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Aussie Player Exodus

Highlander35

Highlander35

Andrew Slack (58)
Have the Wallabies officially abandoned Australia A then?

You're locked in if you play 7s, full international or whatever the nominated seconds side is.

For England that's the Saxons, Scotland, Scotland A, Wales, Wales U20 etc, and has to be nominated, was there ever an announcement confirming that?
 
T

TOCC

Guest
Highlander35 said:
Have the Wallabies officially abandoned Australia A then?

You're locked in if you play 7s, full international or whatever the nominated seconds side is.

For England that's the Saxons, Scotland, Scotland A, Wales, Wales U20 etc, and has to be nominated, was there ever an announcement confirming that?
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There isn't space in the rugby calendar for Australia A anymore, unless you were going to have Australia A run post-NRC season, but then you are only extending the season even further and pushing into the players off-season.
 
T

Train Without a Station

Guest
I think mid week A tests during the June window would be the best. Mid week content during the break, low cost due to minimal travel and all players available. Biggest stumbling block would be getting the European nations to send the additional 10 squad players necessary.
 
RugbyReg

RugbyReg

Rocky Elsom (76)
Staff member
qwerty51 said:
Which is u20s in Australia's case. Who is our 2nd team then?
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As above. Aussie A / barbarians is our 2nd team. Just because we don't have the money for then to play doesn't change that.

It's the same for all countries. Those are the three across the globe.
 
waiopehu oldboy

waiopehu oldboy

Stirling Mortlock (74)
Is it still the case that it only counts if you play for your country's 2nd team v someone else's? Coupla years ago Wales & Scotland had a stink over a dual- eligible player & iirc it came down to he played for Wales U20, their 2nd team, v France U20, their 2nd team, therefore was Welsh but had he not played that match would've had the option of being Scots due to none of the other 6N U20 sides being the official 2nd side for their country, even though he played against at least a few of them.
 
Hugh Jarse

Hugh Jarse

Rocky Elsom (76)
Staff member
Were the Barbarians that played the U20's in a trial match before Jnr RWC at Chatswood THE Barbarians for the purposes of IRB second Australian Team consideration?

I think they (Barbarians) also played a warm up game at Ballymore against Reds Development earlier in the year as well.

The U20's flogged the Barbars in Chatswood. They were just solid Shute Shield level journeymen rather than the Aust 2nd best.
 
Bardon

Bardon

Peter Fenwicke (45)
I'm not sure inventing games for your A side is the way to go. If there's a need and a desire to play A fixture already then it makes sense to have that as your 2nd team. But going to the expense of arranging A fixtures just to lock players into Australia seems crazy to me.

With such a tight budget is Aus rugby I'm sure the money could be spent more wisely. If there had been A games this year I'm sure someone would have been asking what the need for them and why couldn't the money be instead spent on contracts to retain young talent.

Having an A team as your nominated second team would be quite expensive for Aus I'd imagine (if it's for the purposes of locking players in), at the moment it's not expensive at all as they don't play. Playing one game a year against the ABs wouldn't cut it. What happens if players were injured for that one game and then left anyway.

Who exactly would your opposition be? I'm not sure that any of the 6 nations teams would be interested in bringing 10 extra players just to play a midweek fixture. If they were we'd see a lot more real tours rather than these 2-3 game ones that are the norm these days.

You won't see the 6 nations A teams coming either as they're generally line up to play tier 2 and 3 nations and serve a very different purpose to that proposed for Australia A.

The most obvious solution would be to enter an A team into the Pacific Nations Cup. But again that would be expensive; more expensive than an organisation already struggling under financial burdens can afford.

So what exactly is wrong with having your u20 team as your nominated second team. I think that Australia would be better moving to this. There aren't that many nations that do it at the moment but it seems to be the way things are going. France, Italy (from this year), Japan, New Zealand, South Africa and Wales all have their u20 as their nominated 2nd team.

If it was the dark days when Nuci was in charge you'd be rightly fearful of a lot of young talent slipping through the net. But the new selection process seems far more robust already and should improve over the years. There's more chance that young talent will be identified through this process than an adhoc Australia A approach.

If some players are missed or there are late developers then they can be capped on the EOYT. That's if they're good enough, if not then why exactly are you worrying about them?

Switching to u20 would also have the added benefit of locking players in at a younger age. Those that fall between the gaps would have the choice of backing themselves to break into the Wallabies and staying in Aus or heading to Europe or Japan.

Additionally there seems to be a move towards an u20s Rugby Championship tournament. Unlike A games there seems to be a real desire for something like this to take place. There would be a benefit to the teams in terms of preparation for the JWC and it would give an additional window for selection and trialling of young talent.

If this came about it would be very likely that both Aus and Argentina would follow SA and NZ and nominate their U20 teams as their 2nd team. One thing is for certain SA nor NZ will be switching back to their A sides any time soon.

With the u20s there are so many more games and thus more players should be captured for Australia than would be via the non-playing A side. It just makes sense to go that way.
 
Highlander35

Highlander35

Andrew Slack (58)
For the Shingler case, at that point in time, and to this day, the WRU had officially declared the U20s their second side.

As far as I'm aware, the ARU have not come out and officially nominated the U20s as the 2nd XV, and so it would remain AUS A/Aus Barbarians.

I think it would be a good move to declare the U20s the 2nd XV, but I don't believe it's happened yet.
 
Highlander35

Highlander35

Andrew Slack (58)
Defacto deshmacto.

As far as the IRB are concerned, playing for Australia U20 does not make you ineligible to rep for another nation.
 
Bardon

Bardon

Peter Fenwicke (45)
qwerty51 said:
You cant have a non existent side as your 2nd side. The A side havent played since 2007 well the u20s play every year, they're defacto the 2nd side
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Sorry querty I meant to include the link in my post, I edited it in after you posted.
 
qwerty51

qwerty51

Stirling Mortlock (74)
Well there you go! Junior All Blacks is a confusing name, they're not the u20s but I'm guessing it fooled some.

I remember when an Aussie team was interested in an NZ player the media article stated playing for the NZ u20s restricted them from ever playing for the Wallabies so I just assumed Australia was the same.

It really does beggar belief why Australia haven't nominated the u20s as their 2nd side like others have clearly done.
 
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