Australia Rugby Cup

[en_force_er]

Ok, to flog a dead horse that I personally find very interesting here is a proposed Australian 3rd tier competition. I thought long and hard and I think you’ll find it acknowledges the importance of Club rugby in the make-up of Aussie rugby and is pretty feasible.
It would exist to identiy players who can potentially take the next step up, allow the Wallabies to play post 3N rugby and fill the same rugby void the NPC/Curry Cup fill.
Anyway... here I go.

Australian Rugby Cup
This hypothetical annual rugby union competition would involve leading Shute Shield & Hospital Cup clubs, representative teams made up of the remaining Qld & NSW players and representative sides for the 3 smaller rugby provinces of ACT/Southern NSW, Victoria & Western Australia.
12 teams would contest the pool stages of the competition each year divided into four pools of three. Each pool would contain 1 Sydney based side (Shute Shield or NSW Barbarian), 1 Brisbane based side (Hospitals Cup or Qld Barbarian) and one other team.
The tournament would be held post 3Ns, this would require local domestic competitions to finish slightly earlier or perhaps have a break and delay the end of their season. The competition would run for 3 weeks plus 2 weeks of finals for the winners of each pool.

Qualification
The following sides would qualify:

• 3 Shute Shield Premier Sides (the top 3 without automatic qualification)
• 3 Hospitals Cup Premier Sides (the top 3 without automatic qualification)
• NSW Barbarians (players to be chosen from the remaining Shute Shield and NSW Country Clubs)
• Qld Barbarians (players to be chosen from the remaining Hospitals Cup and Qld Country Clubs)
• ACT and Southern NSW Vikings (players to be chosen from the John I Dent Cup Clubs)
• Perth Spirit (players to be chosen from the WA Clubs)
• Victorian Axemen (players to be chosen from the Victorian Clubs)
• Automatic qualification to the previous year’s highest ranking Shute Shield or Hospitals Cup side.
  This will ensure NSW and Qld both have equal chance to develop players but whichever one performed more successfully the previous year will have more teams in the competition.

Notes:

• With the exception of their 1 home game to keep costs down Perth Spirit will be required to base themselves out of either Sydney or Brisbane for the duration of the campaign. This competition is designed to be NSW/Qld centric to keep costs down.
• The games will be held early Saturday afternoons to prevent, when possible, overnight stay.
• The existence of the NSW and Qld Barbarian sides is to create an option for professional players and Wallabies to align themselves with clubs that aren’t traditional table toppers and still get to play post Super season rugby.
• This competition will be ARU funded and hopefully televised nationwide possible by packaging it with Super Rugby, selling it to One or paying for it to be screened on the ABC in necessary.
• The players will receive not match payments on top of what they would usually get from the cup, if they are already professional playing is their choice and if they aren’t then this is their chance to show what they are made of at a higher level.

What do you guys think?

 

[en_force_er]

Should have put the ARC logo as the thread symbol and I meant to name is Australian Rugby Cup, damn.

Any admits care to help out?

 

[RugbyFuture]

still think we should wait to see what transpires in the new super rugby format.

that system looks alright, don't like the barbarian teams, id put in full country teams instead.

 

[en_force_er]

still think we should wait to see what transpires in the new super rugby format.

that system looks alright, don't like the barbarian teams, id put in full country teams instead.

The point of the Barbarians sides is to make sure that every Super player get's to play footy at the end of every year.

It's far from perfect but it ensures that we don't see blokes like Kurtley Beale changing clubs due to lack of end of seasons opportunities. It'll hopefully lead to a better division of talent throughout the clubs.

 

[Bruce Ross]

This competition will be ARU funded

With the cut back in the number of Tests next year, I think the ARU will be too busy conducting chook raffles and lamington drives to pay for their two million dollar men to consider sponsoring a new competition.

Get ready for a huge operating loss and the elimination of any development expenditure. It might be the sport of the captains of industry but you wouldn't buy shares in the joint.

 

[slasher]

Qualification
The following sides would qualify:

• 3 Shute Shield Premier Sides (the top 3 without automatic qualification)
• 3 Hospitals Cup Premier Sides (the top 3 without automatic qualification) Will this lead to players changing to a team with automatic qual?
• NSW Barbarians (players to be chosen from the remaining Shute Shield and NSW Country Clubs)
• Qld Barbarians (players to be chosen from the remaining Hospitals Cup and Qld Country Clubs) Can't speak for NSW country, but there would not be 1 person selected north of sunshine coast
• ACT and Southern NSW Vikings (players to be chosen from the John I Dent Cup Clubs)
• Perth Spirit (players to be chosen from the WA Clubs)
• Victorian Axemen (players to be chosen from the Victorian Clubs)SA / NT?
• Automatic qualification to the previous year’s highest ranking Shute Shield or Hospitals Cup side.
  This will ensure NSW and Qld both have equal chance to develop players but whichever one performed more successfully the previous year will have more teams in the competition.

Notes:

• With the exception of their 1 home game to keep costs down Perth Spirit will be required to base themselves out of either Sydney or Brisbane for the duration of the campaign. This competition is designed to be NSW/Qld centric to keep costs down.
• The games will be held early Saturday afternoons to prevent, when possible, overnight stay.
• The existence of the NSW and Qld Barbarian sides is to create an option for professional players and Wallabies to align themselves with clubs that aren’t traditional table toppers and still get to play post Super season rugby.
• This competition will be ARU funded and hopefully televised nationwide possible by packaging it with Super Rugby, selling it to One or paying for it to be screened on the ABC in necessary.
• The players will receive not match payments on top of what they would usually get from the cup, if they are already professional playing is their choice and if they aren’t then this is their chance to show what they are made of at a higher level.

What do you guys think?[/QUOTE]
Would suggest for 5 years
1) pump up Syd and Bris prem rugby. Beg/Bribe ABC to show a game each Sat & Sun arvo in each comp. (and not eastwood and syd uni each week) progress to a final series involving both states
2) bring back ARS. Not available to those playing prem rugby in Bris/syd or in a sub-union which has a prem rugby side...for Qld that would be GC & SC. progress to final series against bottom teams from prem rugby or even final series on ABC?

 

[en_force_er]

Will this lead to players changing to a team with automatic qual?
Well the club with Automatic qualification is the one that won the year before so I suppose players could do that, but no more then they currently flock to premiership contending clubs like Uni or Randwick.
I would think the existence of the Barbarian sides would ensure they wouldn't have to but you are correct, they still could.
Can't speak for NSW country, but there would not be 1 person selected north of sunshine coast. SA / NT?
If nobody will be selected from NSW or Qld country then certainly nobody will be from SA or NT. If the country fellas don't get selected then they just don't get selected, no harm associating them with a side.
If their are aspiring rugger players in SA or NT (and it would be great if there was) perhaps moving is their only realistic option.
Would suggest for 5 years
1) pump up Syd and Bris prem rugby. Beg/Bribe ABC to show a game each Sat & Sun arvo in each comp. (and not eastwood and syd uni each week) progress to a final series involving both states
2) bring back ARS. Not available to those playing prem rugby in Bris/syd or in a sub-union which has a prem rugby side...for Qld that would be GC & SC. progress to final series against bottom teams from prem rugby or even final series on ABC?
ARS is very expensive. This model involved most of the bigger ARS sides without having to have them fly all over the place as the comp in NSW/Qld centric.

 

[RugbyFuture]

Should have put the ARC logo as the thread symbol and I meant to name is Australian Rugby Cup, damn.

and what a logo, so much better than the original one...

 

[slasher]

en force er, a couple of questions mate,
What is the primary aim of this comp? Is it to cater for the super rugby contracted players? or the remaining prem rugby players in syd/bris/melb/perth?
Is this Melb side, act and the perth side made up of super contracted players? or are they playing for the syd uni / randwicks of the world.?

 

[Train Without a Station]

I always thought that if there was to be an Australian Rugby Comp to kick off the best way would be to make the bulk of it up with the strongest club sides as they already are established and have a following. The biggest change I would propose to your idea would be brushing the Baa Baa sides and the automatic qualification (Possibly a qualification/relegation system instead with the Prems sides) and just allowing the financially strongest clubs to participate, employing a similar situation to NPC where players can play Super rugby for one province and NPC for another, but rather allow the clubs to do this.

 

[stoff]

One of the parts I am struggling with is locating what will essentially be an amateur squad of Perth based players in Sydney for 5 weeks with timing that is likely to clash with either university or work commitments of the players. Or is the intention to have the Force squad guys making up this side once the Wallabies go into camp? If so, who pays for them to relocate for the 5 weeks? From a cost perspective it may be cheaper to fly them in and out, which also means they continue to have a presence with the local rugby community in their states.