Shute Shield 2013

[Dave Beat]

Can anyone tell us how many professional players came from the subbies ranks ?

.
a half from the central coast went to Argentina.
Since professional no one, back pre 90's country, nth, south all had a chance through area reps.
I think Steve Merrick was the last player picked from obscurity.

 

[wamberal]

.
a half from the central coast went to Argentina.
Since professional no one, back pre 90's country, nth, south all had a chance through area reps.
I think Steve Merrick was the last player picked from obscurity.

Hugh Pyle is the closest to a former subbie, apparently.


It would be virtually impossible these days for an amateur to break through into the professional ranks, unless they were some kind of freakish talent (and spent a lot of spare time doing weights etc).

 

[kabbear]

His name was Brad Ether and like many boys his early size and dominance did not carry through. He played seconds and thirds in his final year at Baker.

Thanks informer...He and Michael Hooper were the standouts in the early 2000's . It is interesting how different juniors develop!

 

[the coach]

Anyone else think James Leckie is too 'matey' with the players?

Must admit I was concerned to hear him (on the ABC) refer to 2 players by their first names on Saturday. I hope this is not going to become prevalent as it is in league. I'd much prefer "green no 7" to be used.

 

[Crashy]

Wamberal - Hughy Pyle played a season of Colts with Barker Old Boys and then went over to the Rats. His older brother Tom played 1sts for years and was a prodigous talent having played soccer his whole life.

 

[Dave Beat]

Bit late for 2013, but for 2014.
GAGR work with http://www.rugbynews.net.au/ and have a page of GAGR thoughts / ideas in each weeks program.

 

[wamberal]

Wamberal - Hughy Pyle played a season of Colts with Barker Old Boys and then went over to the Rats. His older brother Tom played 1sts for years and was a prodigous talent having played soccer his whole life.

In my dreams there are a few other Pyles running around, just waiting to be discovered!

 

[the coach]

Bit late for 2013, but for 2014.
GAGR work with http://www.rugbynews.net.au/ and have a page of GAGR thoughts / ideas in each weeks program.

Great idea Dave!

 

[The Galah]

It would be a shame to undo all the good work that the Gordon team and management have put in place this year. It takes time to turn a big ship around and Gordon deserve the chance to build on these solid foundations. The one thing they have to do is focus on their juniors, one colts team is not good enough to build for the years ahead. Clearly they need to do whatever it takes to convert their local junior talent into colts next year. If they fail in that regard then they are candidates for relegation.

One colts side from a club like Gordon is a bloody disgrace. They should however , be given every opportunity to survive and the mail remains the current ( new board ) is heading in the right direction. Financially backed by Wamberal they can't fail

All clubs should now have their visions and responses for season 2014 in to NSWRU. Critical issues are shaping up as player payments where there is/was undoubtedly clear division between the clubs with, apparently 4 for paying, 3 firm no player payments and remaining 5 undeclared, having each way bets or don't know. What should be set as a minimum operating budget (amount) to gain admission to comp also arises - is $500k sufficient? I can see no compelling reason for those who can afford to pay players retreating until there is a clear and objective measure of non cash benefits. No that was not another anti Uni swipe. To those who advocate no player payments whatsoever, the we are proudly amateur set - "only the impotent are pure" .

 

[BellyTwoBlues]

Unfortunately for club rugby and the SS the concentration of talent at Uni combined with their ultra professional management and depth of resources is good for rugby at the S15 and international level. Hence the reason why the NSWRU and ARU will never do anything about it and why the player points system has become an irrelevant and meaningless joke. The heart of the problem (IMO) is the 100% loyalty discount after 5 years service. My understanding is that this was supposed to only be a short term measure so clubs wouldn't have to shed players when the system was first introduced, but it's still there several years down the track.

So what's your alternative then Coach?

Scapping the loyalty discount would mean clubs like Parra would be slugged full points cap loading for Tatafu. And we all know he's only ever played for Parra and only ever will.

Or a club like Manly being slugged full loading on players they developed through their own system like Michael Hooper, George Smith, Jordy Reid etc. Hardly seems fair to punish a club for developing a player.

My understanding of the long service discount is to reward a player for sticking around at a club that he may have otherwise left for whatever reason and to force a rival club into considering where a good player at another club would fit into their points cap if the nabbed him from elsewhere.

It's not a perfect system, but what is? How would you do it?

 

[I like to watch]

If Parra has no points for TPN I will give up.
There is clearly some middle ground between Parra not being able to field one international player, and the current status where one club has more super players on it's books than any of the franchises.
If a club does not have enough room in it's 1's for all it's pro players,it demonstrates that the current quota system has failed dismally.

 

[BellyTwoBlues]

One colts side from a club like Gordon is a bloody disgrace. They should however , be given every opportunity to survive and the mail remains the current ( new board ) is heading in the right direction. Financially backed by Wamberal they can't fail

All clubs should now have their visions and responses for season 2014 in to NSWRU. Critical issues are shaping up as player payments where there is/was undoubtedly clear division between the clubs with, apparently 4 for paying, 3 firm no player payments and remaining 5 undeclared, having each way bets or don't know. What should be set as a minimum operating budget (amount) to gain admission to comp also arises - is $500k sufficient? I can see no compelling reason for those who can afford to pay players retreating until there is a clear and objective measure of non cash benefits. No that was not another anti Uni swipe. To those who advocate no player payments whatsoever, the we are proudly amateur set - "only the impotent are pure" .

My views may vary from that of our club, we have not discussed it at length.......yet, so please, don't consider what I am about to say as an offical Parramatta position.

In my view, all cash payments to players should be banned in Shute Shield. The competition cannot afford to have clubs going broke trying to compete for 2nd spot in the club championship. It is an amateur competition with 2 professional clubs in it. Some may argue there's only 1 professional club in the comp.

From what I have seen, clubs do plenty as it is for their players. Finding employment to fit in with training commitments, sourcing suitable accommodation, assistance with education etc. Isn't that enough?

There's plenty more that clubs do for players on a day to day basis as well. It is the most time consuming aspect of my job.

There should be a 3rd tier of competition after Shute Shield (wow, I bet no-one thought of that) based on geographic based rep teams and the players should be paid to play at that level.

The sooner player payments in Shute Shield are banned or even capped, the more sustainable the competition will become.

As I said though, this is just my opinion.

 

[BellyTwoBlues]

If Parra has no points for TPN I will give up.
There is clearly some middle ground between Parra not being able to field one international player, and the current status where one club has more super players on it's books than any of the franchises.
If a club does not have enough room in it's 1's for all it's pro players,it demonstrates that the current quota system has failed dismally.

I think you're missing the point.

In the game last weekend Warringah had a points cap tally of 28 points on the field. If you scrap loyalty discounts, and then assume that Hugh Pyle, Brett Sheehan, Luke Holmes, Pat McCabe and Scott Fardy were available as an example, then they're looking at a points cap tally of in excess of 140. Hardly fair seeing all of those players have only ever played for Warringah. So why punish a club for having a good enough rugby program that players become professionals from?

We too have PLENTY of room to move in our cap for Taaf. But it's ridiculous we should have full loading on him for a guy who's been with the club since the U13's.

 

[I like to watch]

I get your point, but that way it has evolved the points system serves no purpose at all.
How many super players play in the SS?
How many of these are at one club?
Does anyone think that the points system has curtailed Uni in signing players they want, in any way?

 

[the coach]

So what's your alternative then Coach?

Scapping the loyalty discount would mean clubs like Parra would be slugged full points cap loading for Tatafu. And we all know he's only ever played for Parra and only ever will.

Or a club like Manly being slugged full loading on players they developed through their own system like Michael Hooper, George Smith, Jordy Reid etc. Hardly seems fair to punish a club for developing a player.

My understanding of the long service discount is to reward a player for sticking around at a club that he may have otherwise left for whatever reason and to force a rival club into considering where a good player at another club would fit into their points cap if the nabbed him from elsewhere.

It's not a perfect system, but what is? How would you do it?

I'd like to say I have the solution, but I don't.
I'm really just making the point that the current system doesn't achieve the intended outcome. Uni are very good at recruiting players whilst still at school and offering them Uni scholarships if they play rugby for Uni. By the time they pick up S15 contracts they've often already qualified for the 5 years 100% discount, hence the reason why they have a 1st grade side full of S15 players but are still well under the points cap.
The problem with the loyalty discount is that it doesn't prevent clubs from continuing to recruit new players even though they have heaps of S15 players already on their books.
One suggestion is that there be two caps -- the existing one which includes the current discounts and is applied to the team taking the field and an additional cap which applies to all players registered by the club (grade and colts) and which uses their non-discounted points.
Is there any reason why we shouldn't consider limiting the number of S15 players at any club? So what if some of them have to change clubs? The reality is that there is no way Uni will be able to use all their S15 players this year so why not move some to other clubs>
I guess my main point is that the current system doesn't work but nobody seems interested in trying to find a better alternative.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

Rather than force players to register with other clubs, could there be some middle ground where the rich and powerful could "loan" players to other clubs at the end of the Super Rugby Season.

There would have to be some incentive to the "losing" club (most likely Uni), and perhaps the player takes all their "normal" points without any loyalty discount to the "gaining" club.

The benefit is that some Soup Players are not forced to play 2nd grade for Uni (if they want a game). They can retain match fitness by playing (relatively) competitive SS first grade footy.

Obviously Uni are not going to release their first choice players, but a Uni second choice would be welcome at many clubs.

A kiwi snout has said that it is fairly common for their ITM cup teams "loan" players to Heartland (Non ITM Cup) clubs, particularly if the player was originally from the Heartland club before they moved to the Big Smoke.

 

[southsider]

I think you're missing the point.

In the game last weekend Warringah had a points cap tally of 28 points on the field. If you scrap loyalty discounts, and then assume that Hugh Pyle, Brett Sheehan, Luke Holmes, Pat McCabe and Scott Fardy were available as an example, then they're looking at a points cap tally of in excess of 140. Hardly fair seeing all of those players have only ever played for Warringah. So why punish a club for having a good enough rugby program that players become professionals from?

We too have PLENTY of room to move in our cap for Taaf. But it's ridiculous we should have full loading on him for a guy who's been with the club since the U13's.

maybe they could scrap colts being considered "juniors" because doesn't that come with a decent discount? Would prevent uni from picking guys straight out of high school and may even force them to take a more active role in junior clubs while for the most part not affecting the majority of other clubs

 

[I like to watch]

What incentive could you possibly offer that would be attractive?
Logic would dictate that you just change the rules to ensure the quota system actually distributes the talent throughout the competition.
The easiest thing, is to beef up Schoolboy rep points.
If clubs are restricted to how many Schoolboy stars they recruit and register(excluding those that played juniors for them) that will even things out in the long term.

 

[the coach]

Another option may be to start the countdown on the 5 years' discount from when the player first starts playing S15. So a player attracts 10 points the year after he plays his first S15 game and it is discounted 2 points each year after that. If he makes the Wallabies he jumps up to 20 points, but this is discounted by the years since he gained a S15 contract. A player who doesn't go further than S15 can still return to 0 points after 5 years, but a test player doesn't drop below 10 points.

Lots of things could be tried but the NSWRU and SRU don't seem interested in doing anything.

 

[the coach]

Maybe we should forget about the points in the run on team and just set a cap on the players registered with the club ie similar to the NRL salary cap system.

Could that be tailored so that clubs don't have to shed existing players but put a break on them signing new players?