Atlanta Rhinos Withdraw from USARL Playoffs

[Themusician_2]

13 hours ago, Onieda FC said:

Hi, 

Let me weigh in as in American. 

RU existed here, with no following seriously, for 100+ years an amateur sport (even winning the 1924 Olympics). No profile whatsoever. The clubs, not the financially ruined USA Rugby, got together and started a semi-pro competition and it's gotten some traction. It's still a tiny, niche thing that few know about that averages 2k per game (that's lowest rung minor league baseball numbers). 

Nobody will be "lost" to union. People here (as they do in Canada) will support both because that's how our sports culture is. Keep your code war nonsense overseas. Amateur teams closing down in Canada or in the US is down to how hard it is to run any kind of amateur sports on this continent. Amateur, grassroots growth does nothing here. There was no hockey in Arizona or Nashville, TN before the NHL came to town, now it's played in both non-traditional places. 

Soccer was grassroots, amateur, and nowhere here from 1984 (death of NASL) until the 1994 World Cup and the 1996 start of Major League Soccer. Now after 20+ years, soccer is one of our major sports with soccer stadiums from one end of the nation to the other and everywhere in between. 

Give up this "we have to fight union" idea. Union isn't fighting you here, nobody cares. We expect all our teams to support each other, so if say the Arrows began to attack the Wolfpack or RUNY started to talk about NYCRL it would turn off fans and the media. 

Aussie rules football here is played by the Aussie expats who come here to work and a smattering of Americans. If I didn't date an Aussie in NYC for 5 years I wouldn't even know it exists here. Nobody knows. 

The only thing that will grow the game here in the United States (and up in Canada) is professional teams. That's it. It'll be 15 years before you see North Americans playing, just like it took 20 before the Melbourne Storm turned out a Victorian. 

See but that's precisely why we need to create a divide between the rugby league and rugby union communities in both the usa and Canada like we have here in England and Australia. So only rugby league can benefit at the moment the rugby league community is kind of apart of the rugby union community. In Canada for example I've heard numerous occasions of wolfpack parents putting their kids into union clubs due to there being no organised youth rugby league. Who does that benefit rugby league or rugby union? The wolfpack do a great job at promoting rugby league but we can't fully capitalize on their good work due to the "we support both" agenda. Union should not be benefiting at all from our expansion efforts. Don't you see how bowing down to rugby union hurts rugby league?

 

[southwalesrabbitoh]

If you can't do things properly, don't do them at all. And stop saying that RL is superior. RL is almost certainly never going to be more popular than RU. I laughed when reading about Atlanta RL.

[DoubleD]

3 minutes ago, southwalesrabbitoh said:

If you can't do things properly, don't do them at all. And stop saying that RL is superior. RL is almost certainly never going to be more popular than RU. I laughed when reading about Atlanta RL.

You really are a sad individual 

[southwalesrabbitoh]

Just now, DoubleD said:

You really are a sad individual 

I'm facing reality. Have you read what Themusician_2 wrote? Ppl should stop calling RL TGG.

[DoubleD]

2 minutes ago, southwalesrabbitoh said:

I'm facing reality. Have you read what Themusician_2 wrote? Ppl should stop calling RL TGG.

If you think a club folding is laughable then either you are a troll or you need a long hard look in the mirror 

[southwalesrabbitoh]

23 minutes ago, DoubleD said:

If you think a club folding is laughable then either you are a troll or you need a long hard look in the mirror 

The issues they had in getting a side during the reg. season, they shouldn't have started. And get some perspective, it's only RL in the US, there are far more important things going on. 

[londonrlfan]

The USARL has turned into a complete joke now. I know that is harsh, but remember back to when it first started and there was a referee development, youth development, a reserve league, organised fixtures, no forfeits etc. What's happened to all that? So many teams have been lost in the last 5 years or so. Something needs to change as it can't go on like this. 

I've said before, but there's too much reliance on union. Not just the USA, but many countries do. The strongest developing nations are the ones who build their own players and take on union, not the ones who sit around waiting for the union season to end before running a two month competition to keep them fit. 

The best way forward, would be to focus on a small group of clubs and build them as RL clubs focusing on RL development, including 9s, flag/touch RL, middle school age programs, women's etc and build from there. Even if it only starts out small, so be it. Start with a geographical set up and work around there for starters. 

[Themusician_2]

5 hours ago, southwalesrabbitoh said:

If you can't do things properly, don't do them at all. And stop saying that RL is superior. RL is almost certainly never going to be more popular than RU. I laughed when reading about Atlanta RL.

RL is superior. Our game is faster,easier to understand. Everything that's good about rugby union rugby league does it better.

[Themusician_2]

3 hours ago, londonrlfan said:

The USARL has turned into a complete joke now. I know that is harsh, but remember back to when it first started and there was a referee development, youth development, a reserve league, organised fixtures, no forfeits etc. What's happened to all that? So many teams have been lost in the last 5 years or so. Something needs to change as it can't go on like this. 

I've said before, but there's too much reliance on union. Not just the USA, but many countries do. The strongest developing nations are the ones who build their own players and take on union, not the ones who sit around waiting for the union season to end before running a two month competition to keep them fit. 

The best way forward, would be to focus on a small group of clubs and build them as RL clubs focusing on RL development, including 9s, flag/touch RL, middle school age programs, women's etc and build from there. Even if it only starts out small, so be it. Start with a geographical set up and work around there for starters. 

Well said it's the same in Canada. If you look at countries like Jamaica and Serbia their growth is great due to the fact they have full independence and don't need union.

[southwalesrabbitoh]

59 minutes ago, Themusician_2 said:

RL is superior. Our game is faster,easier to understand. Everything that's good about rugby union rugby league does it better.

A lion doesn't need to say it's a lion. I find it embarrassing, all this TGG stuff. 

[Onieda FC]

10 hours ago, Themusician_2 said:

See but that's precisely why we need to create a divide between the rugby league and rugby union communities in both the usa and Canada like we have here in England and Australia. So only rugby league can benefit at the moment the rugby league community is kind of apart of the rugby union community. In Canada for example I've heard numerous occasions of wolfpack parents putting their kids into union clubs due to there being no organised youth rugby league. Who does that benefit rugby league or rugby union? The wolfpack do a great job at promoting rugby league but we can't fully capitalize on their good work due to the "we support both" agenda. Union should not be benefiting at all from our expansion efforts. Don't you see how bowing down to rugby union hurts rugby league?

 

The only thing starting a "divide" does is turn off potential fans. Our sports don't fight each other, and we think it's crazy yours do. We support ALL our teams in our different regions. There is no local league programs to join. Those should, and will be, started when there's professional teams to draw interest from. You're worrying about a sport 99% of Americans and Canadians have never seen. 

[TheReaper]

On 29/07/2019 at 07:38, Themusician_2 said:

In Toronto rugby league didn't grow it lost two teams.

Toronto lost two teams because of exactly what you're pushing. They could manage four teams when the season was almost over before union. At one point there was only a week or two overlap. That meant it was fairly short and not played in the best weather, and preseason was entirely during winter. Now, the seasons pretty much fully overlap, and there are two teams. If they tried to play on Saturdays, it would all fold. 

[deluded pom?]

17 hours ago, londonrlfan said:

The USARL has turned into a complete joke now. I know that is harsh, but remember back to when it first started and there was a referee development, youth development, a reserve league, organised fixtures, no forfeits etc. What's happened to all that? So many teams have been lost in the last 5 years or so. Something needs to change as it can't go on like this. 

I've said before, but there's too much reliance on union. Not just the USA, but many countries do. The strongest developing nations are the ones who build their own players and take on union, not the ones who sit around waiting for the union season to end before running a two month competition to keep them fit. 

The best way forward, would be to focus on a small group of clubs and build them as RL clubs focusing on RL development, including 9s, flag/touch RL, middle school age programs, women's etc and build from there. Even if it only starts out small, so be it. Start with a geographical set up and work around there for starters. 

I think it started to slip backwards when Spinner Howland went back to Australia and the demise seems to be accelerating.

[Themusician_2]

Yes in Toronto the games are on Sundays because the union games are on Saturdays. I think ORL needs to hunt down all of the people that prefer league over union and do a full organised breakaway from union. Don't you want a thriving and independent rugby league like we have here in England? I have question for you in your opinion in Toronto what percentage of people prefer playing league over union?

[Themusician_2]

4 hours ago, deluded pom? said:

I think it started to slip backwards when Spinner Howland went back to Australia and the demise seems to be accelerating.

Travel is also huge problem

[TheReaper]

30 minutes ago, Themusician_2 said:

Yes in Toronto the games are on Sundays because the union games are on Saturdays. I think ORL needs to hunt down all of the people that prefer league over union and do a full organised breakaway from union. Don't you want a thriving and independent rugby league like we have here in England? I have question for you in your opinion in Toronto what percentage of people prefer playing league over union?

Of people who play both or of the people who play league? Probably 75% of the league players prefer league, but probably less than 5% of TRU+ORL players would prefer RL. Given that there are 10's of TRU clubs and now one Toronto RL club.

But which game people prefer to play is only part of the equation.  I know a few guys who play league, and for a few of them, even though they individually like it better, they would never turn away from their original union club. They're loyal to clubs they've been at for years and years, and have tons of friends at. And for some with partners or kids involved, that isn't really happening in RL much yet, but the majority of the RU clubs have women or mini/junior teams.

[londonrlfan]

8 hours ago, deluded pom? said:

I think it started to slip backwards when Spinner Howland went back to Australia and the demise seems to be accelerating.

That seems to be the case. Plus the guy who was involved in Boston too, forgotten his name sorry. 

[deluded pom?]

Apparently Peter Illfield and his board at the USARL have nothing to do with the actual league. They oversee the Hawks whilst the league is left to fend for themselves. A ridiculous situation.

[londonrlfan]

3 hours ago, Themusician_2 said:

Travel is also huge problem

Precisely why they should focus regionally to cut out the large travelling. 

Even somewhere like Florida has large distances to travel. Cut it into North (Jacksonville, Gainesville, Daytona, Orlando) and the South (Tampa, Lakeland, down to Miami). 

Atlanta build around the local area, Macon, Marietta, Athens, plus Birmingham and Montgomery, Alabama are close too. 

New York/Philadelphia region. 

Boston/New England area. 

D.C./Virginia/Maryland region. 

Chicago area. 

Focus locally on those areas, than relying on 7 hrs + journeys, rather than trying to make it more national. 

[Themusician_2]

4 hours ago, TheReaper said:

Of people who play both or of the people who play league? Probably 75% of the league players prefer league, but probably less than 5% of TRU+ORL players would prefer RL. Given that there are 10's of TRU clubs and now one Toronto RL club.

But which game people prefer to play is only part of the equation.  I know a few guys who play league, and for a few of them, even though they individually like it better, they would never turn away from their original union club. They're loyal to clubs they've been at for years and years, and have tons of friends at. And for some with partners or kids involved, that isn't really happening in RL much yet, but the majority of the RU clubs have women or mini/junior teams.

Maybe you should tell the league guys about the atrocities, racism and sexism that union has committed that will make them hate union like league fans do and they would no longer return to their union club. I think maybe we should discourage the pack parents in putting their kids in union clubs. How about just let the young ones play touch organised by ORL so they can't be influenced by union.

[TheReaper]

4 hours ago, Themusician_2 said:

Maybe you should tell the league guys about the atrocities, racism and sexism that union has committed that will make them hate union like league fans do and they would no longer return to their union club. I think maybe we should discourage the pack parents in putting their kids in union clubs. How about just let the young ones play touch organised by ORL so they can't be influenced by union.

The bone you're looking to pick doesn't exist here. Sorry dude.

[Themusician_2]

1 hour ago, TheReaper said:

The bone you're looking to pick doesn't exist here. Sorry dude.

I'm just making suggestions to make league stronger in Canada