The Rogues Rant

Welcome to The Rogues Rant, an occasional look at all things Rugby.

Australia’s Rugby Crisis is not only at Super Rugby level. The word around town is that a couple of the traditional Illawarra clubs are struggling in terms of player numbers. The problem is such that we may even see some impact on this week’s round of matches. It’s a problem that has been developing over several past seasons. Now despite some whole hearted effort from several Rugby diehards to solve the problems at club level, I fear that the issue is about to bite and bite hard!

Country week is just one week away with the NSW Country Championships on next week in Port Macquarie. It has been a less than ideal preparation for the tournament for both our Illawarrior Senior and Colts squads. With the wet weather over the start of the year, trial matches were restricted to just the first outing against Queanbeyan weeks ago. It’s been hardly an ideal program for such a prestigious tournament. None the less all roads lead to Port for what is usually an entertaining weekend for Rugby tragics like the Rogue. I’ll be there again this year to bring you all the details as they happen. So keep an eye on the website for the latest over the weekend including full match reports. In something that seems to happen far too often the program for Saturday has our teams both playing at the same time which will make it a bit hard to support both our sides on the day. The Colts first match is against Mid North Coast at 1.00PM with the seniors opposed to Central North at 1.10PM. Good luck to Shaun McCreedy and all the boys in their quest for the elusive three peat.