Qld Premier Rugby 2024

[Bulldog]

Why does the current model of QPR have to change eventually? Why do we have to have a Sunshine Coast team in QPR?
I don’t think the Stingrays was the best thing to happen to Sunshine Coast Rugby nor the Breakers/Bond for Gold Coast Rugby.
I still don’t think you should get a gig in QPR unless you can run out 4 grades of men’s teams, 2 colts and a women’s team.
QPR will survive just fine without expansion to Ipswich, Sunny Coast, Redlands, Logan, or if Bond fell out.

 

[Bulldog]

The issue we were talking about with transient clubs recently is why the Stingrays or the Saints don’t stack up in QPR because they are clubs within a region where populations/players/members are transient.
Sorry about this next comment but on the topic off Subbies stepping up to QPR - quite frankly Subbies have no historical foundation (infrastructure & assets) but rely on who turns up from year to year and they don’t retain personnel in the club to run them. Credit to them for continuing to exist and providing people with an opportunity to play the game. I doubt there would be any Subbies’ club who really want to rise to being a QPR club - they sit comfortably in their own patch. The last that tried & went close to QPR admission were the Logan Saints.
But Rugby Aust is not going to throw cash at any club in Australia because it simply doesn’t have it.
The successful clubs in QPR - Brothers, Uni, Wests, Easts, GPS - are successful because they are self sustainable, and apart from Uni have all historically had large numbers of junior players.

 

[Mismatch]

Why does the current model of QPR have to change eventually? Why do we have to have a Sunshine Coast team in QPR?
I don’t think the Stingrays was the best thing to happen to Sunshine Coast Rugby nor the Breakers/Bond for Gold Coast Rugby.
I still don’t think you should get a gig in QPR unless you can run out 4 grades of men’s teams, 2 colts and a women’s team.
QPR will survive just fine without expansion to Ipswich, Sunny Coast, Redlands, Logan, or if Bond fell out.

This is an excellent growth mindset

While we are at it, let’s drop to a 7 team QPR competition and go to 8 divisions. Reinforce that all players pathways must come through the traditional routes.

Long live QPR and Australian Rugby.

 

[Bulldog]

Do you really think that QPR expansion should be on the cards with the game in Australia broke and winless?

I am just a realist - if a club is to join QPR it must be sustainable and the Logan Saints showed it is very difficult to do.

QPR is not part of the NRL with all their cash but under the ARU which is broke.

 

[Bulldog]

Grumpy old rugby fan here!!

As much as I applaud the end of Hamish McLennan.

Why do we have two former Wallabies (Waugh & Herbert) with no professional qualifications running the game? They are hardly people with great sport’s administration acumen.

When the QRU were in financial trouble following the McCall era a bloke by the name of James Beirne (old GPS) stepped up to steady the financial situation.

Problem is former players don’t always make good administrators - not in professional sport from my memory.

Rugby in Qld & Australia has not been administered well in the professional era.

The QRU was run more professionally in the 1980s

 

[JRugby2]

Why does the current model of QPR have to change eventually? Why do we have to have a Sunshine Coast team in QPR?
I don’t think the Stingrays was the best thing to happen to Sunshine Coast Rugby nor the Breakers/Bond for Gold Coast Rugby.
I still don’t think you should get a gig in QPR unless you can run out 4 grades of men’s teams, 2 colts and a women’s team.
QPR will survive just fine without expansion to Ipswich, Sunny Coast, Redlands, Logan, or if Bond fell out.

BPR*

 

[SouthernX]

Grumpy old rugby fan here!!

As much as I applaud the end of Hamish McLennan.

Why do we have two former Wallabies (Waugh & Herbert) with no professional qualifications running the game? They are hardly people with great sport’s administration acumen.

When the QRU were in financial trouble following the McCall era a bloke by the name of James Biern (old GPS) stepped up to steady the financial situation.

Problem is former players don’t always make good administrators - not in professional sport from my memory.

Rugby in Qld & Australia has not been administered well in the professional era.

The QRU was run more professionally in the 1980s

Agree Bulldog… had I known last week it was Daniel Herbert promoted to chairman - I would have just stayed with Hamish McLennan personally.

The games leadership has never been weaker having 2 former players in important roles

 

[PhilClinton]

Let's not turn the QPR thread into an Australian rugby politics chat.

Plenty of that going on in the other threads.

Get back to arguing about the QPR team inclusions.

 

[SouthernX]

Let's not turn the QPR thread into an Australian rugby politics chat.

Plenty of that going on in the other threads.

Get back to arguing about the QPR team inclusions.

Well there is a Segway here Phil and it’s now having 2 people in charge who know what club rugby is about.

The 1 silver lining is Herbert probably played a ton of it (ameteur) compared to Phil (who probably saw the paddock at Sydney Uni maybe no more then 5 appearances total over his career <~ assumption)

 

[The Ghost of Raelene]

Well there is a Segway here Phil and it’s now having 2 people in charge who know what club rugby is about.

The 1 silver lining is Herbert probably played a ton of it (ameteur) compared to Phil (who probably saw the paddock at Sydney Uni maybe no more then 550 appearances total over his career <~ assumption)

He played quite a bit and would always suit up for Uni unfortunately, since they were running around a Super Rugby side around 09. In the final couple of years he was with the Tahs but not the Wallabies he would get a lot of games in.

 

[SouthernX]

He played quite a bit and would always suit up for Uni unfortunately, since they were running around a Super Rugby side around 09. In the final couple of years he was with the Tahs but not the Wallabies he would get a lot of games in.

Cheers that’s why I made an assumption.

The assumption that ppl from Herbert era valued club rugby and would turn out for club on Saturday cause they played for Queensland on a Tuesday/wednesay

Phil was from that cutover period of ameteur to professional where provincial rugby wasn’t played midweek because they rolled out the tv network super rugby (basically ending the relationship a pro player would have to their local club on a more then a blue moon basis)

 

[Mismatch]

Do you really think that QPR expansion should be on the cards with the game in Australia broke and winless?

I am just a realist - if a club is to join QPR it must be sustainable and the Logan Saints showed it is very difficult to do.

QPR is not part of the NRL with all their cash but under the ARU which is broke.

Expansion should absolutely be on the cards but we all know that can't happen overnight or next year, and it will most likely take 5 years from now.
How is rugby going to expand its player base by packing more blokes into Easts and Wests on a Thursday night??

There obviously needs to be strategic planning for expansion this would include the right catchment, infrastructure and something I believe the failed attempts lacked which was good governance. The QRU and ARU would need to provide assistance in providing good governance, infrastructure opportunities and junior development for the right club in the right catchment/region and dare I say it the QPR clubs would need to support them.

I think you would be surprised at the number of "subbie" clubs that would put their hand up if they were shown a sustainable pathway to QPR in order to represent their region and effectively a new pathway for players.
You are correct QPR clubs have history and are brilliant institutions for rugby in Australia but with the exception of Wests, GPS the infrastructure and assets of QPR clubs is not that impressive. It could be argued that expansion is not needed and we need to focus on the infrastructure of these clubs but to your point, they are self-sustainable, right?

Appreciate Rugby Australia is broke, and you are right, it needs money and attention but I do think it's short-sighted to believe that QPR one of the best competitions in the country with 9 teams doesn't need to expand into other regions/catchments. Also, saying regions such as Logan, Ipswich, Sunshine Coast, and Bayside/Redlands are transient is a bit of a reach.

 

[Putmeoncoach]

Cracks me up when I see people complaining about driving to Bond or Sunny Coast then I see my friends in Roma or UK driving 5 hours for their weekly fixture

 

[PhilClinton]

Cracks me up when I see people complaining about driving to Bond or Sunny Coast then I see my friends in Roma or UK driving 5 hours for their weekly fixture

I’m always a bit confused by this comparison.

Like sure I get it, the QPR comp in terms of travel isn’t much compared to other places. But don’t you think if your ‘friends’ were given the opportunity to play rugby in a more local comp and not have to travel, they’d take up that opportunity?

Convenience plays a factor into someone’s sport selection, particularly when you have kids. We are talking about a social game of sports here. And not just rugby related, but moving to a large city for the geographical convenience is quite common practice across many demographics.

I’m not arguing against team expansion at some point, but I think the basis that rugby participation elsewhere is more difficult and therefore QPR players/supporters should suck it up isn’t a great argument.

 

[LevitatingSocks]

Expansion should absolutely be on the cards but we all know that can't happen overnight or next year, and it will most likely take 5 years from now.
How is rugby going to expand its player base by packing more blokes into Easts and Wests on a Thursday night??

There obviously needs to be strategic planning for expansion this would include the right catchment, infrastructure and something I believe the failed attempts lacked which was good governance. The QRU and ARU would need to provide assistance in providing good governance, infrastructure opportunities and junior development for the right club in the right catchment/region and dare I say it the QPR clubs would need to support them.

I think you would be surprised at the number of "subbie" clubs that would put their hand up if they were shown a sustainable pathway to QPR in order to represent their region and effectively a new pathway for players.
You are correct QPR clubs have history and are brilliant institutions for rugby in Australia but with the exception of Wests, GPS the infrastructure and assets of QPR clubs is not that impressive. It could be argued that expansion is not needed and we need to focus on the infrastructure of these clubs but to your point, they are self-sustainable, right?

Appreciate Rugby Australia is broke, and you are right, it needs money and attention but I do think it's short-sighted to believe that QPR one of the best competitions in the country with 9 teams doesn't need to expand into other regions/catchments. Also, saying regions such as Logan, Ipswich, Sunshine Coast, and Bayside/Redlands are transient is a bit of a reach.

For the sake of playing devil's advocate, you could argue that the traditional powerhouses offer a greater amount of coaching and experience concentrated in one place along with a "smoother" pathway between grades. Going from Colts 2 to Colts 1 or 3rd Grade to 2nd Grade will be a much less abrupt transition at one of the bigger QPR clubs than at a hypothetical expansion club where the Prems are on par but overall club depth is weak. You could argue that that's beneficial to developing players, especially if they're late to rugby but already have the athletic tools present from another sport. (Note: poaching players from other sports and staying approachable to latecomers might not do as much for producing future Wallabies, but it's important for expanding the interest base of people who would become regulars at a club or go to a Reds game. That's how I ended up here.)

On the other end, no one wants a future of QPR clubs with 8 grades where 3 of them pay $700 in registration fees to only scrimmage intrasquad on wednesday nights at 11:45 PM while suburban rugby dies and no expansion takes place. That would kill the game for good.

 

[Jimmy_Crouch]

I've said this on the forum a number of times. The Stingrays were a made up team who didn't have other grades so if you weren't in starting XV basically didn't get much of a game. Why slug your guts out at training, drive an hour and a half, watch your team get flogged by 80 and not get any game time when you could be on the coast playing and sinking tins with your mates? Good players from the coast move to Brisbane so they can train with the reds academy so you loose your quality players. If you were to bring a team in it would need to be an actual club and the only one really able to do that would be Noosa but that would be a huge step up. Stingrays were only successful when they bought a heap of kiwis.

 

[Bulldog]

That’s my point about having 4 grade, 2 colts & a women’s side.

It might be possible to make a mega club on the north coast but they haven’t been able to do so on the GC.

Why would a guy who plays at 3pm on a Saturday in the SC local comp and on the tins by 5, want to play 3rd/4th grade in QPR and have to leave home at 6:00/7:00 am every second Saturday to play.

Even more difficult for a subbies club to step up to this number of teams.

 

[Putmeoncoach]

Taine Roiri linking up with the old boy & seen training on the Sunnybank socials. Should get plenty of QPR game time this season.

 

[SouthernX]

Taine Roiri linking up with the old boy & seen training on the Sunnybank socials. Should get plenty of QPR game time this season.

That’s his uncle not his father

Good pick up at the dragons

 

[eldiablo]

Get back to arguing about the QPR team inclusions.

Saw on a UQ Instagram story that Jethro Felemi (formally GPS) is training with them