3rd tier is back in 2014 [Discontinued]

[wamberal]

For some reason people in northern Sydney seem to be the whipping boys for all that is wrong with rugby on these threads. If I suggested that people at Baulkham Hills should be prepared to drive to Brookvale to watch rugby, I'd be rightly castigated as some sort of idiot, but apparently there's something wrong with people in northern Sydney because we won't drive en masse to Gosford to watch rugby.

Rant over.

I doubt that there will be a team at Gosford this time around, I was simply making the point earlier that Bluetongue is a good venue. It is worth pointing out that there are actually a lot of rugby supporters who live north of Sydney.

And yes, there is something a bit wrong if rugby supporters won't travel to away games, even at Brookvale or Gosford.

 

[Quick Hands]

I doubt that there will be a team at Gosford this time around, I was simply making the point earlier that Bluetongue is a good venue. It is worth pointing out that there are actually a lot of rugby supporters who live north of Sydney.

And yes, there is something a bit wrong if rugby supporters won't travel to away games, even at Brookvale or Gosford.

Bluetongue is an excellent facility. It's a great pity that the NSWRU didn't put their 3 teams in Sydney and their 4th team at Gosford instead of in Melbourne last time around. Quite possibly a wasted opportunity.

No problem travelling to away games, I do it all the time - league and union.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

And yes, there is something a bit wrong if rugby supporters won't travel to away games, even at Brookvale or Gosford.

You're kidding?
Rugby "supporters" barely travel to home games.
Sydney supporters generally are very fickle and rather than get bogged down in the merits of the Tahs last 18 years have a look at the Swans figures: I never look at the AFL table to find out how the Swans are going I just look at the home game attendance figures.
If they're going to play these games on a Thursday evening there are already issues: Friday is a work day for most of us; kids have school. This leaves you the 20 somethings and young 30's - I may be showing my age but the Oaks is a better bet than Bluetongue park!

 

[I like to watch]

I doubt that there will be a team at Gosford this time around, I was simply making the point earlier that Bluetongue is a good venue. It is worth pointing out that there are actually a lot of rugby supporters who live north of Sydney.

And yes, there is something a bit wrong if rugby supporters won't travel to away games, even at Brookvale or Gosford.

Travelling to away games is one thing.travelling to your home games is another thing altogether.
If you could field a team of predominantly locals, you might be a chance.
I don't think anyone has the energy to try and do that.
We will see after the EOI process is completed i suppose.

 

[Kenny Powers]

With the games and grounds why would you not

1. Launch the season in Sydney with a double header, especially if there are 3 or 4 clubs based out so Sydney. You could possibly justify using Allianz, and you could get two games on Foxtel, being at the same ground the extra broadcast costs are minimal. Also be smart about it and do it on a non Wallabies test match weekend.

2. It's test match time of year play them as curtain raisers good crowds, in front of potential sponsors as good corporate attendance and again minimal extra broadcast costs with higher TV ratings.

With the difficulties in getting around Sydney and the commitments everyone has particularly school related 3pm Saturday games should not be considered, the NRL stopped this years ago.

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

If you can get from Manly to Gosford in 45 minutes you're not using any of the roads that I've been on for the past 40 odd years. As a life long Manly resident who holidayed in Gosford as a kid and who regularly holidays now at Nelson Bay and makes a couple of trips to Gosford a year for kids sport, I can tell you I've never made it to Gosford or even the Gosford turn-off in 45 minutes. An hour and a quarter would be about as good as it gets maybe an hour and a half. For Thursday night matches as proposed for the NRC, you'd be looking at close to 2 hours or more through peak hour traffic getting there and about an hour and a quarter coming home. Then getting the kids up for school the next morning.

For some reason people in northern Sydney seem to be the whipping boys for all that is wrong with rugby on these threads. If I suggested that people at Baulkham Hills should be prepared to drive to Brookvale to watch rugby, I'd be rightly castigated as some sort of idiot, but apparently there's something wrong with people in northern Sydney because we won't drive en masse to Gosford to watch rugby.

Rant over.

I was referring more to Hornsby with the 45 minutes but I have done Manly to Gosford in an hour.

 

[suckerforred]

I didn't mean to offend anyone or start a bitch fight about attending home & away games.

The point that I was trying to make is that we, as the rugby community, are going to have to make some sacrifices/commitments to supporting this comp no matter where the teams are based. Otherwise it will be caned like the ARC was.

Yes I realise that there will be issues - work, kids, facilities etc - but by making excuses, however valid or invalid, we are not going to get anyone else interested or have the comp work. What do you think the 'slightly interested punter' is going to think about traveling an hour to watch a game if the 'rusted on' or 'just welded on' punters are saying they couldn't be fagged cause it is to far? They are going to think that it is not going to be worth their while because the game can't be that good if the others couldn't be bothered going.

Rant over.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

2. It's test match time of year play them as curtain raisers good crowds, in front of potential sponsors as good corporate attendance and again minimal extra broadcast costs with higher TV ratings.

I like this idea

 

[Brumby Runner]

Some of you are missing the point. Distance is but one factor, but I'd suggest that feeling a link to the team is probably more important. Gosford and northern Sydney are 2 distinct places, you're not going to be able to set up a team which appeals to both as "their" local team. That's just reality.

The same goes for Sydney as a whole. The north/south divide works to a point, but at some stage as you travel west people no longer consider themselves north or south of the harbour but west. I'd even suggest that in the last 10 years or so it's further divided into north west and south west. So you're not going to sell a Northern Sydney team to someone living at Seven Hills just because they are north of the line of Sydney Harbour, nothing to do with how far they have to drive, they just won't identify with it as "their" team.

All JVs have to be big enough to appeal to enough people and small enough to appeal to people as their local team. The proposed Northern Sydney JV of Manly, Norths, Warringah and Gordon fits this bill, as does the hoped for Parra, Eastwood, Penrith & Wests JV. I also think that Easts, Rand & SD make a logical fit to cover the south-eastern region, notwithstanding Randwick seeming to prefer a stand-alone option.

We want to retain the people we have by having joint ventures wherever possible to maximise the supporter and sponsor base - remember at the grounds that these matches will be played there won't be a barbeque or club bar, the main way for clubs to make money is supporter merchanise. RL, A-League and AFL clubs confront this reality as well, it's not unique to 3T.

We also want to attract people who may have an interest in supporting rugby and while diehards might not blink at driving from North Sydney to Gosford, most people won't. That sort of strategy is setting yourself up to fail before you start.

I couldn't agree more with the views expressed in this post.

As far as fans from the Northern Sydney JV area traveling to Gosford is concerned, it is realistically a pipe dream. I lived on the northern beaches for over twenty years and regularly traveled north on day trips and holidays. 45 minutes would get you as far as Hornsby on a good day. And is Thursday still late night shopping in Sydney? Then allow perhaps another 15 minutes each way just to get through or around the shopping centre.

The point is that if the Central Coast is so keen to have games at Gosford, they just need to put in their own EOI. The Northern Sydney JV needs to be local and I expect it will be one of the stronger and better managed outfits in the NRC.

 

[Brumby Runner]

I didn't mean to offend anyone or start a bitch fight about attending home & away games.

The point that I was trying to make is that we, as the rugby community, are going to have to make some sacrifices/commitments to supporting this comp no matter where the teams are based. Otherwise it will be caned like the ARC was.

Yes I realise that there will be issues - work, kids, facilities etc - but by making excuses, however valid or invalid, we are not going to get anyone else interested or have the comp work. What do you think the 'slightly interested punter' is going to think about traveling an hour to watch a game if the 'rusted on' or 'just welded on' punters are saying they couldn't be fagged cause it is to far? They are going to think that it is not going to be worth their while because the game can't be that good if the others couldn't be bothered going.

Rant over.

SFR have a good look at the map posted by Bruce Ross. There is a bloody great geographic/topographic barrier between the northern beaches and the central coast. One that makes the Brisbane River look like the creek it is. If you can appreciate that there is a natural division of the Brisbane area into north and south of the river, then the chasm between Pittwater and central coast is really insurmountable. I say again, if the Central Coast want games at Gosford, they need to put their own proposal in to run a team in the NRC.

 

[suckerforred]

I see that BR. The North/South divide in Brisbane shits me to tears as well.

 

[Quick Hands]

Divisions can be good if they breed well-mannered tribal loyalty. One reason the ARC failed was there were 3 teams all owned and managed by the NSWRU. Centralising the means of production has never been a success, let alone having one organisation running 3 teams in the one competition.

Good sporting competitions have this tribal loyalty, AFL, NRL, French top 14, ITM Cup, Currie Cup - it's what gets people to games. Generally these are based on geography, it's actually not that hard to work out - even I can see it.

Having people in different parts of Sydney and Brisbane and in Canberra, Melbourne, Perth and anywhere else (no I haven't forgotten you Adelaide) feeling proud of their local teams is a good thing and should be encouraged. In Sydney and Brisbane this is where a connection to SS or Premier clubs comes in. In the other cities, get the whole rugby community on board. If there is another attempt to allocate players at the whim of the governing body/ies this will be lost.

To that end, I assume that super players located in Melbourne, Perth and Canberra will play for the 3T entity there rather than returning to the entity aligned with their Sydney or Brisbane clubs.

 

[p.Tah]

As some who spends a fair bit of time on the central coast I agree its too far from Sydney for a Nth Sydney JV. Ok for one off matches such as Baa Baas game but not the NRC unless its a Gosford team.

For the Queenslanders unfamiliar with the Central Coast region, I think you'd like it. Last week I went to the bottle shop wearing only boxer shorts and thongs to buy a six pack. No one batted an eyelid. Yes, I know I'm all class

 

[Inside Shoulder]

For the Queenslanders unfamiliar with the Central Coast region, I think you'd like it. Last week I went to the bottle shop wearing only boxer shorts and thongs to buy a six pack. No one battered an eye kid. Yes, I know I'm all class

I hope you stapled the fly

 

[swingpass]

No one battered an eye lid. Yes, I know I'm all class

yum, deep fried eyelids.

where's cat when you need her

edit: sorry couldn't resist

 

[gel]

For the Queenslanders unfamiliar with the Central Coast region, I think you'd like it. Last week I went to the bottle shop wearing only boxer shorts and thongs to buy a six pack. No one battered an eye lid. Yes, I know I'm all class

Why'd you get all dressed up? Some sort of fancy place, was it?

 

[ChargerWA]

Your joint sounds classy. At my local last week the guy in line in front of me was so drunk that he couldnt even carry his 3 boxes of goon to the car, so the owner got the shop boy to carry it out for him, So he could drive home.......

So this thread has been thick with info on the Sydney teams, would love to hear a bit more from Brisbane. Anyone keen to have a crack at laying out what they think the teams will be?

Perth and Melb are pretty straight forward. I would say from a WA point of view I would be happy to see a new name but hope they retain the yellow/black jersey (Perth Bee's anyone......anyone?).

 

[RugbyFuture]

Perth Pythons

Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk

 

[Kenny Powers]

I would say from a WA point of view I would be happy to see a new name but hope they retain the yellow/black jersey (Perth Bee's anyone..anyone?).

How about the Perth Honey Badgers, has a bee connection and means Nic Cummins will have to play for them.

The Manly, Gordon, Rats and Norths proposal keeping in line with the water related themes could be the North Shore Mermen. (As in the male version of a mermaid)

If Sydney University stand alone they could be known as The Aristocrats.

A Western Sydney team could be known as the Gunna's because rugby administrators have always gunna do this and gunna do that for Western Sydney.

And for any team from the Eastern Suburbs, the Sydney Hipsters.

Not sure about Queensland teams, but just like 'Reds' will have to keep them to one syllable.

 

[Rugrat]

My understanding is that the QRU is trying to do the same thing controlling the 2 teams allocated for Qld.