RUGBY UNION
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AFTER months of proposals, feedback, negotiating and tweaking, the Central West Rugby Union (CWRU) board has finally confirmed a number of changes to the Blowes Clothing Cup competitions, effective from next season onwards.
And they are radical.
Firstly, and crucially, Dubbo Rhinos will re-enter the top tier competition, and CWRU chief executive officer Peter Veenstra confirmed the club will field first grade, second grade and colts outfits.
As a result, the Blowes Clothing Cup will be an 11-team competition, which needs fit into an 18-week season.
And so, in one of the biggest moves in the competition’s history, the Blowes Clothing Cup will be split into two pools, two thirds of the way through the season.
After playing every other side once in the opening 12 weeks of the competition, the 11 clubs will split into two random pools - one of five, one of six - to play out the final six weeks of the regular season.
From there, the five team finals series will be determined from the overall points tally.
“We’ve got 11 clubs, with 12 weeks to get through (for one full round),” Veenstra explained.
“The second half of the season will be six weeks, so the draw will be done and we’ll go from there.
“All the sides will play the same number of matches, and the finals will be the top five full stop. The top five overall, combined.”
Veenstra explained the board sees this route as the best result for all involved, and while conceding they can’t please everyone, he said the committee is confident in the new system.
Under the new changes, and in an expected move, CWRU has made first grade, second grade and colts mandatory for all the clubs, as the latter wasn’t compulsory under the board’s original proposed structure.
Colts will be changed from an under-20 competition to an under-19 age group, despite resistance from the larger clubs in the region.
In the spirit of rugby, and in a bid to ensure as much rugby as possible, teams will be allowed to field less than 15 players - as low as 10 - which their opposition must match.
However, whichever team cannot field at least 14 will forfeit the game, officially.
“Colts will be mandatory, but the thinking of the board is to change the by-laws so it becomes a bit like the junior competitions so that if teams don’t have 15 players, the numbers are matched so they do at least get to play a competitive game,” Veenstra explained.
“One of the reasons we’ve gone back to the under-19 age group is that we’re very much aware of leakage from the under 17s. We know there were clubs where no under 17 players played in the under 20 competitions, and that had to do with the three-year gap being too great.
“This brings it back to the two-year gap we have between all the junior age groups.
“We’ll also be trying to have third graders playing every second week.”
The CWRU supremo said he’s confident the change of age group will create stronger colts teams in a number of clubs, and said it’s unlikely teams will regularly be unable to field a full unit.
“We think what will happen is there will be increased number of players in clubs at the under 19 levels,” he said.
“If there is an issue there obviously we would revisit that at the end of the first half of the season, and have a look if we’re consistently getting games that didn’t have 15 a side.
“We’d then have to make a decision as to what would happen there.”
The GrainCorp Cup is also set for somewhat of a revamp, with Temora and Cootamundra likely to move from the Southern Inland Rugby Union, into the second tier Central West competition.