Ron Massey Cup / Sydney Shield 2017

[kbw]

I just found out there were more than just a couple of injuries and mainly to the Bulldogs 20s that would have come back. Not knowing about the forfeit for their A grade until after they had to give good notice for SS didn't help.
Its not great but they are trying hard as a new club to SS and will have a couple of teething issues.

 

[rightleftin]

I just found out there were more than just a couple of injuries and mainly to the Bulldogs 20s that would have come back. Not knowing about the forfeit for their A grade until after they had to give good notice for SS didn't help.
Its not great but they are trying hard as a new club to SS and will have a couple of teething issues.

Even without knowing that the A Grade were not playing, you would have thought that the correct course was to play SS and give away the A Grade.

 

[rightleftin]

St Marys go into today's game against Wests without their two most experienced players - Nathan Smith and Geoff Daniela, with the latter playing for Cook Islands against PNG - but will still field a reasonable squad with 9 players from the Penrith NSW Cup squad. In addition, Tom Eisenhuth returns to St Marys after playing several games for Hills District whilst being unused by North Sydney.

The St Marys SS is strengthened by the inclusion of Matt Place, another of the disaffected Blacktown players, and will also have Latu Fifita playing his first game since returning from England.

Henry Raiwalui, another Blacktown player not currently playing, will appear for Fiji in today's test against Tonga.

 

[kbw]

Even without knowing that the A Grade were not playing, you would have thought that the correct course was to play SS and give away the A Grade.

Personally I with you.

I guess it was lucky Blacktown signed 1000 players in the preseason, with all the ones leaving they might need them all

 

[rightleftin]

Personally I with you.

I guess it was lucky Blacktown signed 1000 players in the preseason, with all the ones leaving they might need them all

Yeah, Blacktown have had to use all the players that were going to play for Minchinbury Jets subject to injury, brought Hutch out of retirement and Brandon Luamanu had to play both grades against St Marys and CBGW/Belrose. They showed in the latter they could still be competitive in RMC but will not worry toomany teams in SS.

St Marys beat Wests 64-12 in RMC today. Maiko Siva had scored 4 tries in the first 50 minutes but could not add to his tally after that. Wests scored consolation tries at the end of each half.

 

[kbw]

Thanks for the update, my comment was a little tongue in cheek but it is good to know whats happening

 

[Tigers1986]

St Marys had 9 NSW Cup players in the side today? Jesus no wonder they just destroyed Wests all over the park. Isn't there some form of system in place that prevents those level players from 'dropping' down into the 3rd tier?

 

[magpie4ever]

The RMC and SS comps are now beyond a joke from what they were a few years ago, well done ex-aussie fast bowler - you and your team had f**ked up two more semi-pro competitions in such a few short year.

 

[rightleftin]

St Marys had 9 NSW Cup players in the side today? Jesus no wonder they just destroyed Wests all over the park. Isn't there some form of system in place that prevents those level players from 'dropping' down into the 3rd tier?

There is a points system that limits all teams. There were some late changes so Sonny Tuigamala came in for St Marys so there were actually 8 players. I think that over the summer, Penrith were trying to form a partnership with St Marys for NSW Cup so they have quite a big squad so a lot of Penrith guys play for St Marys every week but with Nathan Smith and Geoff Daniela unavailable, a couple of NSW Cup regulars dropped back.

Wests usually have about 6 Wests Tigers NSW cup squad guys in their RMC side and a few weeks ago there were 6 in the Wests SS side that belted East Campbelltown, but yesterday only 3 Tigers played including Christian Yassmin who played the first 3 games in NSW Cup and then was dropped to SS for 5 weeks every week until now. I have seen him score some tries in SS on the highlights packages and he is very quick. He ran down 2 St Marys breaks from seemingly impossible positions to save tries. Another 2 Tigers Cup squad played in the SS game.

Wests had 3 of the Blacktown defectors today - Jerry Key and Josiah Tomasi in RMC and Blake Goodman while another, Kurt Horton replaced Tuigamala in the St Marys SS side. So about half of the defectors.have shown up in other teams so far.

 

[rightleftin]

Some more player movements to Wenty. Rhys Armstrong played all of 2016 in NSW Cup for Manly (except one game with Asquith) but was one of 14 players cut by Trent Barratt. He then signed with Wests Tigers but failed to get a start in NSW Cup with only 1 game in RMC and 3 in SS. Looks like he thinks he has more chance with Wenty starting in their SS side today.

The other change is Josh Tangitau. He played the 2 games with Blacktown after Weisner's sacking but did not play against CBG last week. He is on the bench for Wenty in RMC today, so that is another loss for Blacktown.

 

[Timmah]

Mounties smashed Hills 42-10 and Wenty pipped Guildford 18-16 in RMC.

Same two games in Shield saw Wenty win 32-22 and Mounties 36-4.

 

[rightleftin]

Macquarie Scorpions win NSW Challenge Cup final

Scorpions coach Adam Bettridge reckons Macquarie can now put the chokers tag to bed after claiming the NSW Challenge Cup at Mudgee on Sunday.

Playing the curtain-raiser to the last City-Country Origin, the back-to-back Newcastle Rugby League runner’s up collected some silverware for the trophy cabinet at Toronto after defeating the Concord-Glebe-Burwood Wolves 30-18 in the state knockout decider.

“There’s a bit of stigma around about us being chokers, but we’ve been working really hard and we’re confident in what we do,” Bettridge said.

“I’m not even sure if there is a trophy cabinet at Toronto, but we’ve got something for it now anyway and there’s a few young boys that a very happy.

“A couple of results were bad [for us in recent years] but this one went our way.”


Macquarie were minor premiers last year, but lost their second straight grand final. The club’s sole major premiership was in 1991.

In the NSW Rugby League showdown the Scorpions trailed 12-0 early but Andy Sumner, Adam Swadling and Royce Geoffrey scored consecutive tries to take a six-point lead into the break.

Macquarie then extended their advantage to 18 with Randall Briggs and Matt Hay both crossing the line before the Wolves nabbed a late consolation try.

Chris Hyde was successful with all five conversions.

“I was super proud of our performance, especially digging our heels in,” Bettridge said. “What a result for Country Rugby League and Newcastle Rugby League. It’s simply outstanding.”

 

[rightleftin]

After 10 weeks of the RMC there are 4 teams share the lead with St Marys and Blacktown winning 5 out of 6 and Hills District and Wenty 5 out of 7. Mounties, who provided their first glimpse of form when putting Hills to the sword are next with 3 wins and 2 draws out of 7. Byes are killing the comp.

 

[Tigers1986]

Those players for Bye really must be getting exhausted given all the fixtures they've been involved in. 3 years ago the RMC was an amazing 3rd-tier competition. Now it's a complete and utter joke due to poor management from the NSWRL and the clubs involved. 8 team final series for a 10-team comp. Laughable.

The Challenge Cup shows that these CRL clubs can compete with the RMC/Shield teams. If the NSWRL/CRL were to get on board financially (i.e sponsors, travel), you could have a pretty amazing competition to expose the country lads to the 'limelight' and establish pathways to NSW Cup teams and onto the NRL. A pipe dream, yes, but how good would it be. The next Sterlo or Tommy running around Wagga, gets noticed in the RMC, picked up Wests or Wenty, then move onto the NRL franchise.

 

[rightleftin]

Cabra have named 4 players in both RMC and SS this week. The problem is both sides will be on the field at the same time at different venues. Maybe they are relying on Moorebank forfeiting in SS.

Another Blacktown player has surfaced. Andy Figuratusa will play RMC for Wenty this week. Another Blacktown player Braeden Batiste wanted to play A grade for St Clair, his junior club but his clearance was denied.

 

[rightleftin]

The late withdrawal of Asquith from the RMC meant that the teams have 4 byes, however, when the split round occurred over the last 2 weeks, the NSWRL website shows Cabra having byes on both weeks and several teams now deemed to have had 3 byes. Clearly byes should be worth nothing but this could be the NSWRL plan to show a team that wins 3 games in the season as having 20 points by crediting 7 byes! Laughable!

 

[Tigers1986]

As I said back in February when it came to light, the NSWRL should have fined Asquith for the withdrawal at such late notice and barred them from the Shield competition. The RMC is a complete and utter joke this season and it's tarnishing something that, 2 years ago, was a phenomenal suburban competition.

 

[magpie4ever]

As I said back in February when it came to light, the NSWRL should have fined Asquith for the withdrawal at such late notice and barred them from the Shield competition. The RMC is a complete and utter joke this season and it's tarnishing something that, 2 years ago, was a phenomenal suburban competition.

Totally agree, well done ex-aussie fast bowler, you f**kin idiot.

 

[rightleftin]

RMC

Cabramatta 44 (T Ahovelo 3, T Tamou 2, N Mataitonga, T Taliauli, M Tomkins tries; D Thompson 5 goals) def. Auburn Warriors 30 (A Demetriou 3, M Rudolph, A El-Zbaidieh tries; M Rudolph 5 goals)

Concord-Burwood-Glebe 24 (L Schaumkel 2, J Garlick, J Horton tries, J McCudden; R Davies 2 goals) def. Western Suburbs 16 (C Yassmin 2, D Harris tries; V Mapesone 2 goals)

Cabra won their first game of 2017 and transferred wooden spoon favouritism to Auburn. The NSWRL website lists the score as 46-30 as Manaia Rudolph, a Blacktown player playing his first game for Auburn, kicked 5 from 5 but the officials gave his conversion on fulltime to a Cabra player, even though they had not scored since the 60 minute mark.

CBG had their 3rd win of the season, being the 7th team to qualify for the finals. This leaves Wests, Cabra and Auburn all with 1 win each to battle over 8th spot. Wests hold the advantage of an additional point for their draw with Guildford. Charlie Faingaa, another Blacktown player, played his first game for CBG today.

SS

Cabramatta RLFC 32 (T Leuluai 2, L Mailei 2, S Kaivelata, S Huihahau, J Belgrove tries; T Vella 2 goals) def. Moorebank Rams 16 (M Wicks, Z Hetherington, R Irwin tries; D Arahu 2 goals)

Good to see that Moorebank put a team on the field today.

 

[rightleftin]

Tepai Tepu Smith is the 4th Blacktown player to join Wenty. He played in Wenty's 26-8 win over St Marys in SS today. He played some NSW Cup for Mounties last year. The distribution of Blacktown players to date is:

Wenty - Josh Tangitau, Andy Fiagatusa, Andrew Pritchard, Tepai Tepu Smith
Wests - Jerry Key, Josiah Tomasi, Blake Goodman
St Marys - Matt Place, Kurt Horton
Auburn - Will Solway, Manaia Rudoph