The Official Shield Thread.

[Highlander35]

Can't answer the last question, but that's more or less what I was looking for. Someone with a stronger grasp of legalese, formality and the English language in general. Thanks mate.

 

[kiap]

2.4 Shield Holders may choose to accept Challenges in play-off, pre-season, friendly or away fixtures, but (subject to these rules) are not obligated to do so.

Good work, Never Was.

My gimlet eye is looking for a legal loophole in the above.

There seems to be nothing in 2.4, 4.2, or 4.3 that specifically prevents a team from outside the NRC playing in a challenge match (and potentially winning the Shield).

What say the Sydney Stars 'A' team play the Balmain Muzzled Wolves (i.e. Sydney Stars 'B") in a preseason warm-up with a 15 man bench on either side and unlimited subs.

For shits and giggles Sydney might put up the shield in a game like this. Sydney B (the Muzzled Wolves) win it. Defences 1 to 4 are against:

• Drummoyne
• Knox
• Old Ignatians
• Petersham

in the NSW Subbies comp. Sydney Stars fold later that year (but Balmain and Uni kick on). Balmain and their Subbies successors keep the Shield in perpetuity.

In reality I know this wouldn't happen. However, should there be a clause spelling out what teams are suitable opposition for a legitimate challenge match?

Or perhaps challenge matches have to be sanctioned by the ARU?

 

[Bring Back The Ruck]

How about making it 4 defences (of which 3 must be home games in the regular season) with the other 1 being a regular season game of the holders choice
No pre-season games allowed - Log o wood has this due to them having a lower tier comp (Heartland).

 

[Never Was]

Kiap, the same thought occurred to me.

My first thought was to expressly restrict Challenges to teams in the NRC (or any successor national competition). But I gather one of the attractions of the Ranfurly Shield is that it can it won by teams below ITM level: it is open to all teams. There is an attraction to having the same principle here, even if it is more theoretical than real given Australia's domestic rugby structure.

So my next thought was not to limit Challenges to the NRC, but to have a rule that if a non-NRC team becomes Shield Holder, each year it must accept at least 1 challenge from an NRC team (presumably in the next pre-season). But what if none of the NRC teams challenged the Holder (because they didn't think it was worth having a pre-season game against it)?

So then I thought it was becoming all too hard and just ignored the issue!

Another issue is what if, for some strange reason, a Holder doesn't play 4 Challenges in a year? Does it lose the Shield? Or does some entity decide whether or not there was a good reason for the failure (and so whether or not it keeps the Shield)? More generally, who decides controversies under the rules?

I think a lot of this gets back to the question in my first post - who will have on-going ownership of the rules?

 

[RugbyFuture]

Ownership will be given to the ARU as administrators of the NRC.

The primary purpose of the Spirit of Rugby Shield is to show and inspire community support for the NRC, If you leave it open to other teams then there's a chance it suddenly just disappears from existence at the semi-pro level because of a freak occurrence. In any case I'm going to presume that if the ARU accept the donation they will go over the rules and make sure they're administered fairly and for the purposes they're best intended for.

What we want to make sure is that there's always something to fight for in the right circumstances and that one team can't just horde the shield over a season.

 

[Highlander35]

So if we modified 2.4...

2.4 Shield Holders may choose to accept Challenges in play-off, pre-season, friendly or away fixtures, subject to ARU approval, but are not obligated to do so.

And 4.1

4.1 At the end of NRC season, the ARU may choose to increase or decrease the minimum number of Challenges that the end of season Shield Holder must accept. The number of challenges must not fall below half the number of regular season games each team plays, rounded up.

Would that be sufficient? Or would there still be issues people would be concerned about.

 

[Never Was]

I think Highlander35's changes are fine if the Shield is to be open (subject to ARU approval) to non-NRC teams.

Alternatively, if the idea is that the Shield is just for the NRC, some simple rules are:

• a new 2.5:

2.5 To be eligible to be a Shield Holder or to play in a Challenge, a team must participate in the NRC.​

​

• change 4.2 as follows (new bits underlined)

4.2 In the event of the Shield Holder becoming defunct or ceasing to participate in the NRC, the Shield reverts to the last non-defunct Shield Holder participating in the NRC. The transfer of the Shield in this manner does not constitute a Shield Win.​

 

[kiap]

But I gather one of the attractions of the Ranfurly Shield is that it can it won by teams below ITM level: it is open to all teams. There is an attraction to having the same principle here, even if it is more theoretical than real given Australia's domestic rugby structure.

Yep. The Shield is sort of trump card that can bump up interest (and crowds) for the teams involved.

If lower tier clubs have a chance it would add to the attraction so, for mine, I'm not against allowing that. But only if they get in the mix on rare occasions - otherwise (if it's say stuck in a Subbies comp) the value goes down.

There has to be a mechanism to keep it at the national level of focus (i.e. NRC) most of the time. As per your post, that gets tricky. We haven't seen enough NRC to know what sort of out-of-season schedules the teams will settle into.

Maybe an idea would be to keep it solely in the NRC for at least the first 4 years (is that that how long the FOX deal goes for?)

 

[kiap]

No pre-season games allowed - Log o wood has this due to them having a lower tier comp (Heartland).

Pretty much. We're not quite in the same boat as NZ there - so for us making it an NRC thing would fit.

The Log o' wood has obviously built up a lot of cachet over its long history, though, for big and small teams alike. Quote from @Dan54 on another thread:

Great to see the Heartland championship team have given it a real go in challenges. Just goes to show the 'old log of wood' is still able to do what it's always done, lift every bugger that has a crack at it. I know a couple of mates that played shield challenges in the 80s, highlights of their careers they reckon , and could not quite describe the feeling of getting out there and playing for it!

 

[Dan54]

One of the other things for a shield that the Ranfurly has got, is the holder has to make all their home matches during regular season a challenge, don't have to play for it away from home. Makes the Shield harder to win, so one of reasons it is treasured so much! Top teams that have held shield for over a season have quite often take shield on tour, admittedly to Heartland or on old days 3rd division teams usually, but I can tell you in a small place like Levin, when Auckland bought shield to town in 1993 is just incredible. And where Auckland (or Graham Henry) first saw Carlos Spencer playing, and so started his rugby journey to big time!

 

[Lance Free]

Indulge me moderators - if any of you Sydney boys want some free tickets to the Shute Shield finals (incl. the Grand Final), I've just posted on the SS thread where you can get some from my mates at Intrust Super.

 

[RugbyReg]

Ok people. Do we reckon we could raise $15k?

 

[Scoey]

I'd like to think we could! I have no idea really though. :-/

 

[Highlander35]

We going for public Crowdfunding? Even if GAGR alone isn't enough, the funding from here would certainly create quite a bit of momentum for the greater Rugby community.

 

[RugbyFuture]

I like to think of it as 150x$100

 

[Hugh Jarse]

$15k sounds a bit but, I'm in for a hundy, so all we need is another 149 likeminded folks.

 

[elementfreak]

Even if you throw it on Kickstarter and get it shared on every club's FB page around the country I am sure you would be able to raise the $$$ in time for the 1st game.

 

[Highlander35]

Yeah, that's my thinking. Throwing it on a Crowdfunding site, get 90% of the GAGR off the bat, then promote the shit out of it on all the social media channels you can.

If you could get it up today, we could potentially get it plugged on Rugby HQ this week, if it reached the right channels in time, and we had a lot of luck.

 

[RugbyReg]

Even if you throw it on Kickstarter and get it shared on every club's FB page around the country I am sure you would be able to raise the $$$ in time for the 1st game.

It's not going up today. There is some formal process I am going through. I want the ARU and the clubs on side so just going through those motions.

Whilst I think we can raise the money, and perhaps by the first game, construction will take longer so it may not be up this year. I don't want to kick start production until I am confident we have the money, let alone the 50% deposit required.

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

$15k sounds a bit but, I'm in for a hundy, so all we need is another 149 likeminded folks.

Yeah. I'll pony up some for the kickstarter but I really need some details on the actual design because for $15k I'm assuming it's going to be a work of art.