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Subbies 2023!

HogansHeros

Jim Clark (26)
Promotion/Relegation from my understanding is quite fluid and is only ever 'offered' and not enforced. A lot of pride at stake for clubs in higher grade on the slide, and vice verse for lower clubs on the rise.
While that may be true, you see a lot of shit slinging if a successful club wasnt to accept a promotion after a successful season.
 

Pfitzy

Nathan Sharpe (72)
Would you eventually get rid of Subbies altogether and just grow premier rugby? Maybe to a 2 division comp.

Not in those terms. I think I've said elsewhere we need Premier Rugby to serve a purpose - and it isn't "grassroots" as SRU would claim.

To me, Premier Rugby should be the prep school for pro players. It cannot, while it tries to be everything to everyone, in some cases actively working against other areas of rugby. Aspirational players should be in Premier, which needs to narrow its focus to prepping them for higher honours.

Take a certain number of Shute Shield clubs, and hive off their top ~30 players into the National Club Championship (NCC). Yes, this might only be 4-6 clubs from Sydney (and others from other cities), but set criteria and enforce them. In return they get funding from a streaming/TV rights deal to support the concept. Typically we'd end up with squads in the 19-25yo range, who are still young enough to take on the extra physical requirement for pro footy. However there will still be a few old stagers in there to teach them how to scrum, one painful lesson at a time ;)

Those that remain form "Premier Division" in a competition right above Subbies First Div WITH the potential for promotion and relegation.

They align with Subbies Clubs across Divisions. This becomes a feeder or support system with 3 Grades + Colts max. The remaining Colts go play for a Subbies team or they spread talent to other "Premier Division" clubs.

Think of it this way:

Sydney Uni, Randwick, Easts, Eastwood, Marlins, and Gordon meet the criteria for the NCC and their best 30 players go off to do that. Some players from these or other clubs will also get picked up by other NCC franchises.

The remaining players at these clubs - basically 2nd grade down - are in the Premier Div for their local comp (Premier Subbies?) and align with local Subbies clubs right down the Divisions. They provide a bit of top-down support and in return the talent development load is spread out to other clubs and coaches.

The remaining clubs in what was Premier Rugby still get to field 3 Grades + Colts in "Premier Subbies", and also align with local Subbies clubs where available. It might end up more competitive as the powerhouse clubs have had their best and brightest moved to another echelon.

A club like Drummoyne might like to try and get promoted to Premier Div and take Two Blues' spot. Two Blues might then drop back to Div 1.

What you get here is a set number of grades, and therefore set resourcing every year, so you're not planning things on the fly.

The number of players that can filter back to Subbies Clubs, knowing they're still aligned with a chance at NCC, means there is still a relationship there.

And once you start bringing Junior Clubs into that alignment, and figuring out how best to work that in with schools, you're moving forward.

Rugby League do this, and they do it very well.
 

Pfitzy

Nathan Sharpe (72)
Premier Clubs want nothing to do with those grubby subbies clubs. Subbies is viewed as somethng that should be crushed as they drain lower grade numbers for grade.

The prospect of mo' money will be the only thing to shift the dial on that for Premier Clubs. Looking at it from a registration pov:

Three Grades and Two Colts sides = (conservatively) 130 players @ $500 each = $60K per annum before costs.
If you lose that registration income, and replace it with $100K TV rights every year, I think they'd chuck those players in a heartbeat.
Everything else (merch, beer sales, functions) can still operate as before.

Could be utterly naive on my part.
 

Eastcoast

Bill Watson (15)
Back to the Rugby
Great weekend at Boronia this weekend.
Juniors played 4 games tonight - Ground in top shape apart from the council only mowing the outside of the oval and the pitch is soft enough to not hurt too much.
Ladies day tomorrow before a Gala day on Sunday. Get down if you can.

Div Predictions
St Pats - Mosman - Not sure what to make of both these sides. Mosman look good for large patches but then turn it out themselves. St Pats started strong but a soft loss last round away from home. Back at MudPatch they will keep it close. Mosman by 7

Blue Mountains Drummoyne - This could be a cracker. Ill take the home team to match the physicality of Drummoyne and do enough to take the points. Blueys by 6

HH - Waverley. 3/3 for HH boys and Waverley dont seem to be the same team as last year, but not taking them lightly. WIll go 4/4 this week by 10 points

Forest - Colleagues - Forest are much improved from last year but I think Colleagues will do enough at Melwood to get the W. Colleagues by 7
 

Pfitzy

Nathan Sharpe (72)
Great game against Saints yesterday. Despite their recent scorelines they really brought it and we had to fight hard for the win.
 

Let it sing

Frank Nicholson (4)
Managed to get down to Yattendon yesterday to watch Lindfield v Hills. The boys from Lindfield are certainly running hot. Appear well drilled with numbers to burn and picked Hills apart. Their clash against UNSW should be a real battle
 

Denistone_Dennis

Chris McKivat (8)
Managed to get down to Yattendon yesterday to watch Lindfield v Hills. The boys from Lindfield are certainly running hot. Appear well drilled with numbers to burn and picked Hills apart. Their clash against UNSW should be a real battle
Agree, Lindfield just too committed. Hills look talented, but just can't get out of their own way.
 

Denistone_Dennis

Chris McKivat (8)
A resilient 1st grade Epping outfit defeat Newport at Porters
Huge
Yeah wheels well and truly falling off down there now. Even at 17-0 up Newport looked flat. Pretty aimless without the 10 to keep it all linking together.

Will make for an interesting rest of the Barraclough regular season as there might be a bit of a competition for 4th and possibly 3rd spot for finals.
 

Heavyd

Arch Winning (36)
Epping did well to hang in there till halftime and limit it to 17-0 and then capitalised on Newport illdiscipline that saw them at one stage reduced to 12 men. The Newport boys toughed it out to still be in with a chance with 5 to go but Epping played smart footy and kicked well, keeping Newport under pressure and exploiting their overlap advantage well.

Newport has one player in their backline from last years Barraclough premiership winning team. The young kids this yearare all stepping up and giving their all but there was some freakish talent in last years backline that is difficult to replace.
 

Heavyd

Arch Winning (36)
Can any one confirm that Epping colts and Hunters Hill have some sort of arrangement? Plenty of Hunters Hill socks in the Rams backline and they played a lot better than their ladder position would have indicated pushing Newport all game. I think HH had a 2nds colts team and maybe its a merge?
 
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Prodigy

Ron Walden (29)
Can any one confirm that Epping colts and Hunters Hill have some sort of arrangement? Plenty of Hunters Hill socks in the Rams backline and they played a lot better than their ladder position would have indicated pushing Newport all game. I think HH had a 2nds colts team and maybe its a merge?
Correct. It is a joint venture program. Unfortunately we have not been able to recruit strongly at Colts level, given the lack of juniors in the area. Eastwood drain most of the local pool, and ran 4th grade colts with a number of reserves on the weekend. We went to them with the solution of that 4th grade colts playing with us and getting regular game time, however, the response from Eastwood was atypical - “we don’t have enough injury cover (which means we’d rather hoarse players).”
During the off season, we received incredible support from Luke and his amazing Colts coaching staff at Hunters Hill, who had an overflow of colts and rather than putting them in the Radford Cup, found a solution to regular playing time with us and them.
 

Prodigy

Ron Walden (29)
Maybe a yellow. Newport were already down two men when the ref dispatched the red for a dangerous tackle. I'd like to see it on clutch to provide a better opinion.

yeah, the Cluch footage isn’t up for the second half at the moment.
my issue at the time was that the player was taken past the horizontal and then dropped.
I would like to see it again though. I think the Newport player could see a bit of time on the sideline.
 
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