Appreciate the support - I'm more than happy to take the "lower grades" games, the NSWRUTV team are highly experienced and will do a great job as always. Also affords me a chance to run down and grab some hot food and a coffee during Colts!
I'm solely commentating at Concord - I think Wests have their own DJ and MC/announcer. If memory serves, the Pirates have a "push it" chant for their scrums, so I get it - that said, when I do matches at Rothwell, I only "intervene" with music for run outs/intervals and our tries. I've never felt the need to play music every time play stops but most grounds seem to do that now.
I know we can’t do it at Concord (at least I don’t think so) but I think Subbies need to look at the later start to avoid the Friday night/ 7:30 arrival for 4s.
Central Coast Rugby Union had their grand finals last week at Central Coast Stadium with a 5pm kickoff for 1st Grade (Premier 1). Finished at a reasonable time around 6.30pm under lights.
Central Coast, off memory, is owned and operated by the council just like Concord - but it was built for NRL and "major" sports so was made for night games. There's not much residential right near it (except for in the hills around it) so less light pollution concerns.
The key issue with Concord has always been the houses on Loftus Street, right behind the main grandstand. There have always been talks about lights there, I even suggested them to council when Allianz and Parramatta were being rebuilt as an "interim" solution, but they've not pulled the trigger. Under the current, redeveloped plans, I'm not even sure they have the facilities for it, which is disappointing.
It would make for a way better day of rugby in my opinion to have all 6 grades back-to-back BUT I was absolutely knackered by 1st grade kick-off yesterday. There are ground marshals, time and scorekeepers, camera and production crew, etc. that put in a non-stop 8-hours-plus shift yesterday.
Concord also sits right in-between, in terms of facilities, a suburban venue and a major venue, a bit like Drummoyne Oval. Both are operated by Canada Bay Council (the c.2000 amalgam of the old Concord and Drummoyne Councils, funnily enough) - Drummoyne does have floodlights which, in fairness, probably illuminates half of Hunters Hill, Woolwich and Gladesville across the river - DD have night football there quite often (including the night of my engagement party in the Greg Davis Stand, funnily enough).
Concord is much better suited for rugby being purpose-built for it, but you can't always do it all - any lights would be so heavily restricted in their use by council (think maybe 8 or less nights a year) that, by the time you get to Subbies GF day, Pirates, WT and Super Rugby (women's) have probably gobbled all those slots up.
A more practical solution may be to have one or two of the early games simultaneously at St Lukes #3 or North - there's a footbridge over Gipps Street and a walking track around St Luke's Oval (now a local AFL venue) that connects both to Concord Oval. However, if you have, for example, Waverley and Colleagues facing off both 4s and 5s (it'll never happen...), then you're stuffed either way.
Very few non-suburban grounds in Sydney will have a "feature" field and another field nearby - Belmore comes to mind but also has limits re: floodlighting. With the potential for open selection in Finals days, unless you want to "drop" a grade to open up the potential of further breaks or extra time, I think we're pretty much hamstrung without lighting up the last game or 2.
