The Red River Competitions Committee will now be releasing their monthly committee call minutes and notes. View all of the archived RRRC minutes or read on for the most recent:
4/9/2018
-
- Roll Call
- Young
- Dodge
- Kurylas
- Kolberg
- Fosco
- Tolar
- Turner
- Green
- Dale
- Hughes
- Regrets
- Watson (Congress call)
- Keuppens
- Gross
- Regrets
- Followups
- Competitions
- 4/7 Dallas Quins (W) vs Tulsa (W) (rainout/Tulsa forfeit / they are looking at reschedule dates)
- Young: Officially rained out but in all truth Tulsa didn’t have the numbers to play. A referee was scheduled and so the TRU will be billed for that. Quins are anxious to reschedule as this counts towards their required number of matches.
- Dodge: We’ve had a few of these this season and last, we’ve got to find solutions for these situations. It’s basically coming down to the team that is forfeiting if they want to reschedule or not. Obviously if USAR is requiring that we play a certain number of matches there is some tension there.
- 4/7 Dallas Quins (W) vs Tulsa (W) (rainout/Tulsa forfeit / they are looking at reschedule dates)
- Championships
- Playoff Formats
- Dodge: I think the language in the MD2 and MD3 is incorrect. Anyone else have thoughts?
- Tolar: Yes, I don’t think that is quite right with the wild card.
- Young: OK, can someone update the document and I’ll post?
- Dodge: Yes, I’ll look it over.
- Matchups
- MD1
- Dallas Reds/Austin Blacks fighting for #1
- Glendale
- Quins/Little Rock fighting for #4
- WD1
- Austin Valkyries have clinched
- MD2
- North – DRFC 2
- Central – San Marcos/San Antonio
- South – Hurt
- Wildcard – Tulsa/San Marcos/San Antonio
- WD2
- D2 North
- Little Rock 17 points
- Tulsa 15
- Reds 13
- 1 game left for each
- D2 South
- Austin Valkyries II
- San Antonio Riveters
- D2 North
- MD3
- D3 North (8 cup matches)
- Alliance is in first with 30 league points and a 6-1 record
- Grand Prairie is in second with 29 league points and a 6-1 record
- *they have split wins with each other and both have one game left (vs Reds)
- D3 Central (10 cup matches)
- Austin Blacks are in first with 38 league points and a 8-0 record
- McAllen is in second place with 31 league points and a 6-2 record
- *they play each other this Saturday…and both have one more match after that
- D3 South (8 cup matches)
- Galveston are in first with 29 league points and a 6-1 record
- HURT are in second with 25 league points and a 5-1 record
- *Galveston beat them the first time but they play each other again this Saturday. HURT also has one more game after that.
- D3 North (8 cup matches)
- MD1
- Book Checks
- Dodge: We probably should make good on the book checks. Is anyone going to the
- Hughes: I’ll be at the Blacks v McAllen game
- Fosco: I can do Tulsa vs DARC
- Young: Could we have a third party do it?
- Dodge: Ok, we need to let these teams know in advance that we are doing a book check. Please email them ASAP and inform them, you could also include the link to the guidelines. Please report back on if any teams had any issues.
- 7s Series
- Dodge: Fil has confirmed that teams can attend either the East or West Qualifier; note that this is just for the men’s teams.
- TENTATIVE DATES (BOLD are qualifiers)
- 6/16 – USA vs Scotland 15s
- 6/23 – Bloodfest 7s (Austin)
- 6/30 – USA Rugby East/West Open Super Qualifiers (MEN only)
- 7/14 – OPEN – will request bids
- 7/21 – Rugby World Cup 7s (San Francisco, CA)
- 7/28 – OPEN – will request bids
- TENTATIVE DATES (BOLD are qualifiers)
- Dodge: Fil has confirmed that teams can attend either the East or West Qualifier; note that this is just for the men’s teams.
- Playoff Formats
- Competitions
- Roll Call
-
-
-
-
-
- 8/11 – 8/12 – USA Rugby National 7s
- Dodge: I would like to go ahead and take a vote on the 6/23, 7/14 and 7/28 as the three dates for the RRRC 7s Series.
- Kolberg: I vote.
- Turner: Have the regions been decided for 7/14 and 7/28?
- Young: We’ve left if open this year so clubs can ask for both dates or they can pick one. We found that tying it down to a region really limited the number of bids.
- Dodge: Another thing that we discussed was doing a Hong Kong format this year. Tournaments would include TOLA teams as well. Teams would declare if they were TOLA or RRRC and everything would be reseeded after pool play. It would be a way as a TOLA team that you wouldn’t be penalized but would still get your points.
- Young: We’ve done this in the past and it has worked wonderfully.
- Dodge: It will hopefully also serve to raise the level of competition from top to bottom.
- Turner: Is one of the goals of this to raise the number of teams playing in the qualifiers?
- Dodge: Yes, that is one of the reasons. We also already have tournaments that run side-by-side tournaments so it should be easy to integrate.
- Turner: The reason I ask is this summer seems really tight with dates this year. If we’re pushing TOLA teams to enter in qualifiers what about the teams that typically host 7s tournaments?
- Dodge: If we combine a RRRC and TOLA event you are opening dates up on the calendar.
- Young: Another reason we want to encourage the inclusion of TOLA is because the RRRC teams men/women will only get ONE seed this year. We’re worried that this may discourage teams from participating in the RRRC.
- Dale: Didn’t we ask Erik if TOLA events could count towards player eligibility?
- Dodge: Yes, that is being discussed but we haven’t gotten the final word.
- Dale: Yes, please check on that, it could harm players that can’t attend all the qualifiers.
- Turner: Why are there only 2 open weekends?
- Dodge: Historically Bloodfest is well run and most teams attend this tournament already. It also serves as the kick-off for the entire series.
- Turner: I understand it’s a well run tournament and lots of teams go, I don’t like picking winners. If we’re going to have a bidding process all weekends should be open.
- Dodge: Point taken.
- Kolberg: I agree with that.
- Tolar: I think we should be consistent on that.
- Dodge: Particularly this year if another club wanted to host a tournament on that same weekend they would be hard pressed to find teams to participate.
- Kolberg: I motion that we should move forward with the three dates (6/23, 7/14 and 7/28).
- Young: I second.
- Dodge: Any opposition?
- Turner: Not opposition but still take issue with not having a completely open bid process. We’ve been put in this position of late decision making again.
- Dodge: Part of that is because of the newly created USA Rugby Game Board and their guidance.
- Hughes: Could we potentially have an open bid for all three dates? So that this way we are going through the official process.
- Dodge: To be honest I think it’s make work at this point. I completely understand where Luke’s coming from and hopefully we’ll be in a position to do that. There were a number of discussions with the Bloodfest hosts, for example they wanted a higher entry fee and we’ve been able to work with them on that. They definitely haven’t been acting like it’s their way or the highway.
- Hughes: I’m fine with the dates but going forward would like an open bid process as well.
- Dodge: Ok, so no one has opposed the dates. APPROVED.
- 8/11 – 8/12 – USA Rugby National 7s
-
-
- NCC In-Person Meeting
- Dodge: Meeting is this week, if any other topics need to be brought up, email or call me.
-
- New Business
- Referee Abuse (Ft Worth vs Reds II)
- Kolberg: This was Watson’s topic but he is on a Congress call. I know he’s talked to Scott recently, anything to say there?
- Green: I think what this is referring to was at a Fort Worth match where the coaching staff was being a bit abusive. The sideline was not being controlled and the fans entered the field. One of the unfortunate thing is that one of the coaches is a referee so that is a bit disappointing. Overall this year we haven’t had any major issues or trends, there are a few teams that aren’t following the technical zones protocol that closely. Thank the teams for that as we’ve come a long way in the last few years!
- Green: Our biggest issue with referees is that we don’t have enough of them. In particular in the North we are down to THREE active referees.
- Dodge: Relative to the North, there is an abundance to referees in the Central area. Do you see a structural difference in recruiting that is being done in the Central?
- Green: In Austin we have the Huns who have been great in the community. Kirk Tate was behind this and has encouraged his players to become involved. It’s even continued as Kirk moved to San Marcos and we know have many referees from that group. In the South we have Tim O’Gara who is a regional officer and he has had a lot of success as well. I guess up in the North we don’t have a referee that has the networking ability that we have in the other regions. We need some cheerleaders in the North to help motivate people to participate. When we look at the North we’re trying to cover Lubbock, Shreveport, Tulsa etc. We can’t do that with 3 referees. At some point teams have to provide referees and until that happens we are in a tough situation. I’m open to ideas and open to training referees.
- Dodge: Are there any plans to have referee courses soon?
- Green: Yes, on 4/21 there is the women’s Gold Cup event in Austin. We have brought in Leah Berard and are hoping to have lots of referees certified. However last time I checked there was only 1 person signed up. We offer classes but we’re finding that they aren’t filled up.
- Turner: Why do we continue to put courses in areas that are saturated.
- Green: You can go onto the USAR website and host a L1 referee course whenever you’d like. Any club can host, you just need 10 people.
- Dodge: Would it be helpful to encourage clubs who host a qualifier to also put on a L1 course?
- Green: That could work but what we’re finding is that we have 115 people certified. The problem is that we have lots of people take the course but then they don’t actually referee.
- Referee Abuse (Ft Worth vs Reds II)
-
- Call Adjourned (9:04pm)
- Watson: Move we adjourn.
- Hughes: Second.