Ireland’s Spanish Nightmare

[barnyia]

mañana

[damp squib]

2 hours ago, Dave T said:

Clearly not great, but I think the list of issues becomes smaller when you get rid of some of the noise. 

Things like complaining that they played longer than 40 mins, but the ref didnt stop the clock for injuries are contradictory.

It sounds like one of those TripAdvisor reviews where you have 2 or 3 key issues and suddenly you get on a rant and you have 30 issues.

I agree with this.

Also to go back to what I said earlier, if I was an amateur player representing my country in a sport that barely exists and is run on an amateur basis by volunteers and I travelled to another country where the sport barely exists and is run on an amateur basis by volunteers, none of the conditions Roberts described would be a surprise to me. In fact it would be absurd to expect tailored meal plans and coaches to be provided.

Once again there is a complete clash between the perception of the standard of RL in Ireland/Spain (even among the players) because of professional heritage players and the reality of where the sport is in those countries.

These are the only solutions I can see:

1) Countries with amateur backroom set ups only use amateur/semi-pro players who will have realistic expectations of the level of the sport in their country i.e. no professional heritage players.

2) Professional players have a more realistic expectation of the level they are playing at and make an informed decision about whether to continue.

3) The IRL, or the RFL (as the only major RL body in the Northern Hemisphere), takes complete responsibility of the international game for both funding and logistics to ensure a minimum level of professional standards.

The 3rd option would be ideal for me but will never happen.

The 1st option would set the international game back decades in terms of the number of competitive playing nations (but would be a more realistic reflection of RL).

That really only leaves the 2nd option...

[cookey]

I'm staggered that there isn't an exceptionally detailed booklet of Regulations for staging such games.

When England Rugby Union trained at West Park Leeds a couple of times under Stuart Lancaster,WPL had to sign a detailed document outlining everything they had to provide,from ice through to transport.The document ran to some 50 pages and covered every conceivable item you could think of - balls,ice,video,facilities,travel,food,accommodation  etc,etc. Not just the item itself,but the quality and quantity.

I would have thought that such a document would have to be signed by the hosting country for every international game/tournament.

[RP London]

6 minutes ago, cookey said:

I'm staggered that there isn't an exceptionally detailed booklet of Regulations for staging such games.

When England Rugby Union trained at West Park Leeds a couple of times under Stuart Lancaster,WPL had to sign a detailed document outlining everything they had to provide,from ice through to transport.The document ran to some 50 pages and covered every conceivable item you could think of - balls,ice,video,facilities,travel,food,accommodation  etc,etc. Not just the item itself,but the quality and quantity.

I would have thought that such a document would have to be signed by the hosting country for every international game/tournament.

would you?

This isnt a multi million pound funded organisation as the RFU is.. If you went just 1 tier down from England (and possibly even just look at say Italy) the set up would be of a markedly lower level than England, go down to tier 2/3 and your back to exactly what is happening here I would expect (although maybe world rugby steps in more as they are better funded). 

I am surprised by the fact that I have been on amateur tours that have been better organised than this, but i am not surprised in the least that an Amateur country is being treated in an amateur way, its up to Ireland to organise transport and food and if they have the money pay for it.. however, equally as an amateur organisation i am not surprised they may be asked to pay for it too. The players obviously are surprised but that says more about their views of the level they are playing at than anything else IMHO

[whatmichaelsays]

43 minutes ago, cookey said:

I'm staggered that there isn't an exceptionally detailed booklet of Regulations for staging such games.

When England Rugby Union trained at West Park Leeds a couple of times under Stuart Lancaster,WPL had to sign a detailed document outlining everything they had to provide,from ice through to transport.The document ran to some 50 pages and covered every conceivable item you could think of - balls,ice,video,facilities,travel,food,accommodation  etc,etc. Not just the item itself,but the quality and quantity.

I would have thought that such a document would have to be signed by the hosting country for every international game/tournament.

West Park aren't providing that stuff gratis. Service level agreements or contracts aren't exactly rare or new in an environment where a client is paying a supplier for a service - and that's exactly what happens in the situation you've described above. 

But this isn't that situation. Ireland are responsible for getting themselves to, and preparing for, a fixture. Nobody would expect Leeds to send an invoice to Wigan for their bus hire to the DW but for some reason, there seems to be a narrative that Ireland expected stuff to be done for them by the Spanish Federation.

Ireland's preparation for a fixture is on them. It is up to them to determine whether hotels are or aren't suitable, whether hotels can cater for their needs and to find suitable training facilities. It's up to Ireland to decide whether their players are better off staying room only in the Ibis Budget or full board in the DoubleTree Hilton - not the Spanish Federation. I can't understand why sporting team would delegate that to the very party that they are competing with. On closer inspection, many of the problems they experienced were down to Ireland's own failings. 

[Damien]

4 hours ago, damp squib said:

Spain RL have no money and Ireland RL have no money.

The quirk of our international system is that we have amateur organisations run by some bloke in his spare time trying to organise international matches involving professional players.

Just imagine if we had some tournament every 4 years, I don't know maybe call if the Confederations Cup, with all proceeds going to the IRL and helping to fund these matches for developing nations.

[Lowdesert]

Watching the video, I don’t think the piece has really been researched.  IMO, well contested game with a few incidents not uncommon to what we’d see in any game, amateur or professional.

 

[CanadianRugger]

3 hours ago, cookey said:

I'm staggered that there isn't an exceptionally detailed booklet of Regulations for staging such games.

When England Rugby Union trained at West Park Leeds a couple of times under Stuart Lancaster,WPL had to sign a detailed document outlining everything they had to provide,from ice through to transport.The document ran to some 50 pages and covered every conceivable item you could think of - balls,ice,video,facilities,travel,food,accommodation  etc,etc. Not just the item itself,but the quality and quantity.

I would have thought that such a document would have to be signed by the hosting country for every international game/tournament.

Your comparing a multimillion dollar sporting organization that plays in a fully professional sporting environment to two amateur organizations that barely have two pennies to rub together.  It isn't a fair comparison.

3 hours ago, scotchy1 said:

Firstly  a lot of what is described as an issue here really falls on ireland. How are spain supposed to take responsibility for irelands hotel and irelands lack of checking regarding meals.

Surely it's not beyond ireland to book a coach themselves. 

The officiating, time keeping etc is or should be an irl responsibility.

I think we need to be careful because there is a point at which we start to put countries off and damage our development but there is a level of professionalism needed. 

I think these problems stem a little from the lack of a consistent ladder for international teams to climb. World cup qualification seems to be the only time a nation is guaranteed fixtures and it becomes a bit random at puts what are essentially pro sides against what are pretty low level amateur nations. That part needs rethinking because it doesnt really help anyone. 

Just to pick up what damp squib has said re professional/heritage players. This is an area where we need almost a two track system. We shouldn't discourage heritage players but we also need to look at nations where development of players is happening and we need to not only reward but actually measure that. 

There are two nations in PNG and france who actually develop numerous players for pro comps but if you look at their results as nations you dont see huge improvement, you see them going backwards which isnt really true. France and PNG are producing a huge amount more professional players than they did before, yet they have gone from probably the 4th and 5th best international sides to maybe 8th or 9th best international sides and the big reason for that is heritage players.

You look at the great strides being made in Serbia and jamaica and USA in terms of players and they cant compete with scotland if big names can be bothered that year. 

Wales are another one, they are stuck whereby they cant rely on and reward the young welsh players coming through in L1 because they would get slaughtered against other nations heritage players.

There needs to be some sort of ladder whereby when these types of nations play each other they play the players they produce, when they hit a certain  level.the heritage players can start to come in and keep it competitive against the tier 1 and top tier 2 nations.

I suggested on another thread that we have a nations league style competition with a top 4 playing a round Robin and final and relegation play off. Something like that with only players developed in your league until you get to tier 1 or tier 1 and 2 would be good. Allow for nations to compete against each other and rewarding nations for actually developing players

The comparison to Rugby Union is appropriate in this instance.  World Rugby has a core group of professional rugby nations to draw financial power and resources from.  The top 25 ranked countries in World Rugby are all at various levels of ability but they are all considered "High Performance" teams and all receive considerable money from World Rugby that is gathered from a variety of sources:  Rugby World Cup, Sponsorship, Test Matches, etc.  

World Rugby has been refining this model since the first RWC and the professionalisation of the sport and although growth has been slower in some cases than they wanted.  The sport has made major strides from a professional\commercial standpoint.

The IRL needs to be properly funded, it need a to be supported by the ARL, RFL and NZRL and it needs to grow its test match schedule and also turn many of its teams in to viable high performance rugby programs.

I live 5 minutes from the Canadian Rugby Union's National Training Centre, this centre has been 30 years in the making but has largely been funded by World Rugby.  This is the type of thing the IRL should be setup to support:

These are their fields along with a boutique stadium shared with the local Canadian Premier League Soccer Club:

[whatmichaelsays]

9 minutes ago, CanadianRugger said:

It isn't a fair comparison.

It shouldn't even be a comparison. It's not beyond the ability of a sports team, amateur or not, to come to a contractual agreement with a hotel on the provision of food. The financial might of the team in question doesn't come into it - it's a basic supplier/client contract we're talking about here.

[CanadianRugger]

12 minutes ago, whatmichaelsays said:

It shouldn't even be a comparison. It's not beyond the ability of a sports team, amateur or not, to come to a contractual agreement with a hotel on the provision of food. The financial might of the team in question doesn't come into it - it's a basic supplier/client contract we're talking about here.

It appears to be a lack of know how/resources in the management side of the house.  I've done similar contracts up myself many times but then again, I work for an organization with a $20 billion dollar budget

There could be some pretty significant financial constraints here that we aren't aware of.  They were playing on a community field and the players were sitting on plastic lawn chairs.  Looks like one of my old club games and not an international fixture.

In other words, I think some people here might need a dose of reality.

[whatmichaelsays]

2 hours ago, CanadianRugger said:

It appears to be a lack of know how/resources in the management side of the house.  I've done similar contracts up myself many times but then again, I work for an organization with a $20 billion dollar budget

There could be some pretty significant financial constraints here that we aren't aware of.  They were playing on a community field and the players were sitting on plastic lawn chairs.  Looks like one of my old club games and not an international fixture.

In other words, I think some people here might need a dose of reality.

I think what is clouding the issue is that, from the original link, the Irish camp would appear to be criticising elements that aren't their issue, but then lumping in that in with stuff that is their issue into one lengthy rant. 

So yes, the host team (Spain in this instance) needs to provide suitable matchday facilities and that includes a safe playing surface (although this surface was presumably subject to a match officials inspection before kick-off). The match authority is responsible for the officials. But ensuring that the players are fed, accomodated and can get to the game? That's the responsibility of the respective teams. 

I've never stayed in a hotel that couldn't cater for (what I imagine) are fairly standard dietary requests - and I've stayed in some complete doss holes.  

[damp squib]

I think TotalRL.com have done a disservice to Spain RL with this article. There's no indication that Spain were contacted to give their response and the author hasn't indicated that he's watched the video of the game to corroborate some of Robert's statements.

It's just a pretty defamatory rant from Ollie Roberts printed verbatim.

[moorside roughyed]

13 hours ago, Eddie said:

How much money do the Irish RL have though, I imagine it’s all completely amateur and done on a shoestring so what do their players expect. Might be a case where heritage players who want to play for them have to contribute a few quid themselves and that wouldn’t be unreasonable. 

At the end of the day mate it's a health and safety thing. I know of amateur under 14s going on a tour into Europe that have organised correctly and on a very limited budget. 

[Wollongong]

Ireland playing Spain in a World Cup qualifier ... I’ll say that again because the sport I started watching in the 1970s could never have conceived this idea... 

mistakes will be made and lessons learned as the reality of world growth continues. If this is a nightmare scenario then ‘wow’ what an entitled generation of snowflakes were have spawned. 
 

don’t be defined by the problem ... be inspired by the solution...

 

nightmare... lol! 

[marklaspalmas]

1 hour ago, damp squib said:

I think TotalRL.com have done a disservice to Spain RL with this article. There's no indication that Spain were contacted to give their response and the author hasn't indicated that he's watched the video of the game to corroborate some of Robert's statements.

It's just a pretty defamatory rant from Ollie Roberts printed verbatim.

Agreed 100%

[DC77]

5 hours ago, whatmichaelsays said:

I think what is clouding the issue is that, from the original link, the Irish camp would appear to be criticising elements that aren't their issue, but then lumping in that in with stuff that is their issue into one lengthy rant. 

So yes, the host team (Spain in this instance) needs to provide suitable matchday facilities and that includes a safe playing surface (although this surface was presumably subject to a match officials inspection before kick-off). The match authority is responsible for the officials. But ensuring that the players are fed, accomodated and can get to the game? That's the responsibility of the respective teams. 

I've never stayed in a hotel that couldn't cater for (what I imagine) are fairly standard dietary requests - and I've stayed in some complete doss holes.  

Think that’s the biggest issue of the lot. After reading his complaints and the viewing the footage it does not look safe at all. A dry surface with sand filled divots is dangerous, not just as your foot is more liable to get caught in it but your head also (especially so for rugby going head first into challenges/trying to cross the try line). There’s no give in such a surface. RU player Owen Williams got paralysed playing on a cut up bone dry pitch in Singapore in 2014. 

On a lighter note, just reading his issues mount up reminded me of an Irish comedy skit. 

 

[langpark]

Do they read this forum I wonder?

https://www.rlef.eu.com/articles/1776/tournament-director-responds-to-world-cup-qualifier-match-day-criticisms

[Themusician_2]

On 31/10/2019 at 16:04, CanadianRugger said:

Your comparing a multimillion dollar sporting organization that plays in a fully professional sporting environment to two amateur organizations that barely have two pennies to rub together.  It isn't a fair comparison.

The comparison to Rugby Union is appropriate in this instance.  World Rugby has a core group of professional rugby nations to draw financial power and resources from.  The top 25 ranked countries in World Rugby are all at various levels of ability but they are all considered "High Performance" teams and all receive considerable money from World Rugby that is gathered from a variety of sources:  Rugby World Cup, Sponsorship, Test Matches, etc.  

World Rugby has been refining this model since the first RWC and the professionalisation of the sport and although growth has been slower in some cases than they wanted.  The sport has made major strides from a professional\commercial standpoint.

The IRL needs to be properly funded, it need a to be supported by the ARL, RFL and NZRL and it needs to grow its test match schedule and also turn many of its teams in to viable high performance rugby programs.

I live 5 minutes from the Canadian Rugby Union's National Training Centre, this centre has been 30 years in the making but has largely been funded by World Rugby.  This is the type of thing the IRL should be setup to support:

These are their fields along with a boutique stadium shared with the local Canadian Premier League Soccer Club:

I think it's clear besides Australia there a huge gap in financial resources between rugby union and rugby league. This tour highlights that.

[Blind side johnny]

11 minutes ago, Themusician_2 said:

I think it's clear besides Australia there a huge gap in financial resources between rugby union and rugby league. This tour highlights that.

Yep. Time we packed it all in and surrender.

[Themusician_2]

Just now, Blind side johnny said:

Yep. Time we packed it all in and surrender.

No I'm just saying that we don't have the resources that other sports do

[Blind side johnny]

6 minutes ago, Themusician_2 said:

No I'm just saying that we don't have the resources that other sports do

But once we did - graphs don't always go in straight lines.

[Sports Prophet]

On 31/10/2019 at 06:51, welshmagpie said:

 

This is enough for players to not put their hand up to play for their country. I’ve been speaking to Roland Podesta who debuted on the weekend having travelled from Sydney, I’d be keen to hear his thoughts.

Well if you have been speaking to him, surely you gave him enough of an ear to “hear his thoughts”.

So please share

[Sports Prophet]

On 31/10/2019 at 06:51, welshmagpie said:

https://www.totalrl.com/ireland-stars-disgust-at-shambolic-and-dangerous-spain-trip/

I’m lost for words, I really am.

This is enough for players to not put their hand up to play for their country. I’ve been speaking to Roland Podesta who debuted on the weekend having travelled from Sydney, I’d be keen to hear his thoughts.

Sounds shambolic.

Well after investing 5 minutes to read his rant... sounds like his terrible experience was down to the Irish management or lack thereof.

Stop blaming others for your poor experience. Everything you blame others for with was within your own control.

[Dave T]

8 hours ago, Sports Prophet said:

Well after investing 5 minutes to read his rant... sounds like his terrible experience was down to the Irish management or lack thereof.

Stop blaming others for your poor experience. Everything you blame others for with was within your own control.

The best one was that Bob Beswick sent the food request but they disnt get it.

I've been on holidays where my mates were meant to have sorted stuff and cocked it up.

Something so important I'd have damn well made sure they got the request, I'd have had written confirmation.