National Rugby Competition
The NRC begins on Thursday when Brisbane City plays the Sydney Stars at Ballymore in a TV game.
For those who don’t know: it is a competition for nine teams played over nine rounds with one team getting the bye every week, followed by semi-finals and the final. All Aussie players not involved with the Wallabies will participate.
As in the 2007 ARC it will take a while for fans to connect with these new teams but I found myself driving to Gosford to support the Rays seven years ago; so it shouldn’t take too long.
Whilst we are bonding with our teams, watching the experimental law variations and referee interpretations will be interesting, not only in themselves, but also how they impact on each other.
Some of the ELVs they tried in 2007 worked well in club rugby and were OK in the ARC later in the season. But the professional referees stuffed it up when some of the ELVs were used in the 2008 Super 14, in ways discussed in our forums at the time.
One hopes that the referee gurus get it right this time and review the process weekly.
The competition should tick the rugby boxes and one hopes the financial boxes will be ticked also, this time around. The nine sides are responsible for most of the direct costs; so one hopes that they have done their sums right.
We trust that the NRC will prosper in it’s early years and we can dream that the teams will be able to add Under 19 sides down the track. The South Africans have the Absa Under 19 Cup and we can see how they are prospering in the IRB Under 20s the following year because of it.
You have to dream.
