Then, umm. What's the point of club rugby?
Ask myself that all the time. Here's how I see it:
If a kid starts playing at a local "village" club, and is good enough, he's more likely than not to enter the schools system.
If he's good enough there, he gets identified for rep honours and so on and so forth to State and perhaps Gold pathway.
Once that happens, he's probably going into a pro setup somewhere, and his affiliation with a "Premier" Club is just lip service.
Likely never go back to their "local" club, even if it has seniors, until he's well and truly done with his career.
So, we come back to your question - one I've been asking for ages: what is the point behind club rugby?
At amateur level, we've got Subbies which fulfils the majority of social need. Tick.
The Premier Clubs are running 1 x Grade and 1 x Colts ostensibly as development of semi or pro players, even though the standard isn't rigorous enough, and all the other grades are there as a meal ticket to help the club keep going. So Premier Rugby
thinks it is grassroots, because of the meal ticket players, and promotes itself as such. Really it is a bastard hybrid with aspirations of both pro and amateur.
Like a lot of things in rugby land, the level of misalignment and waste is staggering.
