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Rugbynet has been shut down. So What?

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Hugh Jarse

Rocky Elsom (76)
Staff member
A couple of rugby related web sites I visit from time to time now load up with this redirect message:
rugbynet redirect.jpg


Many clubs and other related rugby entities appear to have followed whatever instructions were issued from Rugby HQ in advance of the decommissioning of RugbyNet and migrated away from RugbyNet and established their wed sites on another host. Well done to them.

Some clubs and rugby related entities with less active or tech savvy volunteers have not had the time or resources to make the change, and now their internet branding is the above message.

In its day, RugbyNet was a pretty good tool for time poor and WWW ignorant grass roots club volunteers to get a web site up and running for their club with not much effort or cost. People demand a bit more from web sites now, and it is probably right that RugbyNet has been turned off, but

A rather frustration change management process that appears to have been overlooked, or not completed yet, is the updating of existing links on non-RugbyNet web pages to Club and rugby entities formerly on RugbyNet. Clicking on these legacy links produce the same RugbyNet redirect message as the image above.

One of the good things with RugbyNet was that there was an element of standardisation and commonality between the various club websites.



Most of my rugby interface is now with the Premier Club and Super Franchises, and they all do their own thing web site wise with very wide variations in what I consider to be their design, user friendliness and provision of timely and accurate information. Most are rather difficult to navigate around and frustratingly provide little timely or accurate information. Try and find some commonality with the Shute Shield club web sites. Some are quite useful, others appear to be less open with current information about themselves than the US Secret Service.

Getting back to the original observation, it seems a little shortsighted to have shut down RugbyNet without ensuring that all the grass roots clubs had migrated. Anyone know if there has been a centrally sponsored "web page" package for the grass roots clubs to use in lieu of RugbyNet.

The new bells and whistles ARU endorsed registration system RugbyLink does not allow me to register on their on line system for North Rocks Junior Club (and many others), and if I want more information about that club, the data on their own pop up window directs me to try northrocksrugby.rugbynet.com.au which has recently been shut down by the ARU. The data on their own system is crap.
rugbynet redirect North Rocks.jpg


I know that change management is a challenging process, but shouldn't some more time and effort been directed towards helping the grass roots clubs struggling to migrate away from RugbyNet before the switch was turned off.
 
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