Payto & Panda: Shute Shield and Brisbane Premier Grade star to contest State of Origin match
PAYTO & PANDA: “State of Union” club rugby match gains momentum, Will Skelton’s high school blues, scrum doctor puts down his scalpel.
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CLUB Rugby TV are set to announce plans for a State of Origin-style match featuring the best club players from the Shute Shield and Brisbane’s Premier Grade competition.
The annual match will see representative sides of the best NSW club players and the best Queensland club players do battle, and likely be shown live on Channel Seven’s main channel.
The first match is set down for June next year, according to Club Rugby TV owners Nick Fordham and John Murray.
Squads for the interstate showdown will be restricted to players who do not hold Super Rugby contracts, and along with coaches, will be selected by selection panels of former Wallabies.
In a Barbarians style, club socks will be worn by all.
Venues such as Leichhardt Oval are being considered for Sydney but it will swap states each year.
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The plans also included staging a NSW City v Country match for under 20s, which will be picked from Sydney’s colts comps and the bush.
“The future stars of Super and Test rugby are out there playing for their clubs and with their mates every weekend,” Fordham said. “These young men are crying out for an opportunity and a stage to push their credentials”.
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Fordham and Murray said the concept had been met positively by NSW and Queensland Rugby Unions.
But it will also throw into question whether a State of Union match featuring professional players will ever get off the ground.
There was a groundswell of support for Rugby Origin at the start of this year to be played in June but Australian rugby’s off-field problems saw it sink.
Club Rugby Origin could serve as a good pathway tool for uncontracted club players to impress Super Rugby coaches, however. There is a growing feeling that too many solid club rugby players are left on the shelf because they didn’t make junior age rep teams.
GIANTS SAY FAREWELL
HEADING off to Saracens next year, Will Skelton is viewing the remainder of the Waratahs season as potentially the last time he plays in blue.
It could also be the last time he shares a field with his best mate, Rebels lock Steve Cummins. Skelton and Cummins’ friendship goes all the way back to school, where the pair were just two of an enormous batch of humans in the Hills Sport High first XV. (Look closely at the pack we took along to Waratahs training one day and you’ll even spot another Waratah — prop David Lolohea).
Cummins was Skelton’s best man at his wedding.
“I am excited to cross paths again with Stevie,” Skelton said.
“He is my best mate. I like to see the best out of him this week. It’s fun. That’s the thing about rugby is you could be in a squad together growing up but you go down your own journeys and paths.”
KANE DOUGLAS RUGBY FIELD
KANE Douglas has always been big in Yamba, and now the big Wallabies lock has been immortalised in the Northern NSW town.
Douglas will be honoured when the local rugby oval is re-named the Kane Douglas Rugby Field on Saturday.
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With the Reds having a bye, the big unit will return home for an official ceremony. Our mates at the Reds website report the ribbon-cutting is on at 1pm before the Pacific Hotel Yamba Buccaneers take on Kyogle at 2pm. Be there.
SOUTH AFRICA’S RADICAL PLAN
Reports in South Africa have emerged that SARU are looking to place their two cut Super Rugby franchises in “other competitions” to ensure they still have a future. They’ve been previously linked with the Pro12 in Wales/Scotland/Ireland but our spies say that competition isn’t overly keen.
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Interestingly, we hear that South African clubs under threat have paid attention to the legal positions taken by the Force and the Rebels, and that SARU haven’t given up on questioning Japan’s place in Super Rugby.
Watch this space.
SCRUM DOCTOR PUTS DOWN SCALPEL
TOM Robertson is the scrum doctor no more. Or not for a while, anyway. The Waratahs and Wallabies prop was juggling medical studies with professional rugby for the last 18 months but the strain became too much and he has deferred.
“Hopefully I might come back to it at a later date. I will start a masters of Public Health in the second semester and do that part time,” Robertson said.
“I had to grovel to get the Dean’s permission to be able to defer and I can go back until 2020. After 2020 I will have to reapply. But in 2020 I will be 26 so I don’t think I will be going back and quitting medicine and quitting rugby at 26. Hopefully. Fingers crossed. I would love to go back there at some stage and become a doctor at some stage.”
SHUTE SHIELD AT ITS BEST
The huge Manly v Warringah showdown in two weeks time is set to have some high profile spectators. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is due to attend, along with Matthew and Andrew Johns.
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