again a once in blue moon that i re post from rugbymag.com but being on west coast and northern California this has me very excited (go seahawks!)
The Northern California RFU has settled on a new men’s DI club
format which will produce a ten-game regular season for eight clubs,
including three promoted from DII.
San Francisco Golden Gate,
the dominant club in the region, will still be in the new competition,
but will not field its strongest side – that roster will be reserved for
the Elite Cup and the new West Coast league being formed.
Northern California DI Coordinator Aaron Frederick said the success of the new format was contingent on SFGG fielding a 2nd side.
“SFGG wants to keep DI rugby in Northern California, and we all
realized that they are above the balance of competition in this region,
and in most of the country,” said Frederick.”Some clubs felt that if
SFGG’s elite squad was in DI, they would be reluctant to be a part of
it.”
At the same time, though, the alternative would have been
to move all remaining DI clubs down to DII, and all that would have
served to do would have been to create blowouts between strong DI clubs
such as the EPA Bulldogs or Sacramento Lions, and the lower-level DII
clubs.
So this is what happened: SFGG and Olympic Club will
concentrate on Elite Cup and/or the West Coast League. Olympic Club will
not field a team in DI, while SFGG will, and has promised to keep their
roster of top players out.
Teams that were tops in DII last
year – Santa Rosa, Fresno, San Jose, and Diablo Olde Gaels – are now in
DI. BA Baracus was asked to move up, but declined.
They will
join the East Palo Alto Bulldogs, East Palo Alto Razorbacks, Sacramento
Lions from last year’s DI league, plus the SFGG team.
Not included are the Bay Barbarians, who have been suspended for a year due to repeated on-field foul play.
The formation of this new league took a lot of work from Frederick and NCRFU President John Compaglia.
“I approached four DII clubs individually, proposing a pool system to
bring them up which took approximately two months of negotiations,” said
Compaglia. “After hearing of the possible buy-in of three [DII] clubs
moving up to DI, San Francisco Golden Gate requested to remain in
Division 1.”
The League will be made up of two pools of four
teams. Teams within the pool play each other twice (six games per
teams), and play teams in the other pool once (four more games).
The pool winners receive a bye to the NorCal semifinals, while the teams that finish 2nd and 3rd play off to see who else makes it to the semis.
“This format allows the all the clubs to play a full season of Division
1 matches plus a playoff round thus meeting the expanded match mandate
by USA Rugby,” said Compaglia.
Pool A
EPA Bulldogs, RFC
Sacramento Lions, RFC
San Francisco Golden Gate, RFC
Santa Rosa, RFC
Pool B
Diablo (Olde Gaels), RFC
EPA, RFC
Fresno, RFC
San Jose, RFC
The split of the pools is intriguing, in that the DII clubs moving up
are concentrated in Pool B. This, said Frederick, was designed to
further ease the DII teams in to this higher level. Should they be
overmatched, it will become evident in the crossovers and in playoffs,
but will allow all of the teams involved to ensure competitive pool
matches.
Another key aspect of this league is the topic of
B-side matches. In Northern California, B-side matches are supposedly
required in DI and DII, but rarely in DII do they happen as a full
15-on-15, 80-minute match (or event 60-minute match).
Frederick said this has become a frustration for the stronger DII clubs,
and one carrot to attract them to DI was the guarantee of B-side
matches. All DI teams will be required to play a B-side match. DII teams
are expected to, but it has been recognized that it won’t often happen.
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