Spain Rugby League (Merged threads)

[brooza]

On 13/09/2017 at 5:12 PM, bbfaz said:

More news.  I was on Facebook last night and a notification popped up on my feed.  The Facebook page of Madrid Griffons, the first RL team in Madrid and one of the leading lights just three years ago, had undergone a name change to Mirasierra Rugby.  I mentioned before, the Griffons were based at various places; at one of the universities and at two different football clubs in NW Madrid before packing it in due to lack of local opposition.  Our mod Brooza knows those lads very well.

Well, unfortunately (probably the wrong word due to the circumstances), my trips to Madrid have ended and I've mostly lost contact with the people in Spain now

[bbfaz]

8 hours ago, brooza said:

Well, unfortunately (probably the wrong word due to the circumstances), my trips to Madrid have ended and I've mostly lost contact with the people in Spain now

As I recall, the current guy Rodrigo would've been one of the original Griffons.

I also found out what has stunted the growth of the game and led to some clubs throwing their lot in with Union clubs; insurance.  Apparently, in Union, the players register with the FER, the clubs pay a premium and everybody is covered.  However, the AERL has no such arrangement and it costs €250 per player for insurance.  So, going forward, League teams may have to be subsidiaries of union clubs so they can get covered.

This is my understanding, please don't take this as gospel.

[MatthewWoody]

5 (2 referees and 3 coaches) Spanish RL people were in in Sicily for a Level 2 coaching course last week. The referee were Spanish Tony Palacios and Andrew Pilkington (I may be missing the spelling). Working on an a more detailed article about the whole course. 
 

 

[bbfaz]

Valencian Nines were played on the 1st October.  No surprises, Tigres Torrent won the competition, Warriors and Bufals gave it a good go, though they finished second and third.  Ontinyent won a tight game against Roosters Xativa to take fourth, though the new club can be proud they were only blown out by Tigres.

Roosters are going to be based in Xativa, a historic town of around 30,000 people, which is between Ontinyent  and Valencia.

The league starts on the first weekend of November.  Still no word from Andalucia on their structure, though some seem to have begun pre-season training for whatever is supposed to start in 2018.  At a guess, and this is a massive guess, I'd assume they'll start something in January/February and follow the calendar they followed this year.

 

[bbfaz]

Custodians Madrid have resigned from the Liga Nacional after, I believe, their third home cancellation of the year due to opponents not travelling.  They were kind enough to translate their 2 1/2 page statement into English:

[deluded pom?]

Sad day. Looks like Spain has caught the RL disease.

[DoubleD]

2 hours ago, deluded pom? said:

Sad day. Looks like Spain has caught the RL disease.

I’m not massively surprised tbh. It was always going to be an issue with the Custodians and traveling  from Valencia. The Spanish really need to develop another hub around Madrid to support the Custodians but sadly all the others in that region fell away. I hope they’re not lost to the game. 

Not sure what development is going on on the ground 

[bbfaz]

When it was truly a national league, everybody had to travel somewhere and there was no excuse.  This season, the national league is the Valencian league plus Custodians.  Custodians have tried to justify their absences.  As the statement mentions, they feel the Tigres ground in Torrent is unsuitable to play a game of League.  Bear in mind, Custodians moved to a much more expensive, purpose-built synthetic rugby pitch for this very reason.

Regarding them missing the other away game, they are, in the main, a police team.  With the political situation with Catalunya and less than six months removed from the Barcelona terror attack, unfortunately they can't always raise a team due to the police's staffing demands. I mentioned before that this ruined the representative series.

Right now, there's no development here.  Everything is down in Valencia.  The clubs down in Andalucia are trying to take things into their own hands and develop  their own strategy.  Here, there's the Custodians and one other guy who ran Madrid Griffons, who loves league and has tried everything but, without sponsorship and a viable solution to the issues with insurance (as mentioned above - €250 per player), it's hard to see how things will develop.

[bbfaz]

Bringing stuff up-to-date:

Serie A is chugging towards its Custodians-less conclusion.  A lot of the games have been caught up at this point.  At the top, unbeaten Tigres lead the way from Warriors, whose one loss is to the leaders.  At the bottom, Ontinyent continue to struggle, with one walkover win that probably shouldn't be.  In the middle, Bufals and new club Xativa Roosters sit third and fourth.  This is especially hard on Xativa as they were the only team to travel to Madrid, where they lost 40-8.  However, everybody else has been 30-0 walkovers for their games against Custodians, even ones which they no-showed.

Either expunge the records altogether or give the points where they should have gone, for Pete's sake.

Practically speaking and run properly, the table should look like this:
 

POS	Team	P	W	L	D	F	A	PD	PTS
1	Tigres	6	6	0	0	336	80	256	18
2	Warriors	6	4	2	0	294	136	158	12
3	Roosters	6	3	3	0	232	217	15	9
4	Bufals	5	2	3	0	175	226	-51	6
5	Ontinyent	7	0	7	0	116	494	-378	0

 

Serie B didn't get off the ground nor did Valencia Sharks.  Nor did the Andalusian regional league, which is now taking applications for a league starting later this year.  I looked back at the previous page and it makes for really difficult reading now.  Things were shaky in May and they've got worse.  Essentially, there are five active Rugby League clubs in the country right now; three in Valencia and two in small towns an hour to the south.  Conceivably, things could be better by the end of the year if Andalusia gets its act together.  However, unless something seriously changes, RL is essentially dead in the capital.

Mirasierra Bunnies didn't get off the ground.  Training in the park didn't really take and it seems the new Union side they were going into partnership didn't take off either.  Rodrigo is still plugging away, the Facebook page is back to being called Griffons RL and I hope to catch up with him this week to see how he's doing.  At this point, I can't see a direction from anybody.

[Heritage XIII]

Such a shame, so much potential in the beginning. Perhaps too quick developing when more firm foundations are needed? Let's hope this is a renewal. I much prefer what the Dutch seem to be doing, taking things slowly & making sure the few clubs they have now are more solid before adding any others?

[bbfaz]

As I said to the Custodians, a lot has changed since the AERL was formed. The days of independent teams are gone. Most of the new teams in Valencia and Andalucia are offshoots of Rugby Union teams. The only obvious solution to the insurance problem is to pair up with Union clubs and hopefully piggyback off their insurance. I worry that what will happen - not out of spite but necessity - is that the game in some parts of the country will virtually be absorbed by Rugby Union, in the same way as happened in Italy with the rival LIRFL faction.

This needs to be sorted.  And fast.

[langpark]

7 hours ago, Heritage XIII said:

Such a shame, so much potential in the beginning. Perhaps too quick developing when more firm foundations are needed? Let's hope this is a renewal. I much prefer what the Dutch seem to be doing, taking things slowly & making sure the few clubs they have now are more solid before adding any others?

The Dutch have indeed done a great job, but to be fair, long travelling distances is one thing that is not an issue for them. 

[deluded pom?]

8 hours ago, langpark said:

The Dutch have indeed done a great job, but to be fair, long travelling distances is one thing that is not an issue for them. 

Not as the crow flies but they have a lot of mountains to travel over.

[langpark]

Um... Are talking about the same place?? Netherlands, right? Not Switzerland

[deluded pom?]

58 minutes ago, langpark said:

Um... Are talking about the same place?? Netherlands, right? Not Switzerland

Yes.

[DoubleD]

2 hours ago, deluded pom? said:

Not as the crow flies but they have a lot of mountains to travel over.

Mountains of tulips

[deluded pom?]

1 hour ago, DoubleD said:

Mountains of tulips

There’s always one spoilsport.

[bobdeegan]

I was in Valencia last weekend and fancied taking in a game. Unfortunately I couldn't find out the kick-off times in spite of scouring social media for the information.

As it turned out my preferred game, Bufals v Ontinyent,  was postponed due to the weather anyway.

[RayCee]

On 3/3/2018 at 2:30 AM, deluded pom? said:

Not as the crow flies but they have a lot of mountains to travel over.

DP knows what he's talking about. He used to be a volunteer for Mountain Rescue Nederland. He's too modest to mention it himself. He would often be seen in cafes around Amsterdam waiting for a call if needed. Mind you I'm not sure he would have been ready and able had any calls come but that's another story.  

[DoubleD]

1 hour ago, RayCee said:

DP knows what he's talking about. He used to be a volunteer for Mountain Rescue Nederland. He's too modest to mention it himself. He would often be seen in cafes around Amsterdam waiting for a call if needed. Mind you I'm not sure he would have been ready and able had any calls come but that's another story.  

I think you’d find DP more often in the red light district in Amsterdam ?

[RayCee]

15 hours ago, bobdeegan said:

I was in Valencia last weekend and fancied taking in a game. Unfortunately I couldn't out the kick-off times in spite of scouring social media for the information.

As it turned out my preferred game, Bufals v Ontinyent,  was postponed due to the weather anyway.

Others who have tried to find out about games have apparently been unable. Maybe just family and a few close friends are in the know. If you want to grow a game, that's an excellent way not to do it. I speak from others experiences but not from personal knowledge. 

[deluded pom?]

8 hours ago, DoubleD said:

I think you’d find DP more often in the red light district in Amsterdam ?

Only because that’s where most tourists got into trouble.

[bbfaz]

On 3/17/2018 at 3:18 AM, RayCee said:

Others who have tried to find out about games have apparently been unable. Maybe just family and a few close friends are in the know. If you want to grow a game, that's an excellent way not to do it. I speak from others experiences but not from personal knowledge. 

I've lived in Madrid since August 2014, bar 11 months where I had a job in the UK.  That's 32 out of 43 months.  However, I've seen just two games of Rugby League because of this very issue.  I went to a game once where it was cancelled and not announced on social media and, since then, will only go to games that have been confirmed as being on before I travel.

Custodians have never played in the city and only Origin has been held here.  At one point, Custodians either played in an athletics track 20km north of Sol (which is the recognised centre of Madrid) or at a synthetic field 11km south east.  The former had regular trains and semi-regular buses which were a hefty walk from the field but the latter was in a obscure district which was only served by four buses a day.  If the kickoff was in the evening, you could get down but not back.  There was no way that I could justify going if I didn't know it was on.  Just too far to have a wasted journey.

[bbfaz]

Sorry to bump the thread but I was wondering if anybody here has any insight into just what the hell is going on?

The international team has played this season but the club game has ground to a halt.  Daz Fisher was quoted in a recent article as saying that they're trying to revamp and regionalise the domestic competition.  However, this is a process that has been essentially going on for 18 months, when the Andalusian clubs announced they were going it alone.  Does anybody have any insight?

[Bob8]

I was going to ask if anything is happening in Vigo.

I assume not.