New rugby format for Christchurch club competition?

Press, 7 February 1986, Page 20

New rugby format for Christchurch club competition?

With the annual meeting of the Canterbury union only two weeks away, a new rugby season will start to take shape. One possible change on the horizon is a fresh format for the town senior competition.

The format of the last 10 years has been a round robin of 15 matches to find the Trusteebank Cup winner and then section play and finals to determine the Trusteebank Trophy (top eight) and D.C.L. Shield (bottom eight) winners. The Trophy winner has been the acknowledged champion side of the season. Popular as this format has been, it has not been without its critics. In some quarters there is still a feeling that the team that finishes ahead of all others in the Cup round should be recognised as the best team.

More games, particularly in the latter part of the season when the emphasis switches to representative rugby, has also been a bone of contention. For non-representative senior players, their season can end as early as the first week in August. Another problem which arises this year is that Canterbury, with its involvement in the new South Pacific championship, will have heavier than usual commitments in April and May. This means that clubs will be without their representative players for the first four or five rounds. Towards the end of last year, the C.R.F.U. had a meeting with clubs to discuss what the senior format should be. As always, total agreement was impossible, but there was a strong body of opinion for one suggested change. This was for the early part of the season to be given over to a preliminary competition, in structure like the Trophy rounds only that there be two sections of eight teams instead of four of four and the two section winners meet in a night final.

Such a competition would end around the middle of May and then the full round robin would be played, ending in the last week of August and the winner being the champion side. Clubs cannot expect to have their representative players for all these games, but they should have them for most.

The suggestion was also made that at the end of the round robin there be play-offs, culminating in a final, between the top four teams, and the winner being the season’s champion. However, it would be a rather hollow victory as anything up to 70 players would at that time be tied up playing for Canterbury A, Canterbury B, and Canterbury Colts. The chairman of the union’s competitions committee, Murray Inglis, has mulled over the possibilities through the summer months and his committee’s recommendations for this year’s format will go before the union at its meeting next Tuesday night. Mr Inglis said that his committee had still to meet and make a final decision, and he could not guarantee that its proposals, whatever they might be, would be accepted by the full executive.

“There is no point in changing systems just for the sake of change. The format we have used for the last few years has been a good one and many, I think, would be quite happy for it to continue.

“But there are other matters to be taken into account, like the South Pacific championship and the need to give the players who want it a longer season,” said Mr Inglis. One possibility that Mr Inglis has considered, and one which his committee may put forward is for the present system to stand, except that there be two sections of eight for the Trophy rounds. This would give all teams q, at least three more games. ■£,

There is a major prob- * lem here fitting in the games, and a final, before Canterbury A begins its ft North Island tour on & August 30. Night matches '£ somewhere along the way n would appear to be the X only solution, and night games in July and early August have little appeal.

“Whatever way it is» done clubs are going to be X without their representa- £ tive players for some - rounds. We can try to free them as much as possible, a but in the end it is the j? clubs which have the ft depth that will be better off, and, perhaps, this is it the way it I should be,” & said Mr Inglish.

KEVIN McMENAMIN £