Thoughts Revolving Around Round of 16

So I have several trains of thought today about rugby, West rugby and Round of 16. After the rather anti-climatic weekend for West rugby and all the teams involved, I really think we have to face facts. What are those facts?

1) West Region Geographically:

We are a HUGE union with a HUGE geographic challenge. Any D1 team in the West that wants to play a highly competitive team (besides CO) has to drive over 6 hours or fly to a destination. I added up how much I spent on plane tickets and driving this year and it was well over $1000. This total does not include any out of state tournaments either, because we simply couldn’t afford to attend!

Yes, this is a challenge with living in the West…but should that challenge by shunned off just because we live in the West? I think not, and the solution is not to move to another territory although that option is tempting! I think we should stick by our union and work to improve it.

We can work on building a D2 program so that teams that aren’t ready to work towards D1 at least have a championship to play for, even if USA Rugby doesn’t recognize it. We also need to start working on building youth/high school in all parts of the West. Colorado has a good program going and Texas is just starting one…these programs will do all good things and most importantly will bring rugby to our cities.

2) Current D1 West League Schedule:
I came to Austin right after the team’s had decided to do away with the Best of the West Tournament. I really think this was a good test to try out, but I think we have found that it has not helped at all. I believe one of the main ideas behind the switch was guaranteeing high level matches throughout the year and not having a tournament style. I really think this idea was thought out and implemented well, but the end result was not what was desired. Teams are spending twice as much money and traveling way more.

Where before a team may travel to Seattle, New York or across the country, now there are no funds to do any kind of traveling besides the league matches. I believe this is a detriment to our teams and I wish the league schedule would return to the Best of the West format.

3) Result of all This:
So what is all this adding up to? The West will more than likely have two seeds challenged and will have one chance to challenge for a seed. If all goes well, we keep 3 seeds, if all hell breaks loose the West could end up without a seed. Not going to say it will happen, but lets keep an open mind here. The West is in some serious danger here, we could lose all our seeds and have to do something dramatic.

4) West Select Side
So we haven’t even touched on the NA4 schedule that is going to be a financial burden and more on the unions now. Basically if you haven’t heard (amazing how many teams haven’t heard…) USA Rugby is placing more emphasis on the Women’s National Team and the Territorial stuff leading up to it. They are doing away with the traditional ITT’s or All Stars Tournament and moving towards the NA4 [correction…duh I am an idiot…they are having ITT’s]. Check out these blogs from a few months ago for more details: NA4 Details & NASC to become NA4.

So the whole idea is that each territorial will have two “home” games (where is home exactly?) and one away game. These are set to happen in the Spring season and so most teams are assuming that League season should happen in the Fall season. The costs are tripling here if you aren’t counting…the finances for this are getting scary. If I did the math really quickly for me personally I am counting:

2-3 West D1 League games (away)
2 West Select Side games(home)
1 West Select Side game (away)
1 NASC (away)

and if I go far enough…
1 NA4 Tournament
1-2 possible overseas tours while preparing for the Rugby World Cup

Scary stuff.

So those are the thoughts that are running through my head today…not very good stuff. I have been in the West Territory for almost 7 years now and it is becoming more and more daunting to play here.