids getting behind the Panthers is unbelievable. Rugby missed the boat our better

I have no attachment to any SS teams and live well outside the Sydney met area, as do a vast number of Australian rugby supporters, so no, I don’t attend any, and I don’t watch any on Stan. When SS was live on the ABC on Saturday afternoons some years ago, I used to watch a few games, but rarely managed to watch any to the end, I honestly have a better use for my time – same goes for women’s rugby. I use Stan for watching super rugby and the tests. Understand this – SS is a myopic Sydney centric comp – very happy that its there because it keeps a bunch of people happy too – Sydney people. Very glad that Coleman is managing to drag it into the Tahs orbit. The Wallabies are for me the apotheosis of the Australian rugby system and everything should be done to get them back to the top, we need a comp above SS and below Super rugby, whether it’s the NRC or some other comp. Standards right across the board will lift.

What additional costs would RA have in this model though? Extra refs I suppose and maybe ground fees?

An NRC team will not fix this, outside of Kings and Oak Hill there is just no appetite for Rugby here at present. I don't think the vast number of roar readers understand just how big the NR:L here is at the moment and how much the kids want to be involved especially as Penrith and Parra are doing well.

The Rams were an unmitigated disaster, when they first came out and were playing at Parra stadium I was all about it, but after a few weeks, no one cared and people stopped coming.

I think we need to give up on the idea of a Penrith top grade tam Toa, Rugby just don't seem interested in our area. It is a shame because with all the great players and the stadium they could really make a go of it but the just do not care.

The new NRC needs to be a precursor to a full-on new domestic AU only comp. I think super rugby pacific will sadly die because NZR will want to go their own way and have their own comp in the next few years once it ties up the capital from private investment. You can only think that will potentially open a door to include Japan in a champions cup side tournament. If I’m Oz rugby I’d be planning for NZ ending their commercial relationship with us in the next 3-5 years.

2 or 3 teams west of Parra would be great to tap into the vast talent pool and stem some of the flow to league

I liked the NRC the way it was and don’t believe the argument it was too expensive, in fact it only had two more teams in it than the “Super Rugby AU Lite” competition that this article proposes. It provided enough opportunities not just for Wallabies on the cusp but also kept all Super Rugby players up to scratch and provided opportunities for the best club players to progress. This season showed more than any that non Wallabies players matter, to allow coaches the chance to rest the stars. Rugby Australia want them rested so need to play their part, by providing a comp to keep the players down the pecking order ready for Super Rugby.

Seems like people want to do a lot of work to avoid doing the obvious thing and bringing the NRC back, as it was. How about we just do that, bring it back? Exclude NSW as they are happy to imagine the Shute Shield is just as good or better, but have a contingency to allow them to join in 5 years when it becomes apparent they were wrong.

Morsie, A very well thought out posting, but unfortunately RA doesn't have the funds to finance your suggestions. Do you attend or watch on Stan any Shute Shield games?

I've said it before and I'll say it again. The solution is very simple. All 5 Aussie franchises, (Drua as well if it can be afforded) field 3 teams every weekend. There's the main team (ok A team) playing super rugby, then there's the reserves team (B team), then there's the woman's team. Every weekend, whatever the main game is, ie Brumbies v Tahs etc, the B's play each other and the women play each other. The same points system is used for each game and at the end of the season there's the domestic club super trophy that is scored by an aggregate of points for every game including bonus points etc. Men's squads would need to be expanded considerably when you consider there's a match day 23 (so there's 46 players) and then there's injuries, so a squad would need to be expanded to probably 60 players. This gives squads a lot of depth, and players who might be required to cover injuries in the A squad are playing every week, players returning from injury can be eased back in through the B squad, and fringe players for the 60 man squad are also being called up to train and to play. Imagine the extra coaches being trained in this environment as well. The high level infrastructure and management is already there. I am certain many young players aspire to play at the highest level but are simply not getting even the remotest opportunity to shine on a bigger stage. It's not every first grade rugby players ambition, but those who do have the ambition need to be encouraged and kept on our shores and the present structure does not serve them well, trotting out in Shute Shield does not do that. It did once, but not anymore.

I like the idea. However, the benefit of having less teams is condensing the talent to produce a hIgher standard of rugby. This prepares players better for SR. Having the SR squads filled out by club rugby players enables continued development of combinations for existing SR players and allows for the up and comers to be indoctrinated into the culture and principles of play. I feel this competition needs the earn the right to add expansion teams. Like I said, I like your idea and I hope such a competitive could one day exist.

I'm a great advocate of the KISS principle. As I have proposed multiple times, we need a revamped professional NRC with teams in Sydney and Brisbane based on regions in each city, rather than splitting existing Super Rugby players, who are not called up for Wallaby selection, with a sprinkling of Premier Rugby players, into contrived teams without any relevance to the regions in which their Premier clubs are located. It's little wonder that in the NSW context in particular, that there was no grass root following when players from one club were spread across multiple teams. IMO, this was the greatest failing of previous incarnations of the NRC. The single city teams didn't have this problem and from what I can gather they had a strong supporter base. It's been reported recently that there should be a revival of the North Harbour v South Harbour contests in Sydney, which were representative matches between Shute Shield clubs in each region, which led to State and National selection. They were widely supported with full houses at North Sydney Oval and televised on the ABC. I would take it a step further and introduce a Western Sydney team, aka the Rams, with the Premier clubs in each region acting as feeders. This is the only way that a supporter base could be encouraged. I don't know enough about the regional split of the Brisbane Premier club competition, but perhaps it could be split on a north-south or east-west divide. To sum up, I would advocate an 8 team NRC, played at the conclusion of the respective Premier Rugby competitions, with Sydney North, South and West regional representative teams; North and South or East and West in Brisbane and single city teams in Canberra, Melbourne and Perth.