Diluted North American 4 set for fall

Plans to recast North American 4 tournament rely on domestic matches in Canada and the United States plus an Argentine entrant to the four-team knockout playoff.

Canada and America each will field four teams and Argentina one in the renamed American Rugby Championship, set to kick off in September. In North America, intra-country matches will lead to an allotment of two semifinalists for Canada and one for the US, while the South America power also gets one.

The final is scheduled for October 17 in Toronto, according to a British Columbia union press release citing Rugby Canada. Details could change as the International Rugby Board, which underwrites the tournament, has yet to sign off, according to a USA Rugby official.

The emphasis on domestic games and lack of inter-country matches -- there will be only four -- broadly dilutes what was once a round-robin format. Because the US gets only one semifinal place, its athletes will play two 'sub-internationals' at most.

The rejiggered formula indicates the IRB remains convinced that so-called cross-border tournaments are vital to competitive and commercial gains, but appears to be shying from bearing the cost. Additionally, Dublin is desperate to find outlets for the Argentines, which has surpassed its hemispheric rivals but been shunned by Antipodean and European powers.

In its three years, the NA4 has been a hapless competition. There are tales of teams running out of food and gear, training fields underwater, players nonchalantly swapped between teams, and so on. Unloved even by rugby addicts, it has yielded few new players or fans and deep losses for the IRB.

At the outset, Canada and the US declared the they would sell NA4 franchises to minority stakeholders as a means of commercializing rugby in North America, but the tournament probably would collapse without Dublin's largesse. This year's changes may suggest time is running out.

The US entrants are expected to be the so-called high performance regions, which were last year identified by USA Rugby but not formally unveiled to the public. These follow the lines of America's founding four territories.

Implicit in the revamped competition is yet another reworking of the American domestic schedule. September and October matches will require ARC players to be training in August, and naturally will be precursors to the 'November international window,' during which time the union hopes to reprise a four-team competition formerly known as the Super Cup. Thus international hopefuls are faced with a January to November schedule, a timeline that ironically mirrors the Southern hemisphere season.

But the board, led by Kevin Roberts, has been unable to increase revenues to its goal of $20 million, so as to be able to compensate players for the manifestly professional lifestyle.

Separately, it has been reported that Roberts is fundraising for the New Zealand RU, which last year lost its agreement with consumer electronics company Phillps. Roberts formerly served on the NZRU board. The news was reported by a division of CBS. Roberts had not responded to a query regarding his role by time of posting.

Comments

[bruce mclane]

Letting the NA4 die would be a good thing for all. It provided nothing and cost a lot.

I guess Alan Solomons' vision of packing the Ohio State football stadium for an NA4 game won't come to pass. (Yes, he actually said that to me, it was sometime in spring of 2006 at the NYAC)

I politely told him "I disagree."

[DaTruth]

If that's true about Roberts, that's disappointing, if not downright despicable.

I'm under the impression that the main reason he was brought on board was to use his marketing nous to provide guidance on marketing USA Rugby and tap into his fundraising/sponsorship rolodex.

If he's turning around and doing that work for NZ, while not accomplishing a thing for his own Board, then that's embarrassing to both him and USA Rugby.

[Mike Lee]

"In its three years, the NA4 has been a hapless competition. There are tales of teams running out of food and gear, training fields underwater, players nonchalantly swapped between teams, and so on. Unloved even by rugby addicts, it has yielded few new players or fans and deep losses for the IRB."

That’s a farce of a statement.

In its first year the turnover was large but it did serve as an Eagle selection pool, and introduced several new great players to the Eagles - like Pat Bell.

In the second year it was an extra world cup camp - where players learned the Eagle patterns and had extra time to train and prepare for what was a great world cup for the US.

This has been a great competition for the players involved and has help a lot guys get a look and get selected for the Eagles.

Names like Chris Wyles come to mind when mentioning the NA4 and breakout players at the second NA4.

USA Rugby is far from perfect, but as an understaffed and under funded institution, and I couldn't be more impressed with effort and results of the people in the Boulder who work so hard for the game we love.

The NA4 is an IRB directive. For some reason we think that there is a stigma involved with taking IRB money. This is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard. It is in everyone in World Rugby's best interest for the IRB to help grow the game in the US. If anything we should be asking for more - the potential return on investment in the US could be far greater than almost anywhere else in the Globe.

The IRB wanted to create a level of competition that is higher than our NASC and give a bridge the International Rugby. I have to believe they succeeded.

Everyone is quick to badmouth USA Rugby for the NA4 not being a gang busting success - but the ARC failed in Australia. The investment in the ARC, byt the ARU was much larger than USA rugby's annual budget. It lost so much money they shut it down after a single year. Yet we are the idiots.

It is not easy creating a new professional competition out of thin air in a sport that is not widely followed outside of the playing population. Scotland - one of the 4 home unions can barley keep professional teams - but some how USA is incompetent?

Many, many people have criticized the NA4 since the day it started and never gave it a chance - many of whom out of bitterness for either not being select as a coach, as a player or for being shut out of the selection process. Somehow out of their own selfishness/ego’s, these haters have missed the point of the tournament and the positives that have come from it.

Having the NA4 in October gives players a chance to compete for fall tour spots - meaning it will serve as a selecton tool for the Eagles.

[mark winokur]

Here in Canada we seem to have a bit more information on this comp; disapointing to see the negative tone of the story without having the info; maybe this will help.

Up here we are organizing into 4 regional teams with strong tribal IDs; British Columbia, The Prairies, Ontario and Atlantic.

Each team will have their best homegrown talent on the roster, mostly consisting of capped U20 and full international players. Here in Ontario for instance, we have run 8 sessions already, with our top 35-40 athletes. This provides a logical pathway for the guys here; club, local rep, provincial rep, national.

We have seen fantastic committment and competition for spots, which shows the players are buying in. The Atlantic team has already scheduled a pre-season tour to the UK to prepare and I am told BC expects well over 1500 fans for the Ontario @ BC game on 9/12.

While we are not aware of the US plan yet, that doesnt mean there isnt one or that it is a bad one.

The comp is moving from a "training camp with games" model to a "games with training buildup" model which seems logical to me anyway.

Hope this helps and I can say that we are very excited about it north of the 49th.

Regards

mw

[bruce mclane]

Pat Bell was well recognized as a talented player from SA who played for Life College.

The NA 4 had little to do with his discovery.

[old beaver]

What any league needs is a fan base. The NA4 seemed dead set on avoiding any sort of fan base and team identity.
Solidifying rosters is a big first step. Even the Yankee’s would loose their fan base if every year the roster and staff were completely new; let alone shuffled mid-season or week to week..
Creating a geographical identity will also help create fans. Even if every game were played in Denver (or Dallas or Alberta...), I would support the west coast team.
Some sort of merchandise would be nice; I have yet to see anyone wearing a Hawks/Falcons t-shirt or jersey.

[Mike Lee]

Pat Bell was never in any pool, and while he may have been well known to you - he was not on the Eagle Depth Chart prior to the NA4.

That year he started every Churchill Cup game, and World Cup Qualifier.

[LOL]

Under any evaluation the NA4 has been a waste of money. Had this NA4 investment money gone into any number of development causes, usar and the IRB would be seeing a return on investment.

Playing these rugby matches hurts nothing, wasting millions funding a competition than has marginal returns is plain dumb. Add a difficult economy into the picture and its really dumb.

We didn't have two teams of players projecting to the Eagles now we are creating four teams?

And BTW, the Mid-West, Pacific-Coast, East and West aren't brands. This is pure commonwealth folly. Throwing good money after bad. They must be trying to get the waste number up to $10m.

[Beagles]

USA is the village idiot of world rugby, and the IRB is going to give up on us soon. Canada and Argentina will be more important to the IRB Americas development plans because they will get a return on their investment (i.e. solid tier 2 and tier 1 team respectively). Sad but true. Maybe without the IRB involved the rugby community in the USA will take over and do it the old fashion way by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. Without IRB money and influence Boulder's current regime runs like rats from a building on fire.

[back on point]

Fella's, back on point...is this a good use of our development money? USA Rugby has no plan other than to follow the IRB script...if we had a plan it would be scholastic based - HS and College mostly - we would lower the number of RSL teams, make them city based - tour in the summer with All Americans (HS and College) - stop the insane U20 comp, they can play over Christmas on a tour if the IRB need some gauge of that level. We can have 'select teams' branded Hawks and Falcons, BEagles, etc tour in August, September etc if we need to play in November matches.
Here is where it all comes together or falls apart...without a business plan of TV/Sponsors, etc we don't know why we are playing in games in the Spring, Churchill Cup, NA 4, November tests etc. NO plan, no money, no money no contract, no contracts no winning team, no winning team, no American attention and fans.

[Da Truth]

I'd love to hear from someone with definitive details on the NA4 agreement with the iRB.

The way I understand it, the iRB provides the funding, earmarked for the NA4. So, this isn't money that would've been spent on the type of development most of us would like to see -- it has a very specific purpose attached to the money.

So (again, if I understand correctly), this money is not taking away from any development funding, as it could never be used for anything but the NA4.

If that's true, then it's not really a Boulder issue. They receive the money, but have to spend it in a specific way.

That said, getting the iRB to understand that this NA4 model doesn't work and they should scrap it and provide a new funding program for grassroots/college/high school/high-performance IS where Boulder is failing. THEY need to "help" the iRB understand that this model doesn't and won't work here.

Despite the efforts of a dedicated few, this program isn't (and probably never will be) successful in it's current format or the new format.

Again, would love to hear from anyone with inside knowledge on the NA4 funding stipulations.

[Marty Bradley]

A budget would be nice... Sorry, the banker in me comes out sometimes without notice.

The NA4 may be good for player development and evaluation but it would be interesting to at least examine the opportunity cost of the intiative.

That can't be done without the numbers.

[answer]

DaTruth,

Its the IRB's lame idea and USAR has spent zero time trying to talk them out of it or even finding a way to best use a bad plan.

When it finally doesn't work, like in year four or five, the IRB will blame it on us.

[chairman not!]

Dirt bag move by Roberts!

[Da Truth]

answer, that doesn't help much in figuring out the funding, and the strings tied to it....

[got your budget right here]

Sorry, but of course their are strings tied to IRB grant funds. The IRB came up with an expensive plan that won't help much. At least not help us get to the RWC quarters.

We spend almost a mil in event and team cost. The result has been that 30 or so players, most of whom don't project to the next level, play a few expensive rugby matches. End of story.

Now we are going to spread the money further into four teams. This will be a less than targeted plan. We need targeted development.

Marty, rub some more salt in your cut. USAR hasn't provided a budget since Melville and Roberts arrived, what's the chance they will float an NA4 budget? Never going to happen. Nothing is transparent with these guys, nothing.

[thin skinned, thick skulled]

Mike Lee,
What world do you live in?
In this world, the NA4 is a complete bust, from the begin.

It is more like an alternative league that USA Rugby and the IRB were fashioning out of wet blankets and promises.

NA4 does not "discover" players. In fact some of these players struggled to even make their own club's 15.

The NA4 has proven two things.
The USA Rugby idiots are still holding strong to their failed policies. And the NA4 will cost more and do less for American Rugby than Melville, Johnson, and Roberts combined - well maybe, their expenses are not made public.

[Flynn Hagerty]

http://industry.bnet.com/advertising/1000407/saatchis-roberts-got-massages-in-thailand-while-401ks-sank-and-clients-stiffed-his-agency/

Good on ya, Lovemarks!

[Flynn Hagerty]

"I guess Alan Solomons' vision of packing the Ohio State football stadium for an NA4 game won't come to pass. (Yes, he actually said that to me, it was sometime in spring of 2006 at the NYAC)"

This sums up the attitude of many rugby people outside the US to our game. We as Americans are ignorant, uneducated rubes, and if we only SAW how spectacularly awesome rugby is, we'd flock to it and drop football in a cocaine heartbeat.

It's quite clear this element has completely and totally underestimated the diversity and history of the American sports market. Not that surprising considering the common perception overseas is that Americans only like the sports they do because they're ignorant and susceptible to advertising. Yep, the NFL and MLB, two sports which both have double the revenue of the English Premiership in soccer and probably 30x the revenue of the entire professional rugby sphere are only popular because their marketing pulls the strings of the American sheeple.

This is the viewpoint your average foreigner parachuted in by the IRB comes with. Not all of them do - I think Eddie O'Sullivan doesn't share this viewpoint at all - but it's obvious the people running the show feel this way.

USA Rugby needs to kick these guys out, and if they really want to get some high profile executives who can deliver growth, they might be better off nabbing some guys from the US Soccer Federation. Now there's a sport with strong age grade programs, decent support and respect for college, and a good example of a foreign sport which through grassroots efforts and not talking down to Americans has turned itself into a player in the American sports world. A good national team that has not merely made up the numbers in World Cups and a strong well-run professional league.

[FireMelvilleRoberts.com]

Good find Flynn.

Roberts is a tool. How much do people think he's putting into USAR? It clear from his contribution that he's done little. The Board is an unproductive mess. Between his busy work in the ad biz, fund raising work for the NZRFU and lux holidays, something tells me he's going to contintue to do f*ck all for US rugby.

[sakoo]

Suwooop!!!

[Mike Lee]

Mr. Skulled

The world I live in is one where I post with my actual name.

I'd like to hear an example of one of these players at the NA4 who couldn't make the starting 15 at their club - if it takes 5 or 10 of those to get a Chris Wyles I'd say its worth it.

Again - if you judge the NA4 as it was intended - to create a layer of rugby between the NASC and the Eagles - it was a success - the IRB funded it just for that.

Some of you people need to voice your concerns with Dublin, not USA Rugby.

As far as them spending money in Canada or Argentina being a superior investment than here is a joke. Canada already boxes above its wieght - how will giving Canada money grow the game? How will it make the IRB money? Same goes for Argentina - its practically a third world country - so where is the ROI for the IRB's money there?

A good US Eagle Product will help sell the game to the US - if rugby would go from the 12th most popular sport in the US to 5th or 6th - that would be a massive financial windfall for the IRB.

The short-sightedness of some people that post on this forum never suprises me.

[bruce mclane]

Chris Wyles was an American born player who played in the top comp in england.

NA 4 was not his coming out party.

Mike,
I get what you are saying, but the NA 4 did little to ID these guys or expose them to anything because the level of play was not that great.

There are players who got a look, but I think that the amount spent by the union and the players doesn't justify the investment.

I am also not saying that IRB would have given the money for something else, I am just saying that the NA 4 was a dismal failure and even assuming the NA 4 was the catalyst for the discovery of SA Pat Bell and English trained Chris Wyles is not worth the millions that was put into it.

I also sign my name every time.

[please!]

Stop the maddest Mike,

Wyles wasn't found at the NA4, you are making a fool of yourself. The NA4 hasn't yet found a player nobody knew about. It has been an expensive selection and training ground for every fifth player, all whom the coaches have known about.

There is no justification for spending this amount of money for so little in return.

The NA4 is a layer alright, a layer of shite between international and club.

The largest waste of IRB funds of all-time.

[Beagles]

Salty finally figured out that if you use reserves wisely your chance of winning a close match are better. They got the bonus point win over Namibia to reach the final against Romania. Let's hope that Salty keeps his senses long enough so that the U20 program moves up to the top tier competition with a win.

[ok, ok, back on point again guys]

Man oh Man, I am going to go out on a limb here, no one is at home, no one is caring for the homestead, we are out there chasing games and IRB dollars thinking only, we need games for players to play and games for TV and then sponsors will want to get behind us.

Have we considered for one second that because we do not have an inkling of a notion as to how we would fund a future semi pro or pro competition - this thing has not been a success nor will it ever until we decide how this can/will happen.

Forget the discover players thing, if you are a tight head prop and don't look like a flyhalf in the US domestic comps and we have 15 guys with these type skills/athletics, we will not win a Tier 1 game. Does the NA 4 solve that, does it produce players, etc, no. To be fair is it a stop gap that could build to something? Again no, especially not in the fall where college players may have to stay in school and we are commerically going up against HS, college and pro football!

This time around the NA 4 is an attempt to have games for players prior to the November test window while again allowing the IRB to say we are building competitions.
Stop thinking what the IRB will or won't do or will or won't allow us to do and start back on the notion, does our board and mgmt have a plan that gives us domestic competitions to be proud of, are advancing the numbers of players playing the game at all levels, and the product is attractive to sponsors along with our brand loyal demographic.

Pisses me off we would bring Pat Bell or Chris Wyles into this...

[eat sh*t]

The CEO and Board of Erections is at it again.

How much did we have to pay our consultants to change the name of the NA4?

USA Rugby has a June plan to raise money. They will fly the leadership to a remote area, pay someone to bake brownies, then proceed to eat all of them, wait 12 hours, recycle them, package them as tootsie rolls, sell them back to the membership and children.

[Mike Lee]

To be even More Specific the following players got their first cap out of the 2006 NA4

Pate Tuilevuka
Jason Kelly
Pat Bell
Jeff Hullinger
Brain Barnard
Mark Aylor (went to 2007 World Cup)
Owen Lentz (2007 World Cup)
Vaha Esikia (2007 World Cup)

Mr. Please - why were none of these players capped prior to the NA4? Especially if they were all "Well known." the facts of the situation dont support your conclusion.

Saying the level of rugby is a layer of shite obviously comes from some one who never played at that level - not that I did or ever could. From my perspective the NASC was a very high level of rugby and with the NA4 basically picking from that and playing our best against Canada's - who by the way is light years ahead of us - seems like a pretty decent standard to me.

Then again lets not let facts and logic get in the way of our rants and the universal "bash USA rugby for everything they do" theme that exits on this website.

Also what does the IRB know about Rugby? Why would they dump hundreds of thousands of dollars into the US the year before the World Cup?

Why would they invest in this market when they can invest in Argentina and make no money off a sport that is already wildly popular?

And congrats to the U20 - Namibia is hard team to beat. For those of you who hate our U20 team as well -Namibia sends a team to Craven Week in South Africa at the all the age group levels. Meaning alot of these kids have been playing together since U-13. They have grown up eating and breathing rugby. This is a huge win, and they should be proud. Congrats!

[The Shepherd]

Mike (the Wolf),
There is no NASC.
Nobody, I mean nobody was ever "discovered" by the NA4, repeat nobody.

The NA4 was poorly designed without any foresight. It has absolutely no value or appeal. It can never, repeat, never work. It is approximately par for the course for USA Rugby.

If you simply upgraded the SL and Collegiate comps (not getting into that again - easy fix), you could save half and produce twice as much.

Enough of these Wolves trying to create a "Pro League". Embrace what we have, make it better, guide it toward the ideal.

Creating layers and changing names is fullucking confusing. This is how many poor leaders manage to stay in power for so long.

Sorry if you are thin skinned or thick skulled, but I mean no harm. I like create solutions without causing problems.

I despise USA Rugby's Wolves in sheep's clothing. I am like a shepherd that is saving sheep. My venue is this site.

[Fan of the Shepherd]

Its interesting in Mike's list that done of those players have worked out.

Not only did most of us know about them before they appeared in the NA4, they didn't get any traction at the Eagle level. But yet, these are the reasons according to Mike that we need to spent millions on an NA4 comp.

Sorry to use a good guy like Brian Barnard but he might be the best example. He was seen as a good college wing, without the speed to play rep rugby. He was selected to the NA4 and was known as a try scorer, thus his Eagle appearance. A couple years later, still a young man, he couldn't make a local all-star team. Not his fault, he is the same player he always was. The fault lies in the NA4, which fails as a selection and development tool.

Spend millions on anything and its a better idea than the NA4. Spend it on the U20's, college rugby, high school rugby, the super league, and we'd get a better return than the non-current Eagles Mike has tabled.

If the NA4 had worked, we would by now have a dozen or more of our most successful Eagles from these ranks. As you can see this is not the case. The per minute of rugby cost is insane. There is no commercial value. This is a plan the IRB needs help on and Nigel and Kevin aren't up to it.

[college rugby!!!]

If they had taken the money used on the NA4 and put it into the college game I wonder where we would be right now. Hmm. What would attract a top athlete more? Playing on a high school football field in the middle of nowhere for the hawks? Or playing in front of thousands in a stadium on espn?

To Mike,
whether the NA4 discovered a coupld players or not is irrelevant. Say we spend X and discovered 10 players. (people who say we didnt get any players out of it, just bear with me). I think what people are saying to you, Mike, is that if you took X dollars and did something actually smart with it, like invest in college/high school, we would have discovered 100 players or some other tangible step forward for the US.

The IRB does NOT understand American sports. We should not have had people that dont understand american sports (USAR front office) talking to other people that dont understand the American sports landscape (the IRB) about how to best invest in American rugby and bring us to the next level. I have nothing against foreign people. It just happens to be foreign people that mostly dont understand what the f they are doing. People say Eddie O does so I hope he can knock some sense into some people.

[BC22]

Zach Pangelinan got discovered through the NA4 and now he's playing for USA 7s and possibly the Eagles. How's that?

[Fan of the Shepherd]

Pangelinan's was not discover in the NA4. He wasn't a mail-in vote. People knew of him in SD. That's why he was selected.

You can say the NA4 played a two match role in his development, no more.

[Mr. Myagi, formerly The Shepherd]

Mike,
I am familiar with the current and former NASC.
That comp turned shite, glad to see it gone. The old ITTs were a different story though (prior to professionalism).

In fact the current NA4 was planned to evolve into something quite similar to what USA was using 20 years ago. Strange? Nope, it worked, but this regime is spending their time chasing opportunity in the short window they have. They are not (were not) interested in making rugby better for the membership.

Eddie O will adopt policies that were in place and worked, but will struggle with the agenda of his bosses. That is another story.

As for the players you mentioned, they are all fine rugby players, but none were "discovered" by the NA4.

The NA4 is just another tool used to devalue our top comps. Their quest to find deep pockets to take over that dog is far fetched. They may have to add a couple more lawyers to their Board in order to keep from losing half of its membership.

Soon you will see the light grasshopper.

[Craig]

Is the NA 4 perfect- no but it’s not the NA 4’s problem
How many athletes do we have that are ready to play international and what does our club rugby do to prepare them?

The Coaching and Athletes are put in a professional environment where all are “paid”, training twice a day, receiving nutritional education, mental/ peak performance, breaking down film, full access to medical and are tested in 5 match situations. It’s a good stepping stone-

Last year the following played without any prior caps

Rikus Pretorius, Hanno Dirkson, Shawn Pittman, Scott LaValla, Derek Smith, Gary Golding, Zach Pangelinan, Dan Laprevotte, Volney Rouse, Tim Usez, Peter Dahl

Time will tell if the above and the others who played develop into full time Eagles, what we do know is this structure was as good as any other that has come and was to develop into a tracking system based on geographic boundaries and I hope it still does.

I just wish our leadership communicated more on their vision and more was spent on building out our infrastructure. I doubt the iRB would fund this, but if we were to invest a million per year into our top 20 collegiate/clubs, and 500k in coaching and marketing for the high school game we would end up with stronger competition, attract better athletes and maybe we would have a pro league before long and not have to think about what Canada is or is not doing.

[smash]

what about mark aylor? he was playing pro for waikato chiefs and was selected for na4 and then went on to captain the eagles, id say that's a good find.

[KWIGS]

Matt Potchad was discovered at the '06 NA4.

[potch]

didn't you get kicked out of na4 kwiggs?

[No child left behind]

mark winokur,
That system you mention is quite similar to the system USA Rugby used 20 years ago. It was far better than what we currently have. Canada always had a strong regional ID. We lost that regional ID when USA Rugby decided to water down the ITTs and devalue the local Union with their "no child left behind" rugby policy.

Maybe things have improved this year, but the previous year I was embarrassed to be a part of the system. It was a full fledged cluster fu**.