Highlander35
Steve Williams (59)
Where is Riley Winter going to in Ireland?
From my quick googling, he's off to play for Shannon RFC, in the All Ireland League.
Where is Riley Winter going to in Ireland?
Apparently Winter and Gussy Taylor (Winters teammate at Wests, the blond halfback and Force U/20s captain), 2 of the most promising players in WA, had their Future Force contracts not renewed. Its a bit surprising seeing as the Force are banging on about looking local first the elsewhere. You could even argue he outplayed Michael Ruru in the GF and Ruru has apparently been signed for next year. I know Taylor is still training with the Spirit and Future Force.
Joe barakat is the new assistant coach. A good appointment in my opinion
Anyways, excellent write up by the Tazz man on last nights members forum.
http://twf.com.au/showthread.php?t=38101
Rugby is alive and well in Perth.
One thing that has always been a challenge for The Force is engaging the wider ex pat community. Most of the Kiwis in Perth still hold strong allegiances to the Super Rugby team from where they are from. If you watch our crowd numbers they usually spike when we host the NZ teams and is why the Force asks to host as many Kiwi teams as possible. The british and South African ex pats are more supportive of the Force but the disconnect to a lot of ex pats remains. To most though the Force is their second team they support after their true home team and usually this is only enough to purchase single game tickets instead of memberships.
Just quietly, what a perfect style assistant, masses of experience across the board in a huge variety of Aussie and foreign setups, as head coach, defence, attack, forwards and set piece. I wonder what he portfolio will be at the Force.
And based on the production levels of WA and VIC in recent times for rugby, the only team that should be canned from Super Rugby is the Brumbies. For such a long time, have continually failed to a) produce local talent b) become financially stable. With a small market, they have clearly topped out in regards to viewer interest and will never grow. At least the force and brumbies are churning out quality local born and bred players, which should be the key foundation criteria in a nationwide blueprint.