UBL 2018/19

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Kofi Annan
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Re: UBL 2018/19

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Who is coaching Banbrigde all starz
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Russ
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Re: UBL 2018/19

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Kofi Annan wrote:Who is coaching Banbrigde all starz
Soper

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Kofi Annan
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Re: UBL 2018/19

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Russ wrote:
Kofi Annan wrote:Who is coaching Banbrigde all starz
Soper

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Really
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Re: UBL 2018/19

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thecrouch wrote:Can you explain this a bit more? What changes are they looking to make and why are the Leinster clubs against it?
I don't know a great deal more than that, it's all very much going on behind closed doors - but Brendan Fanning obviously has a few mates in the Leinster club scene who are leaking to him. If you google his columns, you'll find a few from the last 6 months or so which talk about this.

The original proposal was to move to a 10-12 club all-Ireland semi-pro league, with clubs from all 4 provinces. I think the idea was then to push the domestic club game back to a provincial basis underneath the semi-pro league, and there would be no promotion or relegation to it. The word from Fanning was that the Leinster clubs threw up all over that idea, and held meetings to organise push back against the IRFU.

The next proposal was for the UBL to be restructure into 2 Premiership divisions of 8 clubs, beneath that 2 Championship divisions and then 2 Conference divisions. I think the idea was to have the Premiership semi-pro and all-Ireland, the Championship amateur and all-Ireland and the Conference messed about with each year to minimise long-distance travel. To be honest this sounds like a mess, and again, word from Fanning was that the Leinster clubs were pushing back. He also mentioned that the Munster clubs weren't keen, and had been in touch with the Leinster clubs but were letting them make the running.

I think the direction of travel is pretty clear - next season both the SRU and WRU are launching semi-pro leagues to mitigate the loss off the B&I Cup. It will just be painful getting there, as the Leinster clubs in particular have a lot of clout within the blazerati, and the status quo works well for them. An unavoidable consequence of moving to even a 12 team semi-pro league is that there'll be at most what 5 Leinster clubs? And look at 1A & 1B this year: Clontarf, Trinity, Lansdowne, Terenure, UCD, St Mary's, Belvedere, Old Wesley (and Blackrock in 2A) there would be quite a lot of big clubs who would be losers under almost any new proposal
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UBL 2018/19

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Columbo wrote:
thecrouch wrote:Can you explain this a bit more? What changes are they looking to make and why are the Leinster clubs against it?
I don't know a great deal more than that, it's all very much going on behind closed doors - but Brendan Fanning obviously has a few mates in the Leinster club scene who are leaking to him. If you google his columns, you'll find a few from the last 6 months or so which talk about this.

The original proposal was to move to a 10-12 club all-Ireland semi-pro league, with clubs from all 4 provinces. I think the idea was then to push the domestic club game back to a provincial basis underneath the semi-pro league, and there would be no promotion or relegation to it. The word from Fanning was that the Leinster clubs threw up all over that idea, and held meetings to organise push back against the IRFU.

The next proposal was for the UBL to be restructure into 2 Premiership divisions of 8 clubs, beneath that 2 Championship divisions and then 2 Conference divisions. I think the idea was to have the Premiership semi-pro and all-Ireland, the Championship amateur and all-Ireland and the Conference messed about with each year to minimise long-distance travel. To be honest this sounds like a mess, and again, word from Fanning was that the Leinster clubs were pushing back. He also mentioned that the Munster clubs weren't keen, and had been in touch with the Leinster clubs but were letting them make the running.

I think the direction of travel is pretty clear - next season both the SRU and WRU are launching semi-pro leagues to mitigate the loss off the B&I Cup. It will just be painful getting there, as the Leinster clubs in particular have a lot of clout within the blazerati, and the status quo works well for them. An unavoidable consequence of moving to even a 12 team semi-pro league is that there'll be at most what 5 Leinster clubs? And look at 1A & 1B this year: Clontarf, Trinity, Lansdowne, Terenure, UCD, St Mary's, Belvedere, Old Wesley (and Blackrock in 2A) there would be quite a lot of big clubs who would be losers under almost any new proposal
Thanks for the info.

Isn’t the AIL already semi pro all Ireland basis? What’s the difference?

A set number of teams per province with no promo and relegation ?

Would there just be one semi pro league then?
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Re: UBL 2018/19

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thecrouch wrote:Thanks for the info.

Isn’t the AIL already semi pro all Ireland basis? What’s the difference?
It's all-Ireland, but strictly amateur... well, except for the contracted and academy players that are allocated to clubs... So a bit of a fudge. The IRFU clamped down on open payments being made to players a few years ago, because certain clubs had got carried away and ran up debts, which they then were unable to service and the IRFU had to bail them out.

However I'd say there's a fair bit that goes on under the radar, which is either tolerated by the IRFU because it's not running up hard debts, or else because they don't have the resources to police it properly - so cash-in-hand, finding players cushy jobs, sorting them out with cars etc.

It's not ideal - having all 5 divisions all-Ireland imposes a lot of cost and hassle on clubs, certainly the smaller ones. For the lower divisions at least, I think it would certainly be sensible to move to a provincial conference system, with all-Ireland play-offs at the end of the season.
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Re: UBL 2018/19

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thecrouch wrote:A set number of teams per province with no promo and relegation ?

Would there just be one semi pro league then?
In the first proposal, there was no promotion / relegation. The second proposal moved away from that - the 'Premiership' was to be ring-fenced for 2 years, then promotion would be possible.

That's messy though - if you win the 'Championship' and gain access to the 'Premiership' then over the course of a summer you switch from effectively being amateur to being semi-pro. And the team relegated likewise presumably all of a sudden loses all their contracted players - and can't pay any of the others any more... So what happens in practice? Do all the contracted players registered with the relegated team transfer en masse to the promoted team? So that in effect you have the same teams playing the next year, just wearing different jerseys??
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Re: UBL 2018/19

Post by UlsterNo9 »

How does New Zealand work with the Mitre 10 underneath the Super Rugby teams?
Could something like that work?
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Re: UBL 2018/19

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UlsterNo9 wrote:How does New Zealand work with the Mitre 10 underneath the Super Rugby teams?
Could something like that work?
In NPC (mitre10, Air NZ or whoever the sponsor is) there are 14 provinces. A couple of years ago they decided to split it into 2 conferences to reduce the duration. but rather than home and away games, there is a confusing set of cross conference games. So you don't get to play everyone.

The Wellington Lions NPC team is made up of players from the 12 or so Wellington region club sides, which are probably closer to the AIL teams, with their roots in their local communities.

Attendance wise it's pretty poor. We get 3 to 6000 (much less on a wet night) in a 35,000 seat stadium.

The structure does seem to provide a good conveyor belt of players, but it's not great for the fans.

The season runs Feb-July for Super rugby, then August-November for All Blacks. NPC runs August to October, so you rarely see the internationals at that level.

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Re: UBL 2018/19

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Following on from conversation around new format.... this was circulated to clubs
We are all aware of the proposals put forward by the IRFU to restructure the All Ireland League in 2019/20 to support the professional game in Ireland. It is clear the clubs are opposed to these changes. We in Ireland are very proud of our Amateur game that has been built on the back of its Community identity.
For me this debate provides an ideal opportunity for the IRFU and the four provinces to separate the committees that run both the professional and amateur game in Ireland. Let the Professional game put in place its own playing structures to support the professional game. It should be a case of the IRFU providing a budget for the provinces to administer the club game. For too long we have been fooling ourselves into thinking that volunteers and full time employees can run both the professional and amateur game. It is time we moved on.

The All Ireland League has now lost its main sponsor the Ulster Bank for the season 2018/19. Again should we be surprised. Commercial organisations only want to be associated with Professional Sport. Those of us who value the Amateur game have to ask ourselves does the All Ireland League have a future. I know talking to clubs in Section 1 it takes a substantial six figure sum to be competitive at this level. The task of raising this funding is becoming harder with the Commercial Sector not interested in supporting Community Sporting Organisations. The Alternative proposals produced by Leinster are to put in place a 10 team Premiership and a 10 team Championship in the province as an alternative to retaining the All Ireland League. Is this not a better alternative for clubs in the four provinces. Before the All Ireland League we had teams competing in their own league structures in their provinces. They were able to produce players who played for Ulster, Ireland and the British Lions. I just think it is financially no longer viable or sustainable for clubs to compete in the AIL. The Junior clubs in the four provinces have a structure that works with four teams from each province able to compete in the All Ireland Junior Cup.
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Re: UBL 2018/19

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UlsterNo9 wrote:Following on from conversation around new format.... this was circulated to clubs
who is the 'me'?
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Re: UBL 2018/19

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Leinster gets what Leinster wanted all along then

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Re: UBL 2018/19

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SopesImage

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Gerald the Mole
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Re: UBL 2018/19

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Columbo wrote:
thecrouch wrote:Thanks for the info.

Isn’t the AIL already semi pro all Ireland basis? What’s the difference?
It's all-Ireland, but strictly amateur... well, except for the contracted and academy players that are allocated to clubs... So a bit of a fudge. The IRFU clamped down on open payments being made to players a few years ago, because certain clubs had got carried away and ran up debts, which they then were unable to service and the IRFU had to bail them out.

However I'd say there's a fair bit that goes on under the radar, which is either tolerated by the IRFU because it's not running up hard debts, or else because they don't have the resources to police it properly - so cash-in-hand, finding players cushy jobs, sorting them out with cars etc.

It's not ideal - having all 5 divisions all-Ireland imposes a lot of cost and hassle on clubs, certainly the smaller ones. For the lower divisions at least, I think it would certainly be sensible to move to a provincial conference system, with all-Ireland play-offs at the end of the season.
Bullshit, it’s not “strictly amateur “ at all if you believe that your delusional, IRFU brought out rule 6 to stop payments and inducements and set aside 300k to investigate breaches with an accounting firm gets to administer, however if anyone complain about a club you have to put it in writing and pay the IRFU upfront RULE 6 states clearly that you cannot pay, induce, or give out gifts, just read through an of the rugby agents sites and there is lots of ads”Irish AIL team wants a (player) match fee, flights, accommodation , transport, gym, ride etc” are these investiged , NO, unless some one puts their club money into the complaint, it’s a matter of the IRFU saying they are doing something while someone’s relative gets a tidy fee for investigating fûck all.

Three years ago a Belfast club advertised that they wanted a second row and a prop and would give the above without the ride, IRFU wrote to all BELFAST clubs who strenuously denied it, September came and tho and behold one club had an Italian prop and Argentinan second row.....where they challenged were they fûck..

Another well know club pays their players car insurance I am sure the president knows which club that is.

Cash in hand and cushy jobs is against rule 6, re hard debts one club in Galway has 2M hard debts .

IRFU don’t really care about club game. One league of 8-10 teams served by academy player the rest can be regional and if they want to pay fûcking let them as some feck in Dublin is 300k well off for doing nothing.
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Re: UBL 2018/19

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Russ wrote:SopesImage

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Some fake news in there Russ. Ulster Provincial 5 is the=lowest league in Ulster Rugby and the 4ths play there ‘ do the 5th senior team play in Narnia
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