• <19 February 2009>
• March 2009
• <Bar Talk 15>

For your edification you are about to have your consciousness raised in relation to the structure and management of the masters’ competition. Our competition doesn’t just happen. There is a masters’ committee comprising one representative from each participating club plus a secretary and president. If you have read your emails from Vexatious Burdett you will know that for season 2009 the president is Eddie Hicks from Maroondah and the secretary evergreen Pat Drennon. Our representative on the committee is Jim Halls.

So what does the committee do? First of all it tries to determine how many teams will be participating in the competition. This may seem an easy riddle to resolve but even as bartalk’s fingers are tapping on the keyboard we still don’t know if Melton and Morrabbin will be more than phantom teams this year. Once the number of teams is established the fixture has to be determined. This role is undertaken by the president. Then the fun and games of finding unused grounds begins. For season 2009 it has been confirmed by the masters’ committee that we will again play at common grounds. Nothing can be sorted out until all senior levels of the serious rugby competitions have been firmed up. If it is anything like last year up to two weeks before the start of the competition teams were dropping out of some competitions requiring redrawing of competitions.

The committee determines when our competition will start and end (2 May for us), whether it will run continuously or have regular breaks, whether we will play for premiership points or just play for fun. The committee also can, add, modify or delete competition rules. The current masters’ committee at its’ next meeting will be considering these very issues. Already the committee executive has had a meeting with the VRU in part to discuss refereeing arrangements. On this note bartalk understands that Jim Laurenson has finally decided to do the decent thing and retire from refereeing. As far as finding new referees the VRU is doing it tough. If anyone is interested in refereeing masters’ competition games you need to do a Smart Rugby course which only takes one Sunday out of your time.

Quite a few of our guys played in the Master’s Games over the first March weekend. Apparently the grounds were like concrete. Already Biggles and Steve Merchant have suffered injuries which will have a severe impact on their training schedules. Silly boys!

The 8th glass of red is kicking in so bartalk is off to bed.

See you at the bar!

• <19 February 2009>
• March 2009
• <Bar Talk 15>