Rugby Xplorer confusion causes senior grade games to be rescheduled

An error in the sport’s main application saw a round of Top End rugby suffer missed games as a consequence. Read what happened.

Scrum during the Round 11 match between University Pirates and Palmerston Crocs. Picture: From The Sideline Sports Photography

Senior Top End rugby players were thrown in the deep at the weekend following a mishap with scheduling.

The Darwin Rugby Union A/B-grade and Women’s competitions all suffered interruptions as an error on the Rubgy Xplorer saw the draw published incorrectly.

The second round back after the Christmas break, a number of clubs, namely Casuarina Cougars and South Darwin, were affected with matches cancelled and rescheduled to a later date.

The match of the round between reigning A-grade champions Cougars and surging Rabbitohs has now been rescheduled to this Friday, January 24 and so too has the match between the respective women’s sides.

NT Rugby Union posted on January 17 that the draw had been rescheduled following the mishap. Picture: NT Rugby Union Facebook

Last Friday at 8am, NTRU posted to its Facebook page alerting the clubs to the mishap, with the following statement and above graphic: “Apologies for the limited communication this past week regarding draws and fixtures – the team has been working hard to rectify issues within Rugby Xplorer and we appreciate your patience. Thanks again and looking forward to seeing you out there this weekend for seniors.”

Since then an NT Ruby spokesman clarified the reason for the disruption was to do with the app suffering an error as a result of an update.

“NT Rugby has worked with clubs to ensure minimal disruption following scheduling issues resulting from a system update of the competition management platform,” the spokesman said.

“All make-up fixtures have been co-ordinated with and agreed to by clubs.”

Katherine Roos captain Terry Gillet trucking the ball up the field. Picture: From The Sideline Sports Photography.

Compounding the mishap but not directly correlated, Katherine Roos came out the biggest losers of the round with their scheduled clash against Palmerston Crocs B-grade outfit a forfeit.

This now means the Roos will have back-to-back weekends of no rugby with the club’s scheduled bye falling on this upcoming Saturday.