Waikato and the Chiefs
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Seriously Shark - where's the problem.
Looks like it's working to me - and I don't give a shit about Super Rugby
Meanwhile the sadly downgraded provincial rugby comp has Canterbury, Taranaki, Harbour and Ta$man as the semi-finalists.
Boo hoo that 4 of the franchise bases couldn't make it. I mean genuinely I am sooooo fucking sorry
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@shark said in Waikato and the Chiefs:
@nepia Point missed? There are already 8 Waikato players in that squad. But how many were there a couple of years later? I'm sure you know as well as I do that there were more players from provinces -
from memory - such as Manawatu and Ta$man than Waikato in following years. I'm all about provincialism and tribalism throughout the NZ game, so for mine, that's wrong.Your points are all over the show. You're claiming the Waikato demise is due to the Chiefs selecting decisions since their rise in 2012 however their squad wasn't even that good in the years before that. There is no point the Chiefs picking Waikato players who are not in the top players in the country just because their franchise is based within that province. And those middle years had particularly poor Waikato teams. Hell, the Canes have a Wellington first policy and they're in the 2nd Division currently.
As for Douglas, you're focusing on one player who has missed out because it suits a narrative you're creating, in a team that is filled with loose forwards from within the franchise boundaries (it's just that they're from BoP, the Naki, and Counties), and only because he was an injury replacement in your team, I doubt you were bemoaning the fact he didn't make the Chiefs after the NPC last year.
Provincialism is not franchise rugby. Maybe you have a belief that they're associated because for so long Canterbury=Crusaders, but for the rest of us they're two different beasts.
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@shark I don't think you are fully grasping the dynamics outside of Canterbury, which has one comparatively isolated city with an area such as the upper north island.
These days North Harbour, Auckland,Counties, Waikato, BOP almost blend into each other. A player in one of those unions can easily associate with, or play in, the unions either side of him.
Take someone like Beaver as an example. Lives in Counties, has a business in Counties, grew up and started playing for Counties, yet was considered a local when playing for years at Waikato.
As soon as a policy like the one you are advocating is brought in, players from CM and BOP will congregate back at Waikato or endlessly move around between the three unions to manage the quota system for the Chiefs.
We get that with the Crusaders and Canterbury being effectively the Saders A and B sides drives great parochialism and support, but that dynamic doesn't work in other environments.
The Canes followed your concept for years and it never made Wellington strong. -
@crucial said in Waikato and the Chiefs:
@shark I don't think you are fully grasping the dynamics outside of Canterbury, which has one comparatively isolated city with an area such as the upper north island.
These days North Harbour, Auckland,Counties, Waikato, BOP almost blend into each other. A player in one of those unions can easily associate with, or play in, the unions either side of him.
Take someone like Beaver as an example. Lives in Counties, has a business in Counties, grew up and started playing for Counties, yet was considered a local when playing for years at Waikato.
As soon as a policy like the one you are advocating is brought in, players from CM and BOP will congregate back at Waikato or endlessly move around between the three unions to manage the quota system for the Chiefs.
We get that with the Crusaders and Canterbury being effectively the Saders A and B sides drives great parochialism and support, but that dynamic doesn't work in a less inbred environment.Impossible to take anything you say seriously when your post is so heavily influenced by your idiotic and bigoted perception of Canterbury. Says a lot about posters such as yourself that a post about Waikato and the Chiefs comes back to Canterbury bashing.
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@shark said in Waikato and the Chiefs:
@crucial said in Waikato and the Chiefs:
@shark I don't think you are fully grasping the dynamics outside of Canterbury, which has one comparatively isolated city with an area such as the upper north island.
These days North Harbour, Auckland,Counties, Waikato, BOP almost blend into each other. A player in one of those unions can easily associate with, or play in, the unions either side of him.
Take someone like Beaver as an example. Lives in Counties, has a business in Counties, grew up and started playing for Counties, yet was considered a local when playing for years at Waikato.
As soon as a policy like the one you are advocating is brought in, players from CM and BOP will congregate back at Waikato or endlessly move around between the three unions to manage the quota system for the Chiefs.
We get that with the Crusaders and Canterbury being effectively the Saders A and B sides drives great parochialism and support, but that dynamic doesn't work in a less inbred environment.Impossible to take anything you say seriously when your post is so heavily influenced by your idiotic and bigoted perception of Canterbury. Says a lot about posters such as yourself that a post about Waikato and the Chiefs comes back to Canterbury bashing.
Sorry @shark that last comment was pure and utter bait and it looks like I caught Jaws.
(I actually thought you would realise) -
@nepia said in Waikato and the Chiefs:
@shark said in Waikato and the Chiefs:
@nepia Point missed? There are already 8 Waikato players in that squad. But how many were there a couple of years later? I'm sure you know as well as I do that there were more players from provinces -
from memory - such as Manawatu and Ta$man than Waikato in following years. I'm all about provincialism and tribalism throughout the NZ game, so for mine, that's wrong.Your points are all over the show. You're claiming the Waikato demise is due to the Chiefs selecting decisions since their rise in 2012 however their squad wasn't even that good in the years before that. There is no point the Chiefs picking Waikato players who are not in the top players in the country just because their franchise is based within that province. And those middle years had particularly poor Waikato teams. Hell, the Canes have a Wellington first policy and they're in the 2nd Division currently.
As for Douglas, you're focusing on one player who has missed out because it suits a narrative you're creating, in a team that is filled with loose forwards from within the franchise boundaries (it's just that they're from BoP, the Naki, and Counties), and only because he was an injury replacement in your team, I doubt you were bemoaning the fact he didn't make the Chiefs after the NPC last year.
Provincialism is not franchise rugby. Maybe you have a belief that they're associated because for so long Canterbury=Crusaders, but for the rest of us they're two different beasts.
I'm IMPLYING the Waikato demise is associated with the Chiefs selection policies since Central contracting began, and I've thrown out a scenario re how the two could be connected, but I've actually asked for opinions from locals.
I'm focusing on Douglas because he's a perfect and very recent example of the kind of player ignored by the Chiefs in lieu of other signings, who was proven to be well and truly up to scratch, but is now gone.
I get that some fans of other franchises may have
disassociated said franchise from the local provinces, more ala US pro sports where it's a rarity to have a local player in a squad, but we're not the US. NZ is a vastly smaller market and there's no reason why the Super structure can't be tinkered with, without breaking it, so that all sides end up with more local talent involved. -
@crucial said in Waikato and the Chiefs:
@shark said in Waikato and the Chiefs:
@crucial said in Waikato and the Chiefs:
@shark I don't think you are fully grasping the dynamics outside of Canterbury, which has one comparatively isolated city with an area such as the upper north island.
These days North Harbour, Auckland,Counties, Waikato, BOP almost blend into each other. A player in one of those unions can easily associate with, or play in, the unions either side of him.
Take someone like Beaver as an example. Lives in Counties, has a business in Counties, grew up and started playing for Counties, yet was considered a local when playing for years at Waikato.
As soon as a policy like the one you are advocating is brought in, players from CM and BOP will congregate back at Waikato or endlessly move around between the three unions to manage the quota system for the Chiefs.
We get that with the Crusaders and Canterbury being effectively the Saders A and B sides drives great parochialism and support, but that dynamic doesn't work in a less inbred environment.Impossible to take anything you say seriously when your post is so heavily influenced by your idiotic and bigoted perception of Canterbury. Says a lot about posters such as yourself that a post about Waikato and the Chiefs comes back to Canterbury bashing.
Sorry @shark that last comment was pure and utter bait and it looks like I caught Jaws.
(I actually thought you would realise)Passes off as bait or not, I think we all know it's not an isolated comment.
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@shark said in Waikato and the Chiefs:
@crucial said in Waikato and the Chiefs:
@shark said in Waikato and the Chiefs:
@crucial said in Waikato and the Chiefs:
@shark I don't think you are fully grasping the dynamics outside of Canterbury, which has one comparatively isolated city with an area such as the upper north island.
These days North Harbour, Auckland,Counties, Waikato, BOP almost blend into each other. A player in one of those unions can easily associate with, or play in, the unions either side of him.
Take someone like Beaver as an example. Lives in Counties, has a business in Counties, grew up and started playing for Counties, yet was considered a local when playing for years at Waikato.
As soon as a policy like the one you are advocating is brought in, players from CM and BOP will congregate back at Waikato or endlessly move around between the three unions to manage the quota system for the Chiefs.
We get that with the Crusaders and Canterbury being effectively the Saders A and B sides drives great parochialism and support, but that dynamic doesn't work in a less inbred environment.Impossible to take anything you say seriously when your post is so heavily influenced by your idiotic and bigoted perception of Canterbury. Says a lot about posters such as yourself that a post about Waikato and the Chiefs comes back to Canterbury bashing.
Sorry @shark that last comment was pure and utter bait and it looks like I caught Jaws.
(I actually thought you would realise)Passes off as bait or not, I think we all know it's not an isolated comment.
It's called banter and as you love parochialism, it's a bit odd to get shirty when people crank up. Yes, I have a genuine anti-cantab slant. It originated from rugby a long time ago.
Anyway, in the spirit of the current humour bypass version of the Fern I have gone back and edited away the bait. Happy to debate the point otherwise.
The only reason this has become some sort of Chiefs v Saders thing is because you targeted the original post for some reason at Waikato when the point your are promoting equally applies to Auckland, Wellington and Otago. -
Seems like an outdated argument to me. The WRU are a mess and Waikato had a shit season but the Mitre 10 Cup is becoming less and less important every year, all the money goes to Super Rugby and that's the priority. It may sting because we all grew up with the NPC but what's important is getting the best players in NZ into the 5 franchises, not strengthening teams in a much less important competition.
The way I see things, the Mitre 10 Cup is basically turning into a developmental league. The next step will probably be resting starting Super players from playing in it, leaving just the U20 players, fringe Super players and club stand outs.
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@unco said in Waikato and the Chiefs:
Seems like an outdated argument to me. The WRU are a mess and Waikato had a shit season but the Mitre 10 Cup is becoming less and less important every year, all the money goes to Super Rugby and that's the priority. It may sting because we all grew up with the NPC but what's important is getting the best players in NZ into the 5 franchises, not strengthening teams in a much less important competition.
The way I see things, the Mitre 10 Cup is basically turning into a developmental league. The next step will probably be resting starting Super players from playing in it, leaving just the U20 players, fringe Super players and club stand outs.
I think that is already true for many locked in Super Players. They are either unavailable through internationals or use the time for rehab.
It is important to keep an avenue for up and coming good super players to hone their play and gain experience though (e.g. Akira Ioane) and important for the lower third of Super Players to play and be challenged by new players for their squad places. -
I thought the past few seasons of Super rugby have been very competitive (NZ Teams) and if you take out the anomaly of last year with the rule tweaking, I think the overall quality of rugby in the NPC has been on the improve over the last few years.
Surely that is a sign that at the moment, things are about right, that's not to say things wont need tweaking down the track.
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The topic was clearly stated by Shark, the significant decline of Waikato while the Chiefs prospered.
What hasn't been discussedmuch is the effect of the change in how super teams are contracted. It seems now that most places are filled before the crunch end of the ITM Cup, making it far less relevant towards Super selections. Tyler Ardron has played well for Canada when free from injury. But, what does an early signing of an overseas player say to local contenders playing in ITM Cup, like Manihera, Parete, Henwood and Halafihi? We know what happened with Halafihi now, and poor old Joe Tupe last year. I can understand Luke Jacobsen, and perhaps Tiaan Falcon as an outsider - but does that impact on Luteru Laulala, Matty Lansdown, Mike Delaney, Steve Donald etc? Signing Tahuriorangi is reclaiming local talent, but not a great motivator for Judd, Levien etc.
I just read Beaver's book, and it reinforced to me how important it is for players to have genuine aspirations, to bring out the best in their play. In answer to previous posters I was stunned last year that Douglas, Tupe, Vaka, Mitch Jacobson, Skeen and Reece all missed both the draft and WTG spots for all franchises. Glad the last 3 have hung around, but the performances of their team in ITM Cup this year will not have helped their case at all.
I see a real correlation between ITM Cup performance and the number of players who have their Super Rugby spots sorted. I see that in 27 Cantabrians and 23 from Taranaki. But, 18 of those Taranaki players played for franchises other than the Chiefs this year. Maybe Waikato needs to assist more players towards pathways outside the Chiefs???
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In terms of the early contracting, and keeping spots open and having an end of season signing-up deadline, or even the mini-draft they used to do for out-of-franchise players.
There's (exodus) risk in that approach too. Players might put up with it for a year or 2 at the start of their careers when they are young, hungry and ambitious.
But who wants to get to November and not yet know if next year you're earning a 50k NPC wage or earning a 150k combined NPC +SR wage. Etc, Also not know what town or even island you will be living in next year, and the year after that.
That approach works in a bubble, not when you have well paid stable options overseas.
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@arhs said in Waikato and the Chiefs:
The topic was clearly stated by Shark, the significant decline of Waikato while the Chiefs prospered.
What hasn't been discussedmuch is the effect of the change in how super teams are contracted. It seems now that most places are filled before the crunch end of the ITM Cup, making it far less relevant towards Super selections. Tyler Ardron has played well for Canada when free from injury. But, what does an early signing of an overseas player say to local contenders playing in ITM Cup, like Manihera, Parete, Henwood and Halafihi? We know what happened with Halafihi now, and poor old Joe Tupe last year. I can understand Luke Jacobsen, and perhaps Tiaan Falcon as an outsider - but does that impact on Luteru Laulala, Matty Lansdown, Mike Delaney, Steve Donald etc? Signing Tahuriorangi is reclaiming local talent, but not a great motivator for Judd, Levien etc.
I just read Beaver's book, and it reinforced to me how important it is for players to have genuine aspirations, to bring out the best in their play. In answer to previous posters I was stunned last year that Douglas, Tupe, Vaka, Mitch Jacobson, Skeen and Reece all missed both the draft and WTG spots for all franchises. Glad the last 3 have hung around, but the performances of their team in ITM Cup this year will not have helped their case at all.
I see a real correlation between ITM Cup performance and the number of players who have their Super Rugby spots sorted. I see that in 27 Cantabrians and 23 from Taranaki. But, 18 of those Taranaki players played for franchises other than the Chiefs this year. Maybe Waikato needs to assist more players towards pathways outside the Chiefs???
Thank you. Someone that actually got the topic and put forward a really sound suite of points.
The point you make re early contracting being to the detriment of form in the NPC is a really good one. I was really worried from a Crusaders POV that there wouldn't be room in our squad for Brayden Ennor, but they then signed him up (possibly aware at that stage that Ioane wouldn't be back). I worry there won't be room for McKay and Jordan though and they may sign elsewhere. A quota might help this situation, but also may not as the spots available for local players may not match the positions of the form players.
Good debate though.
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Odd in a troll thread that the OP is complaining about being trolled ....
@shark said in Waikato and the Chiefs:
I'm IMPLYING the Waikato demise is associated with the Chiefs selection policies since Central contracting began, and I've thrown out a scenario re how the two could be connected, but I've actually asked for opinions from locals.
I'm focusing on Douglas because he's a perfect and very recent example of the kind of player ignored by the Chiefs in lieu of other signings, who was proven to be well and truly up to scratch, but is now gone.
I get that some fans of other franchises may have
disassociated said franchise from the local provinces, more ala US pro sports where it's a rarity to have a local player in a squad, but we're not the US. NZ is a vastly smaller market and there's no reason why the Super structure can't be tinkered with, without breaking it, so that all sides end up with more local talent involved.Clearly no matter what replies you got, from anyone, you were going to ignore anyway. Waikato are shit at the moment because they're shit at the moment. If the Chiefs had picked a preponderance of Waikato players in the last four years then the Blues would be happy as they wouldn't be the 5th NZ team anymore.
You're repeatedly ignoring comments from a poster within that region, who note that they don't want to see a scenario where Waikato dominates the franchise in a way that diminishes the other teams in the franchise.
Douglas was ignored by the Chiefs (and all other franchises) because he wasn't considered better than all other options. The Chiefs loose forwards were mostly from within the franchise borders, in fact no team, not even your Crusaders select all loosies from within their borders. Every year players who deserve a spot miss out, and they often miss out to players selected in a team not from the region.
Your idea of having a certain number of players from within the franchise boundaries is fine, and it currently does happen, but even then you're not happy because in the franchise in question the 'base' doesn't dominate.
As @booboo notes only one franchise base has made the finals this year and two of the franchises bases are already in 2nd division - so why the focus on Waikato?
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This article that @Stargazer posted in another thread shines a bit more light on Waikato's issue:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/provincial/98039706Seems more like historical financial issues have a part to play than Chiefs contracting.
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While I was furious at Joe Tupe missing out on Chiefs selection for 2017...
... it was a drop in the ocean compared to the perceived 'injustices' that used to happen to Bay players under the old model.
Perhaps it opens up opportunities to retain players too. These days we have Culum "100+ games for the Bay" Retallick playing for the Rebels in the off season.
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As I've been away I've just read through this thread. When I started supporting Waikato in the 1980s they were a 2nd Div side so I've been through the many lows and occasional highs.
As the article states there has been some financial challenges in recent years (resulting in a self-imposed salary cap) but that doesn't excuse 6 years of under-performance. "Relegation" is no more than Waikato deserved so hopefully something positive comes out of this review. I think that the current coaches (Botherway, Randle and Hoeft) should go, as they need to be held accountable, but I have no idea of potential replacement coaches. That doesn't exempt the players either but the fact there are so few Super players in the Waikato starting XV is indicative of their performances this season.
Certainly the role of the NPC has changed since the advent of Super rugby, particularly after the changes in the contracting system. In the 1990s I had little interest in the Chiefs as we were lumped with NH and my support was solely with Waikato. Even though I still go to the Waikato home games my expectations have changed, which says as much about me, as a fan, as it does about the performance on the field. I reckon only 2000-3000 turned up for the last home game, which was a must-win. There are a number of season ticket holders in our area that only attend Chiefs games and might turn up for the occasional Waikato game. The WRU better hope they have good sponsors because I doubt they make much from gate sales.
@ARHS It's not just players that Waikato has lost. There are 2 handy coaches at Wellington and North Harbour from the province.