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Western Sydney Rams . NRC Official Team Thread

HorseSizedDuck

HorseSizedDuck

Peter Burge (5)
Don't know if it's been said before but

http://www.rugby.com.au/nrc/FixturesDraw/FixturesDraw.aspx

Something interesting on the NRC draw for Round 7.

I think Foxtel may be televising two games that weekend.

One on Thursday @ 730 and one on friday @ 730 (RAMvQLDCity)

I tried looking at the fox tv guide to confirm this but the guide only goes up to 28th of Sept.

I guess we will have to wait and see.

I beat the NRL will be over by then and Foxtel wants some OC to show...

EDIT:- I just read the key at the bottom of the page and the TAN colour games that are highlighted at to be foxtel'ed... so it probably wont happen then...
 
Pfitzy

Pfitzy

George Gregan (70)
Yeah reckon E&E has it right - just happens to be a Fridee night. Rams are avoiding the Saturday due to the high chance of Swans being in the GF and the NRL last week of preliminaries.
 
FTS

FTS

Billy Sheehan (19)
From what I have watched I was impressed with Auvasa Faleali'i and think he should be first choice 9. Good physical presence for a scrummie with sound service and good box kick, seems to be in better form than Swanepoel. Although there was apparently issues with him relocating to Sydney last pre season i'd like to see Faleali'i have a crack in the Shute Shield, he must dominate in the Newcastle comp.
 
Pfitzy

Pfitzy

George Gregan (70)
Have heard he'll be playing with West Harbour next year.

Much quicker delivery than Swanepoel because he doesn't take two steps to deliver.
 
P

paul martin

Ted Fahey (11)
God I hope not. Is there any more pointless tactic in rugby than the halfback box kick? Unless your name is Fourie Du Preez and you've got Bryan Habana chasing it is just a turnover. I wish I had a dollar for every time I've seen a 9 kick it out on the full.
 
Knuckles

Knuckles

Ted Thorn (20)
Rumours the Rams GM fell on his sword yesterday. Apparently he'd had a stink with a board member over Eastwood.

Will be interesting to see how that plays out.
 
Ash

Ash

Michael Lynagh (62)
An agent meant to help fight the war, but is actually undermining the health of everyone?

Most of the Shute Shield clubs would love the NRC to be scrapped, and maybe the NSWRU too going by what McKay wrote today.
 
Wilson

Wilson

David Codey (61)
Ash said:
An agent meant to help fight the war, but is actually undermining the health of everyone?

Most of the Shute Shield clubs would love the NRC to be scrapped, and maybe the NSWRU too going by what McKay wrote today.
Click to expand...
The nswru look like they are taking the French approach - if it helps someone else more than it helps me I don't like it.
 
T

TOCC

Guest
NSWRU/Waratahs need to take a more direct involvement in these teams, not only are there economies of effort to be achieved but there is fundamental intellectual capital within the Waratahs organisation that could be passed on to the coaching and management staff of the NSW NRC teams.

My belief overall is that the NSW teams will continue to lack efficiency and continue to struggle on the field as the other NRC teams develop and leverage their super rugby connection.
 
Eyes and Ears

Eyes and Ears

Bob Davidson (42)
I understand what you are saying and you make a good point about intellectual capital but I worry about conflicts. I would be concerned about the Queensland situation. There appeared to be a very uneven distribution of talent between the 2 teams before the NRC started and the end result was Brisbane won and Qld Country only finished above the much maligned Stars.
I also thought that clubs controlled by the NSWRU was one of the criticsms of the ARC from those in club land.
 
Ash

Ash

Michael Lynagh (62)
City was always going to have the better of players, but injuries to O'Donoghue (London), Davies (Rocky), Shipperley (Redcliffe), Harris (NZ), Lucas (Ipswich), Daley (Sydney), Quirk (Brisbane), CFS (NZ), Toua (PNG) plus the losses of Owen (Hong Kong), Anae (NZ) overseas (Anae may be have been injured too?) messed up the sides a lot. Some of those 11 or so players may have been City, but most would have been Queensland Country, especially looking at how many were not from Brisbane. Quirk or Browning or Schatz would've also have gone to Country if Quirk wasn't injured to balance the backrowers.

To add to the above, Country were also struck down by Blake Enever, Ant Fainga'a, Holmes, Lolo Fakaosilea, Sam Johnson, Jack Payne (I think?) and Beau Robinson all spending significant periods of time injured (I don't think that Enever and Lolo even played?), plus Saia being called up to the Wallabies after nearly every other hooker went down injured. Compare that to the Rising, who barely had any injuries from the Rebels contingent coming into the comp.

Sure, Queensland Country weren't as strong as City, but the gap wasn't as big as it appears thanks to the massive amount of injuries.

NSWRU support could have been in social media, emails to players / members, etc etc, but they were silent. They could have marshalled the premisership and subbies clubs to get behind teams, for instance.
 
T

TOCC

Guest
Eyes and Ears said:
I understand what you are saying and you make a good point about intellectual capital but I worry about conflicts. I would be concerned about the Queensland situation. There appeared to be a very uneven distribution of talent between the 2 teams before the NRC started and the end result was Brisbane won and Qld Country only finished above the much maligned Stars.
I also thought that clubs controlled by the NSWRU was one of the criticsms of the ARC from those in club land.
Click to expand...

Player distribution is really only a very small factor, the bigger issues are the coaching staff, the S&C trainers, the medical(physic's, doctors etc), video analysts, marketing and team management.. There is significant opportunity in these roles to lift the professionalism and standard of the NSW NRC teams by leveraging existing resources within the Waratahs and NSWRU.

In an interview with the Brisbane City assistant coaches, who are in fact the head coaches of Easts and Sunnybank in the Queensland Premier Grade, they gave the tournament great accolades as it exposed them to the professional environment by working within the Reds framework and having access to all the Reds professional support.

I firmly believe the gap will only widen in 2015 between those club which have access to professional support staff and those that don't. Shute Shield has always been the most professional club competition in Australia, but even through consolidation of those clubs resources i don't think they can match whats on offer at the Super Rugby clubs.
 
Pfitzy

Pfitzy

George Gregan (70)
TOCC said:
Shute Shield has always been the most professional club competition in Australia,
Click to expand...


Which isn't saying much. There is probably more money and nearly as much talent going around in Subbies First Div.

Anyway, this thread is about the Rams. But this segues nicely:

While we're all concerned for the talent on-field, you can only really think about making this professional setup a reality with the actions your back office takes off the park.

The Rams are well into this with a large injection of private equity, rather than relying on clubs to supply this stalwarts, who may have mixed loyalties about the success of NRC as a whole.

The Rams admin are taking care of the bullshit so that the coaches can just coach, and the players just play. Its just little things right now, and will hopefully grow without too much politics, because its being run like a business, not a rugby club.
 
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