Put a fork in Scotland, they're done

[ed612313]

Not surprising.... Im amazed that they cant make it work being so close to Super League heartland. But either way they have NEVER deserved to be in the position to play 4 nations or World Cup.
There are teams out there that deserve that spot more than them.... ie Lebanon, Serbia & USA.
Its a shame and makes you wonder who is looking after things over in the North....

 

[East Coast Tiger]

I think a couple of key people quit. Coach and secretary. The next question is why? Maybe just sick of putting time and effort in for little return. They would hardly play a game. Edinburgh supposedly forfeited the last game and that might have been a catalyst.

 

[yakstorm]

The scenario appeared to be, that whenever a team had to travel to Aberdeen, they suddenly would forfeit.

This didn't just happened once, but every year for around 4 years.

With a ridiculously scaled down domestic competition (4x Teams, everyone play each other once), I honestly don't blame them for being frustrated.

This season, they had 2x club forfeit on them, and the team they were meant to travel to play against hasn't played a game yet this season... So arguably the club would play maybe a Semi (assuming that they had some multi-round finals) & Grand Final as their season, with zero group games.

Sure everyone loves to win things, but would you be happy to play only 1 or 2 games a year?

Added to that the frustrations the club had being ignored by the SRL when they asked for help getting games or even to be rewarded with some sort of Rep game, and who can blame them throwing it all away.

It's sad though, in 2014 the Warriors had 3x Open Age teams, 2x U17s, 2x U15s and a committee 13x strong, plus a football staff of 20... Certainly not a one man operation...

In hindsight, they would have been better to have left the SRL and travel to play in one of the English leagues.

If Saluzzo can travel 5hrs to get a game in the FFRXIII, then so could have Aberdeen. Cumbria is only 4ish from Aberdeen and Manchester is 5.

 

[adamkungl]

Small scale low budget leagues need to be city based. Can't expect teams at the lowest level to travel hours for a game.

Rather than folding, Aberdeen/SRL should focus on developing a 4 team league in the North East

 

[siv]

Scotland like Wales should have teams in the ESL division structures

 

[adamkungl]

Small scale low budget leagues need to be city based. Can't expect teams at the lowest level to travel hours for a game.

Rather than folding, Aberdeen/SRL should focus on developing a 4 team league in the North East

Expanding on this, I think there's a tendency in developing grassroots scenes to overstretch to achieve a national league.
Australia didn't even have a national league until 90 years of development.

If I was 'rebooting' Aberdeen i'd split the club into 2. Start with a mini-season best of 3 series between the 2 new clubs + whatever friendlies can be organised with the southern teams.
From there try to bring in teams from the nearby surrounding towns to have a 4 then 6 team comp over the years, plus reserves and juniors.
Then you've got enough committed players to be considering national representation and long travel times.

Scotland like Wales should have teams in the ESL division structures

Clearly a long way off this.
They either need big funding (think Toronto) or a legitimate player base (which Wales has). SRL clearly has neither yet. It should be a long term goal but it's putting the cart before the horse so to speak.

I agree with the point but it's a long long way off being remotely feasible.

 

[Pommy]

Scotland like Wales should have teams in the ESL division structures

Im not sure where you are located but Scotland is a fairly different beast to Wales. Wales will always have a league niche owing to the popularity of Union in the country. Scotland on the other hand is very much a Football country. Union is developing a foothold in the two main cities and its unfortunate that league was never able to do the same but Scotland simply will not have the players any time soon.
Even Toronto would have had people playing Canadian and American football which has a much more transferable player and fan base to league.

 

[miguel de cervantes]

Compare the scale of the NRL to Scotland where the "retirement" of a club secretary pretty brings down the whole league. And they played in the 4 nations. And the drew with NZ.

If you want to see real growth give opportunities to real leagues.

 

[adamkungl]

Compare the scale of the NRL to Scotland where the "retirement" of a club secretary pretty brings down the whole league. And they played in the 4 nations. And the drew with NZ.

If you want to see real growth give opportunities to real leagues.

A disappointing and predictable result of the RLIF not following its own rules.
The US was excluded automatic entry due to the USARL/AMNRL split.
Scotland should have been excluded entry and refused entry to the qualifiers due to their almost complete lack of Rugby League played.

 

[Pommy]

Compare the scale of the NRL to Scotland where the "retirement" of a club secretary pretty brings down the whole league. And they played in the 4 nations. And the drew with NZ.

If you want to see real growth give opportunities to real leagues.

They really didn't.

Australia had the same number of Fijians in their ANZAC test side last year as Scotland had Scots.

 

[adamkungl]

Can't put the genie back in the bottle now anyway. They won't (and shouldn't, at this point) be booted from this WC and no nation would have the resources to replace them on short notice anwyay.

For what it's worth I think their statement re:Aberdeen was honest and forthcoming, a rarity for those used to the politician-like spin that comes out of NRL HQ.

Scotland Rugby League should not be running the clubs and it should not be financially supporting them, we should be supporting them to build the right foundations. Difficult though it is, rugby league clubs in Scotland need to be built on solid foundations and this will take time.

There are hopefully positives coming with a brighter future than clinging by the fingernails onto the bare minimum.

 

[jim_57]

Expanding on this, I think there's a tendency in developing grassroots scenes to overstretch to achieve a national league.
Australia didn't even have a national league until 90 years of development.

If I was 'rebooting' Aberdeen i'd split the club into 2. Start with a mini-season best of 3 series between the 2 new clubs + whatever friendlies can be organised with the southern teams.
From there try to bring in teams from the nearby surrounding towns to have a 4 then 6 team comp over the years, plus reserves and juniors.
Then you've got enough committed players to be considering national representation and long travel times.

I definetly agree with this, we should be pooling resources wherever possible, not just aiming for a bunch of national leagues and nothing else.

Scotland could have clubs playing in Northern England/Cumbria to get more opponents and games. A few other examples that spring to mind are North East Spain & North West Italy playing in Southern France, Belgium playing with Northern France etc.

Look at Saluzzo from Italy going to the French league for a fill season as the perfect example.

Creating city and/or regional leagues, regardless of borders (where possible) is the way to go IMO. Can always have a play off for National Champion from different leagues if it is that important.

 

[titoelcolombiano]

Sad news but it will force Scotland RL to take stock and start building a stronger domestic base. As has been said previously this may drop Scotland down a rung or two in Europe but the natural rewards will go to Serbia for all of the fantastic work. They will step up and take Scotlands place alongside Wales, France, Ireland and Italy at the top of European RL and will show the other nations what it takes to get there.

 

[roughyedspud]

A idea I've just floated on TRL...

I'm wondering whether it might be a good idea if scotlandRL figure out a way of putting 4 stable Scottish teams together and have them play in the RFL north east premier Division?

The north east structure seems fairly stable,though stand to be corrected, most teams run u14s & 16s as well as the 8 team open age premier division..

Putting 4 Scottish clubs,Aberdeen Inc,into that structure would do them the world of good imo...and when the Scottish teams play each other that could form a " 4 team side conference" which would be for the Scottish title,as a work around the RLEF domestic league criteria

 

[Pommy]

A idea I've just floated on TRL...

I'm wondering whether it might be a good idea if scotlandRL figure out a way of putting 4 stable Scottish teams together and have them play in the RFL north east premier Division?

The north east structure seems fairly stable,though stand to be corrected, most teams run u14s & 16s as well as the 8 team open age premier division..

Putting 4 Scottish clubs,Aberdeen Inc,into that structure would do them the world of good imo...and when the Scottish teams play each other that could form a " 4 team side conference" which would be for the Scottish title,as a work around the RLEF domestic league criteria

It's a bloody long shit drive from the NE england to Aberdeen.
Not the end of the world for teams going up there once a year but very shit for them coming down every other week. I don't think 6 hours each way on a coach would be unrealistic.
Just checked Newcastle to Aberdeen is nearly 4 and a half hours in a car. A coach would have an enforced 30 minute break unless they had a second driver onboard.

 

[roughyedspud]

It's a bloody long shit drive from the NE england to Aberdeen.
Not the end of the world for teams going up there once a year but very shit for them coming down every other week. I don't think 6 hours each way on a coach would be unrealistic.
Just checked Newcastle to Aberdeen is nearly 4 and a half hours in a car. A coach would have an enforced 30 minute break unless they had a second driver onboard.

theres ways round it....

id only have the teams play each other once,aberdeen would play 4 home games and 4 away games against north east teams plus the scottish teams home and away,the points for 3 of those games would count towards the north east premier leaderboard and the other 3 games would count towards the scottish conference too...that make sense??

 

[roughyedspud]

i'll try and figure out what aberdeens season could look like

 

[roughyedspud]

ABERDEENS REGULAR SEASON

wk 1 - carluck tigers - home - scottish conference
wk 2 - strathhmore - away - scottish conference
wk 3 - edinburgh eagles - home - scottish conference

wk 4 - wallsend eagles - away - north east premier *
wk 5 - cramlington rockets - home - north east premier
wk 6 - carluck tigers - away - north east premier & scottish conference
wk 7 - jarrow vikings - home - north east premier
wk 8 - peterlee pumas - away - north east premier *
wk 9 - strathmore - home - north east premier & scottish conference
wk 10 - gateshead storm A - away - north east premier *
wk 11 - durham demons - home - north east premier
wk 12 - edinburgh eagles - away - north east premier & scottish conference (champions decided)
wk 13 - catterick crusaders - home - north east premier
wk 14 - durham tigers - away - north east premier *

weeks 4,8,10 & 14 are the only "long travel" games for aberdeen thats not too bad is it?

 

[hutch]

That's a sensational idea spud. How is it that you can come up with a workable idea that benefits the sport in 30 minutes whereas the powers that be probably havnt even thought of doing this in 100 years.

 

[deluded pom?]

That's a sensational idea spud. How is it that you can come up with a workable idea that benefits the sport in 30 minutes whereas the powers that be probably havnt even thought of doing this in 100 years.

Because he's a genius hutch, simple as.