National Rugby Championship 2014

New thread for the inaugural season of this new competition!

Mods: I believe there should be a thread for this season's upcoming comp in the main Rugby Discussion forum - IMO. Just my view, but since this competition does not overlap Super Rugby, it would be appropriate to place here because it will be a main topic of discussion when the SR is over, and it is a higher level of competition than Club Rugby. I don't read the Club Rugby forum on here, and suspect likewise for many others visiting GAGR.

However, please feel free to move/merge this thread if deemed appropriate.

I don't even agree with Melbourne and Perth fielding full-strength Super First XVs in this NRC comp. Maybe a limit of 18 pr so but this new 3rd-tier is supposed to bridge the gap between Club and Super rugby, and develop the good emerging players by mixing them with-and-against good existing super players.

With 5 Super squads and (it looks like) a proposed 10 team NRC, each 3rd-tier side should be roughly half-strength Super First XVs, with bench/squad/club players stepping up to fill the breach.

On the supply side, roughly guesstimating for the first year, Brumbies/Reds/Tahs would have 6-10 players each taken out out of the mix (in the Wallabies and/or Team Rehab), and the Rebels/Force maybe 3-5.

Rebels: the Melbourne NRC side would get 18 players from the Rebels (some -not all- with Shute Shield links will go north) with the rest made up of local Academy/Melbourne club players.

Force: - similar to the above - the Perth NRC side would get 18 players from the Force (others going on an east-coast rugby vacation) with the rest of the squad made up of local Academy/Perth club players.

Brumbies: the Canberra NRC side would get 18 players from the Brumbies (selected others allocated to other teams) and the rest of the squad made up of local Academy/John_I_Dent club players.

Reds: - Qld will be fairly self-contained - the Brisbane/Gold Coast sides would get around 10-12 players each from the Reds (roughly even split) and most of the rest from Reds College/Qld Clubs.

Waratahs: - will be scattered to the winds - the 4 x Sydney sides would get something like 4 or 5 players each from the Tahs. The rest of those squads will be made up of inter-state Super players and NSW Academy/local club players.

I really doubt Randwick can stand alone. Maybe they can be in a JV with a financially healthy backer, dunno - I guess we'll find out soon which teams are starters for the comp. But if there are not enough viable bids for 10 teams, the ARU should just cut back to 8.

One of the decisions needing to be made is a rule on foreign players in this competition.

This will be the Speight rule those players who have not played Test rugby or A and are permanently ineligible for the Wallabies are not eligible for the NRC. All others are expected to play as to not loose Australian eligibility re Speight and a NPC season.

Those ineligible would be
Ed O'Donoghue
Jacques Potgieter
Alby Mathewson
Harumichi Tatekawa
Eddie Aholelei
Shota Horie
Tamati Ellison

I think foreign marquee players and league converts should be encouraged, at least in the first few seasons, in order to lift the standard of the competition and generate interest.

For example I would love to see Chabal running out for the Balmain-Sydney Uni team. Likewise imagine seeing a guy like Brian O'Driscoll running around Coogee Oval.

Bloody oath, as long as they are signed to Australian teams they should be made to play the NRC, yes it is a development tool but the end state/goal is that the competition is commercially viable by means of providing a quality of rugby which is entertaining to watch. You are only going to achieve that if the best 150 players in the country are playing.

For the purpose of development young players will get more by playing alongside and against higher quality players.. I.e marquee imports

The Force will probably have 2-3 Wallabies out (of McMeniman, Godwin, Cummins, McCalman). The 2 marquee internationals will be elsewhere (CC/ITM).

So we have to give up about 10 players? Easy. You can have Tetera Faulkner, Salesi Manu, Pat Dellit, Ed Stubbs, Chris Tuatara-Morrison, Robbie Abel (EPS), Rory Walton (EPS), McCalman (if he isn't with the Wallabies), Sias Ebersohn (if he hasn't been released), Chris Alcock, Phoenix Battye and Nathan Charles. Pretty sure that all of those guys, except Ebersohn, have a NSW connection.

I think it is important to remember that, while it is important for the 5 NSW teams to be competitive, it is also very, very important that the Force and Rebels NRC sides are very, very competitive. The Reds, Brumbies and Tahs have made the Super Rugby finals in the last few years. The Force and Rebels need some success to keep the fans coming through the gates.

Fair enough, I agree with that - Perth and Melbourne should be amongst the top contenders (and I suspect some of the Sydney joint ventures will struggle for combinations in the initial season).

I still say they should be releasing 10-15 players. The process of determining which ones I suppose will get argued out in due course.

Also got to remember there are two sides to the coin. The idea is to also allow local Perth prospects to step into the breach and get ACTUAL competition gametime against their rivals in the other states. That's not happening enough at the moment. If you just field the Force 1st XV in the NRC, then that will never happen. Play 'em and see them grow.

If the Brumbies, Force and Rebels are running their relative NRC teams then they should be able to hang on to the players they've contracted.

The Sydney teams will have their Super Rugby contingent thinned out, but on the flip side they have access to a higher level of club rugby players that is off limits to the rest of the country....

Having said that, if there's going to be 10 teams players should be able to make deals to play elsewhere if they're going to be stuck behind players at their conference to make sure that Super Rugby talent isn't going to waste.

But I don't believe there should be set quotas on the number of Super Rugby players a team can hang onto....

I personally think there should only be 8 teams, and that would simplify the player situation...

Im still yet to see a good reason why the talent should be concentrated? there are plenty of reasons why the talent should be spread but not many reasons why the talent should be concentrated..

Well on the flip side, the Sydney market is the largest rugby union market in Australia, if this competition is to be commercially viable then it needs the support of the Sydney market.. The Perth and Melbourne teams aren't going to prop up that teams, the greatest ratings will come from Sydney, then Brisbane, then Canberra/Melbourne and then Perth.

I'm not using that as justification to say that Perth/Melbourne should be dealt a bad hand with player distribution, I'm just saying that its important that the Sydney market isn't glossed over.

I'm not suggesting that...

I'm just against farcical situations where a player who plays Super Rugby and club rugby in one city, is then forced to travel interstate (well, to NSW.... it only goes one way) because some teams have to select a certain number of players they can hang onto.

There should be a much more simpler, streamlined selection process in place that has teams aligned with players from their respective Super Rugby and club rugby teams...

However, if there were only 8 teams (3 x NSW) then there wouldn't be a need for this kind of thing as all the teams would hang onto their Super Rugby players, and NSW and QLD would have access to their stronger club players without the Super rugby contingent being too spread out.

I did a rough calculation of a similar Wallaby squad of 32 with a third Hooker and Half Back. This had 2 from the Force (Cummins and McMeniman) and 3 from the Rebels (Smith, Higinbotham and Burgess).

That the Force, Rebels and Brumbies could keep 18 contracted players as above but also let them have the 5 EPS as well. After taking out the long term injured. Sexton, Vaea and Chapman. The international players or overseas marquees Mathewson, Horie, Tatekawa and Ellison.

My excess players were Force 9, Rebels 5 and Brumbies 1
Force
Faulkner, Tessman, Manu, Battye, Cotterell, Ebersohm, CTM , Hayward and Stubbs.
Rebels
Thomson, Jones, McMahon, Roberts and Rokobaro
Brumbies
Murphy.

This left these three teams looking for between 7-9 club players in there non traditional Rugby area to make a squad of 30-32.

Nice sentiment but if Balmain/Uni can pay for Chabal then the fiscal model is screwed as RUPA and ARU are trying to keep costs down from ARC days. Where does BOD money come from?

Relocation costs is the worry, and probably why Force and Rebels will keep most of their contracted players in situ.

I worry about the proposed NSW country team and would reluctantly have 9 teams in the competition.

I imagine if marquee players start coming over their salaries will be paid for by tycoon team owner types like livingston. Heck, marquee players will probably be the only ones on anything close to decent money.

Keep in mind Chabal and Bod are both well and truly past it, if they came over it would be a glorified drinking tour with a few games of rugby thrown in.

You would think that part of the tender assessment process would also be a view towards how successful the new team would be, surely. If 5 teams are being viewed, then surely those 5 have demonstrated a means to do that other than "we will be taking other teams players as much as possible so that they will all lose".

I reckon the rebels, brumbies and force should be able to keep their players and if that means they are uber strong, then they are uber strong. It will force the two queensland and x Sydney teams to get better by playing against better opposition (the aim of the competition).

If Sydney can't have 5 teams that are successful, then clearly the solution is to not have 5 teams, rather than try to rig the competition by weakening the rest to the country's teams.

It will do the opposite. The Sydney teams will need to do less work if there's only three of them instead of five. They'll be stronger by default with more Super players - and any extra spots opened up by not recruiting Shute players from other franchises is outweighed by spots lost due to cutting the NSW teams by 40%.

(Obviously, I agree the financial viability for 10 teams needs to be there first, otherwise the comp will need to be cut to 8 teams anyway.)

If 3 teams have 25-odd Super players in their squads, then academy players in Melbourne/Perth/Canberra are much less likely to even get bench time. Plus some of those up-and-coming Super squad players will be twiddling their thumbs on the pine or in the stands when they could be getting a run elsewhere.

The 2 Brisbane teams won't be so much affected as they'll have 10-12 Super players either way.

I believe Murphy is off to Ireland in August so he will not strictly be an excess player if he goes.

I think it should be left to the individual players/managers and NRC teams to work out if they want to play elsewhere and to organise it the best way they can. Don't think there should be any arbitrary allocation by the ARU.

I don't think there will be an arbitary allocation the ARU but the 3 Super franchises 'strongly encouraging' their contracted players to stay under their umbrella and be loyal not have to relocate short term.

My reasoning that the contract for Super Rugby would still be in place and the ARU would not allow early release of players. These made it a toss up between Mowen and Murphy. Mowen would have more cache as former Wallaby captain.