What next for the Churchill Alliance?

What next for the Churchill Alliance, now that its namesake tournament is slated to end?

While the annual competition aimed to commercialize international rugby in North America, the partnership among Canada, England, and the United States also includes coaching education and technical exchanges.

'We have some referee and coach education in place for 2011. The RFU [England's Rugby Football Union] and the Alliance Agreement will be discussed in the new year along with the Churchill Cup and future relations between North America and the RFU', USARFU chief executive Nigel Melville said in an email.

Aside from knowledge transfer, England remains a potentially valuable partner because it one of the world's most successful rugby businesses. Though its affairs are sometimes stormy, the RFU's performance has generally been shrewd and even visionary.

The Churchill embodies the English view that established unions should partner with emerging countries, a stance that preceded the International Rugby Board's much discussed development program. The tournament provided North American unions with quality matches: domestic content and inventory meant to be monetized.

'I'm not sure we have commercially upheld our end of the bargain. Overtime we've needed to bring more fans and sponsors to the tournaments, reducing the RFU funding, which hasn't happened,' past USARFU national team general manager and business development manager Jack Clark observed in an email.

'Commercially building rugby in new markets is a difficult assignment, but we shouldn't assume entities like the RFU or even the IRB will invest open ended in us without some commercial traction. The Churchill Cup alliance was meant to grow the game in North America, not just to play matches.'

The 2011 Churchill Cup schedule has not been released.

Related: Churchill's end in view

Comments

[failure]

Look at the big brain on Jack! Should have put the tournament in the bay area from the beginning and build it year after year till it was ready for primetime and the move it to new territories. USA Rugby drops the ball again.

[bruce mclane]

Churchill Cup officially is listed as starting in 2003 with saxons and hosted in canada, other times it was in canada and multiple venues.

england (RFU) started what was or became churchill cup though in 01 and it was played in multiple venues, including balboa park.

RFU paid and dictated terms. i don't think this story holds much water in that respect, since RFU was boss. the USA never had great domestic crowds, can't imagine they had much faith at the time as mostly it was kept in canada.

i guess it all could have been handled differently but in the beginning of this marriage with the RFU in 01, who had the most say with USA Rugby on how it would go down. RFU wanted the game grown in north america and had multiple venues.

all that said, even though this era has little transparency, previous eras had little transparency as well.

[kurt]

The Churchill Cup debuted in 2003 in Vancouver, and by agreement was in Canada its first three years. It was never played at Balboa Park in San Francisco.

The question is: Going forward, how will USARFU tap into the RFU's expertise, as compared with its largesse?

[bruce mclane]

kurt,
i said in 01 usa played england in balboa, usa a played them in LA at UCLA, england also played canada 2x, that was the start of the relationship.

i said it officially started in 03.

usa rugby did tap into RFU expertise for that joke of a level 3 course where we were told among other things that mike shanahan couldn't coach to their standards and that lovie smith was a crappy coach too although he was just with his team in the super bowl. tolkin and i immediately stopped wasting our time with that nonsense.

i hear you, this welfare mentality has to end. we need commercial things and hopefully utah can fill rio tinto or at least break even with a paying crowd.

hopefully some CPL sides make some gate money or get donations.

most RSL teams will not get gate money save SFGG, maybe that will change as well (won't hold my breath)

until we get off welfare we will go nowhere.

[Sergeant Shultz]

Well said Bruce. Any chance NYAC and Old Blue could hold a double header in Red Bull Stadium? A partnership between RSL and MSL for stadium use could be a good use of existing infastructure.

[bruce mclane]

tolks would like to play there, i am not so sure we would have much of a crowd.

OB plays at columbia university soccer stadium which is a top flight facility, NYAC has an awesome field, but we don't put stands up on the far side of the field that often, we should do that and we are going to try and make our home field game NYAC club events. as we do with boxing. we'll see.

[Sergeant Shultz]

Sounds like both NYC clubs are looking to the future, great news.

[college]

Bruce, can we get the full story on that infamous level 3 course where they said the NFL coaches were bad? Ive heard it mentioned before but never with details. I am sure it is a good story. When you get a chance can we hear it in full?

[bruce mclane]

as a precursor, early in the day the guy said if there was a cell call or txt while he was teaching the person was thrown out of the room and wouldn't get certified, etc. well 5 min before class i got a call from my dad (i have a family business that i run and my mom was in the hospital for her heart, so i was taking calls) he came out and got in my face while i was on the phone and said he was warning me etc.

i hung up about 30 sec later while he was still in my personal space and then said to him that i had a very sick mother and a family business and i needed to take that call from my dad as i wasn't sure if it was an emergency and plus class hadn't started. he said i wasn't serious about being a coach if i took calls, i said i flew here for a course and am very serious, and i am also serious enough to say if he acted like that to me again we were going to have a problem, so we weren't off to a good start.

everyone was done dinner and this nitwit pulled tolks and i and telling us how he is serious that NFL coaches can't coach well because he saw the broncos and bears train and they didn't use teaching methods like we were learning and that football players don't make decisions. they are automatons and not like what we want rugby players to be.

i explained that almost every play required reads on the part of the O line and backs to cover pass rush and the recievers to run certain routes with certain coverages, and the QB having to do the whole thing with pinpoint accuracy in less than 3 seconds if not less than 2 secs. i also said the defense has reads to make sure they attack on defense etc.

i said that contrary to his belief football is not a robotic game, that it is highly coordinated and people are expected to make good reads and then make plays and do it quickly.

he said i was wrong and that football coaches are too bossy.

conversation ended with me saying he was an F'ing idiot, his course stunk, and every rugby coach in the world w0uld pay good money to meet mike shanahan and learn from him while not one football coach on earth would pay one red penny to attend his course and learn from him. then i said he never coached anyone ever and that this was a waste of time.

later on while tanked beyond belief, he started in again while i watched a fight between a coach and a congress member, i asked him to just stop and leave me alone. if he wanted to speak about rugby fine, but don't kill usa sports coaches. i said i came to be educated not certified as his certification meant nothing to me and in reality the only reason people stuck it out was to get certification, not because the course was worth a damn.

i also said that he kept overweight, middle aged men and women out in the worst heat that denver had in a decade for 6 hours doing nonsense drills with little water and kept people from U-9 to U17 who were there to help doing the same thing, there was contact, etc and no equipment.

if we ever did something that stupid and didn't adapt as coaches we wouldn't pass the course, but he was so F'ing stupid and dogmatic that he doesn't even realize that he could have had a disaster on his hands.

tolks and i left and never went back as did several other coaches and usa rugby mentors. it was a waste of time beyond belief.

about 3 months ago, i looked through the book they gave out as a course book to see if i was harsh on the material when maybe i should have been just harsh on the poor instruction. i was not wrong, the course material was crap.

worst course i have ever seen, completely useless.

so, the intellectual stuff we got from the RFU was designed for 10th division rurual amateurs in england. it certainly wasn't like having a high quality english coach come in and speak. we'd have been better off for melville to run a course or an american coach or canadian coach. anyone but those fools, actually one of them was harmless the other was a fool.

met some cool people though

[Tool Time]

Ah the tale of tools meeting tools. I would have loved to see this toolfest.

[bruce mclane]

wish you were there

[Pete M.]

He might have been more right about Shanny then you think there boss. The guy loves the mind games and ruling like a Hun over his players--putting Sexy Rexy in for D McNabb in the Motown game has left many Redskins scratching their collective heads..still. There are lots of folks down in the D.M.V. that question Shanny's ability to coach without J. Elway. Anyway the instructor does sound like an asshat.

[bruce mclane]

i hear you, as a giants fan, i hope they keep bombing out, but i think it is more the owner than anything

the whole haynesworth thing must be screwy though.

[My Dinner With Andre The Giant.]

Yeah, it's always easier to blame Dan Snyder. As a 'Skins hater from way back (for no other reason than just because), the man gladdens my heart. Interesting that they would have much to say about Shanahan, since an NFL head coach tends not to do a lot of the actual hands-on coaching of the team.

[college]

the point the idiot coach was trying to make was that rugby has "questioning" coaches that make rugby a sport of discovery where players discover the game and how to play it by answering questions and figuring out skills through drills that are based on trial and error.

In football there are no questions. Only commands. A coach tells a player exactly what to do and expects it to be done to perfection. Drills arent created for players to discover the best way to handle a situation. Drills work on very specific skills and the best way to do it is taught beforehand and expected to be repeated.

This is because rugby and football are 2 different sports that require 2 different types of coaching. Football is a coach-centric sport where the coaches make most of the calls. The calls made on the field by the QB, Linemen, and defensive play-callers are based on a multitude of scenarios, the responses to which are memorized. If A then 1. If B then 2. Everything is tightly controlled. Only when an offense (or defense) sees something that they were not prepared for must they truly make a call based on game smarts and these usually are simplistic "block from the inside out" or something like that.

QBs may be the exception, but only some of them. A minority of qbs like a Peyton Manning can play the role of the coach and call almost all of the plays on the field.

The point is that because football has stoppages of plays, unlimited substitutions, timeouts, etc the schemes and plays and everything else have been able to eb much much more complicated which makes it necessary for a coaching staff to take the responsibility of sifting through the playbook for each play off the hands of the players and leave them the memorization of what to do when each play is called and the perfect technique for each situation.

Rugby's lack of timeouts, substitutions, quarters, etc not to mention a far less certainty of possession after each phase does not permit such complexity. It is impractical for schemes to get too complex and for plays to be too numerous. (a flyhalf has not time to consult a play chart on his wrist and it would be torn off in the first ruck). There is also no time or effective way for a coach to send in plays. (though plenty of coaches try and lose their voices).

This forces rugby decision-making to be done on the field and by the players. And because they do the decision making they must undergo a more thorough and rigorous mental component during practices in order to prepare the decision makers to react to the myriad of scenarios they will encounter on the field. The best way to prepare these players is to put them through drills where they are faced with a problem and come to the correct solution themselves therefore imprinting the key lesson in their minds that much more. At least that is the way the theory or whatever of the "questioning coach" goes.

I agree in principle but think sometimes coaches take it way too far. Sometimes you just have to flat out tell the players the best way to handle the situation and show them the correct way to execute it instead of wasting 15 minutes watching them all do the exact same thing over and over again.

But the point to all of this is that this idiot English coach didn't understand that football requires a much different style of coaching and his style would lead to a disaster on an NFL field.

Would the football style of coaching lead to a disaster on the rugby field? Im not so sure. But learning to make the decisions and learning to problem solve in the heat of the fight is one of the most valuable gifts rugby offers players. It is one of the main reasons rugby is a better sport than football. It DEVELOPS people in a way football never can. And it develops 1-15 in this way instead of just a QB.

[bruce mclane]

i think all sports require decision makers, we coach through games mostly, but guys get insulted when you ask questions you know the answer to and dont care what they say as long as they agree, in that case, dont ask and keep asking it is a charade, just speak honestly.

guys who do that crap are infuriating

[bruce mclane]

that last response i madewas harsh, i know what you are saying, the questioning stuff is good if you are trying to figure something out, hate it when it is manipulative.

i think FB requires more decisions than it is given credit for, didn't mean to come off that way in tone to you though

[yank]

College...never played ball! he has no idea what football is about other than what his HS football coach yell about. Just bow out of the conversation.

[college]

I played it and watch 10x more football than I do rugby. I'm not crapping on football. The facts are facts. Football players' decision-making is extremely limited. They run plays. The plays are called by the coach. Plays are called plays because they are predetermined. And just like a theater play they are rehearsed constantly at practice. The success of a play on game day is determined not by decisions made during the action but by how well players execute their assignments. Does a guard move his assignment out of the hole? Does a running back let the hole develop or he hit it too early? Does a wide receiver run his route crisply? Does a qb correctly "look off" his 1st option before making the pass?

This isn't arguable and like I already said I dont think that makes football bad/worse. It is just different.

There is, once again, a reason rugby coaches dont call plays. They dont have time to. ALL of the decision making is done by the players. Which is why the majority of practice, as opposed to football, is not spent running plays but instead on practicing responses to lots and lots of different scenarios, which is what playing different games offers.

Bruce, at the end of my post (i admit it was long) I questioned how effective "questioning coaching" was. So I dont take any offense to you calling out the obnoxious coaches who dont know how to use questions.

[college]

And Bruce, saying all sports require decision makers may be technically true but that doesn't mean some dont require it of athletes more than others.

I dont think any sport exceeds rugby in this.

[Tool Time]

Bruce fought with this guy because he was threatened by a bigger tool than himself. It was a rugby version of a Jersey Shore episode. So humorous.

[college]

zing! Let's be perfectly honest. Anyone who comes to this board and posts messages is kind of a tool. Way too much time on the hands.

There cant be more than 25-30 people who post here, probably less than that. Why are you posting? What is the purpose besides taking shots anonymously, venting about usar, or.. actually that's usually about it.

I cant imagine the embarrassment of getting all of you in a room together and telling you that you are the whole Gainline community. Not because of the small number but because the identities would be revealed and most of you probably already know or know of each other.

Just the idea of someone posting on a message board that someone else posting on a message board is a tool is too funny.

[Sergeant Shultz]

That's true, I'm kind of a tool.

[yank]

Me too.

But Mr College on every snap of the football the lines alone make several reads and calls to mess their assignments with the play that's been called. Your view of whats happening is way to superficial.

[Tool Time]

All you need to know about the cultural relevance of football and why it is the game it is can be found in the excellent book How Football Explains America, by Sal Paolantonio.

It is top down decision making and hyper territorial and regimented for a reason.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Football-Explains-America-Paolantonio/dp/1600780466/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1292607084&sr=1-7

[college]

yea no shit on both of your points.

It isn't simplistic at all. It is very very hyper complex. The point is that the players are basically memorizing these reads and adjustments. The ability to recognize the coverage or formation and all that is a well-honed skill in high level football. But only one or 2 players are making these reads (QB, Center, defensive play-caller). You said the "lines" are but that's not true at all. This isn't a conversation between the 4 defensive linemen or 5 offensive linemen. They get into position will wait to hear from the center or lb if they are supposed to do anything more than run the play that was called.

And even counting the "reads" the vast majority of the decisions are made by coaches. Offenses and defenses aren't checking out of every play that is called on every down. For the most part they are running the damn play. There is a reason Defensive coordinators get as much pub as they do. They are rightfully given credit for calling 80%+ of the defense. Same for offensive coordinators.

Rugby is obviously much different during games. Coach interaction during a match is minimal. The players are making all of the decisions.

Sal Pal is king of the tools.

[College - still learning]

College and you all, if you think that football is all structured memorization and rugby is all free flow play your are very mistaken. You are forgetting a huge part of both games, assignments, certain players generally do certain things with a level of additional enterprise in rugby. Now I am not talking about o-line guys ever touching the ball or defense running, etc I am talking about who in the scope of their positions in both sports do what.
With that, they are completely seperate as in rugby you can and should do everything within the scope of your abilities, the coaches input etc. Optimal word here is go look for work, in football it is called hustle, be around the ball.
AND - what and how a coach coaches is based upon how long he has a team, day, week, season, how long his players will be under him or her, their ages, professionalism, etc, etc. you may have a system, but you will have to adapt to personnel and the like as you go.
Generalities are fine in that football has one dimensional reads and flow because of the whistle and offense and defense specificity, but there is a huge amount of cerebral adaptability and then rugby is free flowing on the run.
My best coach in football would have been a great rugby coach because he was a teacher, loose that element and dictate in either code and you are just that a dictator and your football and rugby team will be crap!

[tool time]

Full on tool fest now!