DUBBO Rhinos president Ian Burns admits he has real doubts about the future of his club following the Central West Rugby Union’s decision to play the two Rhinos side in two different GrainCorp Cup competitions.
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The two sides, Rhinos Black and Rhinos Gold, both played in the GrainCorp Cup northern competition last season with Gold winning a tense grand final against Yeoval, but the decision has been made for one side to now play in the southern conference in 2015.
Burns is firmly against the decision and hopes to have a meeting with the CWRU in the coming days.
With the club also having a women’s side Burns said it would be difficult for his club to be in three different places in one weekend and fears the two men’s sides would not be able to survive in two competitions.
“We’ve asked for a meeting with the Central West board about our grave concerns of playing in three different competitions, we don’t believe we have the resources to field three teams in three different places at different times so we have some major concerns,” he said.
“It’s a real option that we might only have one team and it’s horrible to think about that because we’ve always provided a game of football for people and there’s a good chance 25 people might not be able to play rugby.”
CWRU chief executive Peter Veenstra said a proposal to split the two sides was put forward to all clubs following the annual general meeting in November and with no concerns raised the idea was pushed forward.
Veenstra highlighted the fact the competition is mainly for smaller, one-team towns as a major reason for the decision while he said having the two sides, which both made the finals of the northern competition in 2014, in the two divisions would also improve the southern division.
“GrainCorp Cup is for clubs that can only field one team and those form smaller towns in particular and with that in regard that’s the way the board approached it,” he said.
“The board was mindful that the south competition has had fewer teams for some time so now those sides will be able to play 14 matches instead of 12 and that was seen as a good thing as well.”
Burns highlighted the issue of travel as a major concern of his, with the southern competition made up of Condobolin, Canowindra, Molong, Blayney, Grenfell, CSU Orange and West Wyalong.
“Player welfare is also a concern because the south side will have to travel three hours, or more if you’re in a bus, to play a game of football,” he said.
“The feeling that the GrainCorp Cup is a small town competition is wrong because they allowed Orange to field teams in the southern competition and there’s still an Orange (Aggies) team there now.”
