2018 Fall season

Welcome to the 2018 Fall Season!  There are several important changes this year, so please take a moment to review this post.

Schedules have been emailed to all clubs, and posted under the Competitions tab above.  If there are any scheduling issues, PLEASE email the competition director ASAP (Competition@NEWCRC.org).

New this year;
We have added 8 new clubs!

• Men:  UVM, Sacred Heart, Southern CT, and Boston University.
• Women:  Maine, Wesleyan, Holy Cross, and Connecticut College.
• We also lost New Haven from our Women’s Tier 1.

We have created a new Men’s Tier 2

• This new men’s tier will include 5 current NEWCRC clubs (WPI, Western CT, Westfield, Central CT, Springfield), as well as newcomer Boston University. Tier 2 will be ineligible for USAR National Playoffs, however the top finisher(s) will be eligible for a cross-conference bowl game versus another local conference.
• The 3 remaining current NEWCRC men’s clubs will absorb the 3 newcomers (UVM, Sacred Heart, Southern CT) to create our Men’s Tier 1 competition.

Our Men’s and Women’s Tier 1 competitions will conclude with a 4-team NEWCRC playoff.

• Due to our relatively short regular season (5 games), additional competition was necessary to meet the minimum match requirements for USAR automatic playoff berths.
• The playoff winner will receive NEWCRC’s top seed in the USAR playoffs.  Any additional USAR bids awarded to NEWCRC will be filled by our clubs in order of finish in the NEWCRC playoff.

Cross Conference Bowl competition is in the works.

• Due to the success of last year’s Bowl matches, we’re currently working on coordinating more Bowl games for 2018.
• 1-2 of the top finishers in each of our men’s & women’s Tier 1 and Tier 2 will compete against an equally ranked opponent from another conference.
• Details to be announced as they are finalized.

Challenge Matches are now required for the lowest seeds in their respective tiers.

• The 5th and 6th place finishers at the end of the regular season are now expected to host one of the top 2 clubs from the lower tier, as long as the lower tier wishes to “play up”.
• A loss by the higher tier does not necessarily result in demotion the following season or promotion of the lower tier club, however all Challenge Match results will be taken into account during the competition evaluation and AGM discussion & vote.  A higher tier club declining to play in a challenge match will be viewed poorly in demotion discussions.

Introducing our new Women’s Tier 3 (Developmental) format!

• We are now scheduling 3 clubs at each of the host locations every week.  This will allow developmental clubs to combine with each other to compete in full 7’s, 10’s, or 15’s rugby matches, and hopefully reduce or eliminate all cancellations in Tier 3 caused in the past by low numbers.
• This is an ambitious program intended to get everyone as much playing time as possible – that’s the best way to foster growth and advancement of programs in our developmental tier, and hopefully increase the rate of promotion in the future!
• Full description HERE.