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Global Rapid Rugby season suspended

(Photo by Paul Kane/Getty Images)

It is with great regret that Global Rapid Rugby CEO Mark Evans has announced the immediate suspension of the 2020 season.

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About 2000 diehard fans turned out to watch the Western Force post a 51-14 win over Malaysia Valke in their GRR debut at HBF Park on Saturday night.

But the spread of the coronavirus has forced GRR to either cancel or postpone the rest of the 2020 season.

Andrew Forrest’s new competition has teams based in Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Samoa, Fiji, and Hong Kong.

With travel restrictions growing tougher by the day, GRR organisers had no choice but to end the 2020 season after just one round.

“Travel, quarantine and public health restrictions have provided us with no option but to halt the inaugural Global Rapid Rugby season for the imminent future.

“The sporting environment has been turned upside down by the current worldwide health crisis.

“It’s enormously disappointing to have to suspend the competition just one round into the season, however the health and safety of our players, coaches, staff and fans are always our number one priority.

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“We will explore all avenues as we seek to evolve the competition to meet the difficult circumstances we all now find ourselves in.

“One thing that has not changed is our commitment to the development of rugby in the Asia-Pacific region and we look forward to getting back on the park and building on what Global Rapid Rugby has achieved so far.”

The cancellation of sport around the world is going to put individual clubs and sporting organisations under huge financial pressure.

Some may not be able to stay afloat.

But GRR has one massive advantage – a billionaire mining magnate in its corner.

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Forrest pledged his allegiance to the Force when they were cut from Super Rugby in 2017 and he’s stated numerous times that he will back GRR for the long haul.

Force coach Tim Sampson said it would be sad if GRR’s inaugural season had to be cancelled after just one round but he understood the situation.

Sampson believes GRR will have a bright future once the coronavirus crisis is over.

“It’s grown year to year, the level of play has grown, the standard has grown, the commercial interest globally – it’s been recognised,” he said.

“It’s going ahead in leaps and bounds, and we’re just thankful to be part of it.”

– additional reporting AAP

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

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