Student RL in Ireland

desfoy

One way to expand RL in Ireland is to develop a student competition that runs during the college year, i.e. the Union season.

Any students, with or without League experience, are welcome to give it a go. We are in the initial stages of development, but we should be able to organise at least provincial trial matches, and then select a resident team.
If you are interested contact me,

Maccattack

If it ran throught eh union season wouldnt it be harder to get players??

Eoin

Maccattack wrote:

If it ran throught eh union season wouldnt it be harder to get players??

I agree, I would imagine that most potential players are either playing for their college or club during the college year.

desfoy

Yeah, you are right, it will be more difficult to get players if they are really into their Union. But Rugby League shouldnt just think it can only operate when their is no union being played. If we limit ourselves to that small summer window (when the GAA is in full swing) we will never make any significant progress.

I think the target market is probably last years U20's. many of them who arent able to break straight into the first team at their union clubs are faced with having to put up with 2nd team (or worse) rugby union.

In the 10 years I have been involved with RL in Ireland, I cant remember a single person who hasnt enjoyed playing league, and even though they dont want to give up union, they usually admit that they get a lot more involved, get a lot more ball, and have to make more one-on-one tackles playing league than they ever did at union.

SO, yeah it's not going to be easy, but its worth doing, so if you can help in any way, let me know

Eoin

desfoy wrote:

Yeah, you are right, it will be more difficult to get players if they are really into their Union. But Rugby League shouldnt just think it can only operate when their is no union being played. If we limit ourselves to that small summer window (when the GAA is in full swing) we will never make any significant progress.

Well, I think that is the heart of the issue - and not limited to Student RL. I was going start a thread on this, but this looks as good a place. Can Rugby League ever be a serious competitor to Union in Ireland?

Personally, one of things that I like about League in Ireland is that there is no animosity between Union and League players. I think it is too early to start competing with Union. It is great to see so many more teams competing during the League season, but it is only a couple of years since there were so few teams that you only had to play 3 or 4 games before you were in the knock out stages of the competition.

I think that the next approach should be to get Union clubs to enter a team into the competition during the summer (as Clontarf did, beating us in the final ). A few years of this, and then it will be a lot more recognised.

With regards to the Student RL specifically, how about a few 9-aside tourneys like the opening RLI event every summer? That's a super event, and can be done in one day. This means that players can have a go, without committing to a club.

desfoy wrote:

I think the target market is probably last years U20's. many of them who arent able to break straight into the first team at their union clubs are faced with having to put up with 2nd team (or worse) rugby union.

That is a good point, and don't forget about the kids who have just missed the Under 20's, and are stuck playing J3 rugby with a load of unfit ageing wasters (like me).

desfoy wrote:

In the 10 years I have been involved with RL in Ireland, I cant remember a single person who hasnt enjoyed playing league, and even though they dont want to give up union, they usually admit that they get a lot more involved, get a lot more ball, and have to make more one-on-one tackles playing league than they ever did at union.

Agreed, and given the choice, I would probably go for League full time over Union, but it seems that most of the Irish guys I play League with seem to look forward to going back to the Union season.

P.S. Folks: please no posts on how Union dìcked the League guys years ago in England. It is not particularly relevant to Ireland, and as there is no real "split" between the codes, lets not start one.

roopy

Student RL gives a lot of opportunity to travel.
The Uni comp in NSW is very strong, and the student rep sides go on overseas trips nearly every year.
This year they were supposed to go to Georgia and Singapore, but it fell through for some reason, and they went to the Pacific Islands instead.

I know that student teams are close to taking off in the US, and the Lebanon comp is made up almost entirely of Uni teams.

I have also heard that student League teams are common at English Unis now, where they hardly existed in the fairly recent past.

Eoin

roopy wrote:

Student RL gives a lot of opportunity to travel.

At the moment, you would really have to travel to get fixtures!

roopy wrote:

I have also heard that student League teams are common at English Unis now, where they hardly existed in the fairly recent past.

The only thing is that League in England is much more established. Over there, there was probably a lot of demand for League as students specifically wanted to play. Over here, you are nearly taking an opposite approach, i.e. convincing students to play League as opposed to another sport.

Eoin

Edit: By the way, is anyone here actually involved with the RLI (apart from just a player)?