Auckland Rugby League Centennial Representative Day June 2009 Jim Doyle named as NZRL’s new CEO On 29 June 2009 Jim Doyle was announced as NZRL’s new CEO. Described by NZRL Chairman Scott Carter as being a a strong and highly capable leader who is not afraid of making hard decisions, Doyle will be taking up the CEO role fulltime from August. He currently holds positions on several boards and has a long back- ground in the technology sector, holding chief executive officer and general operational roles with a number of companies including Navman. Doyle said he was thrilled to secure the position at a time when the New Zealand Rugby League was rebuilding. “I’m really looking forward to coming in during a transitional phase and working with Scott and the board,” he said. “I really want to make a difference and do all I can to help rugby league become a much stronger sport on all fronts and at all levels. “To me rugby league is the best sporting product out there by far at the moment. With the Kiwis being the world champions, it couldn’t be a better time to be involved.” JIM DOYLE - Employment History April 2006 – Present Ecosswi Ltd Owner June 2006 – December 2008 ProvencoCadmus Interim CEO January 2006 – April 2006 Brunswick New Technologies COO November 2004 – January 2006 Navman Chief Executive/President, September 1997 – November 2004 Navman General Manager/COO February 1994 – September 1997 Alpine Electronics, NZ; General Manager Operations August 1987 – December 1993 Circuit Breaker Industries, S. Africa; Operations Manager April 1984 – July 1987 Merlin Gerin, S. Africa; Manufacturing Manager New NZRL Board finalised - Scott Carter becomes NZRL Chairman Last month Scott Carter was named as the new Chairman of New Zealand Rugby League, with the remaining three appointed Directors also being named - Gary Fissenden, John Bishop and Michele Teague. The three elected Directors - former NZRL Chairman Ray Haffenden, Gisborne Tairawhiti Rugby League President Meng Foon, and former MP Mark Gosche - were voted in by the NZRL mem- bership at a second Special General Meeting, held in Auckland on Saturday 27 June. (continued …) What’s In This Issue Page 2: New NZRL Board Page 6: Wrap up of Auckland Rugby League’s Cen- tennial weekend Page 3: LeagueNet Online transfers & Clearances Page 7: Canterbury Rugby League brings Warriors Page 4: Northland Coaching Course Report players to Christchurch Page 5: NZ Maori Rugby League Age Group na- Page 8: Jerome Ropati takes top award at the 2008 tional tournament NZU Blues Awards New NZRL Board finalised - Scott Carter becomes NZRL Chairman Appointed Directors Scott Carter, John Bishop Gary Fissenden Michele Teague NZRL Chairman Elected Directors Meng Foon Mark Gosche Ray Haffenden, Vice-Chairman Stephen Kearney receives the Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) In June this year Kiwi coach and former New Zealand captain Stephen Kearney received the Offi- cer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) in the 2009 Queen’s Birthday honours. The recognition came after Kearney (36) coached the Pirtek Kiwis to their historic 34-20 victory over Australia in the 2008 Rugby League World Cup final in Brisbane. The Paraparaumu-born Kearney said he was stunned to receive the honour which has, in recent years, also been awarded to his former New Zealand team-mates Stacey Jones and Ruben Wiki. “I really find it difficult to come up with the right words to describe what this all means,” he said. “It’s extremely humbling that I should be singled out. In some ways I feel a little bit embarrassed to be recognised in this way, but at the same time I’m naturally very proud that our game should be honoured. “I’m proud for my family, friends, former team-mates, coaches and everyone involved in rugby league in New Zealand because this is what this award is about. It honours them more than me and I thank everyone who has helped me along the way. “I also see this as a reward for everyone in the group – the players, football staff and management – who helped the Kiwis win the World Cup. They all had a part to play and they all did a tremendous job.” Right: Stephen Kearney and his wife Piri at the 2009 Halberg Awards LeagueNet - Online Transfers and Clearances due soon Recently back from a LeagueNet meeting in Sydney, NZRL Administration Manager Carmen Ta- plin has been working with the rest of the LeagueNet team to develop the on-line clearances and transfers module. Carmen reports, “Currently, the processing of transfers and clearances is a manual process that is really time consuming for all involved. “NZRL and ARL have been working together with Sporting Pulse [the company that built League- Net] to develop an online, automated process for transfers and clearances. Helen Wright, ARL Development (ARLD) LeagueNet Administrator will be visiting NZRL in the next few weeks to work through policies and the standardisation of LeagueNet to enable a smooth transition once International Online Clearances begin in 2010. This is a really exciting, and much needed, devel- opment of the LeagueNet tool!” Carmen says that once the process has been standardised and im- A reminder though that plemented in time for the 2010 season, our Clubs, through their Dis- the database is only as trict Leagues or Zones, will be able to initiate clearances online with Clubs in Australia and vice versa. effective as the quality of data entered so I can not For legal reasons, the need to have a signed form will still remain, but the new clearance system will be much more efficient time-wise express strongly enough and gives Districts/Zones and NZRL immediate visibility of a player’s how important it is to get clearance history at the touch of a button. the NZRL individual “A reminder though that the database is only as effective as the qual- Player Registration ity of data entered, so I cannot express strongly enough how impor- forms completed accu- tant it is to get the NZRL individual Player Registration forms com- rately by your members.” pleted accurately by your members,” says Carmen. “The close off date for individual Player and Contractual Registration Forms is 10th July 2009 for all Districts, apart from Rugby League Hawkes Bay who will be providing their registration forms shortly after their Spring competition kicks off in August. It is extremely important for all Dis- tricts to provide registration forms for all members, Junior and Senior.” The NZRL Contractual Registration Form (left) and the NZRL individual Player Regis- tration Form (right) are both required as the combined data from these two forms is en- tered into LeagueNet and allows players to be assigned to teams, player statistics to be maintained, and will also enable the best use of the online transfers and clearances tool once this starts in 2010. Praise for Auckland Rugby League’s LeagueNet site The hard work of Juanita Woodhouse, David Blackwell and Alix Macartney has led to Auckland Rugby League’s LeagueNet site topping the District Leagues count with the number of hits to its SportingPulse website! Carmen says, “Our friends at ARLD were very impressed with the high level of traffic volume to Auckland’s LeagueNet site, especially considering the number of registered players in New Zealand compared to those registered in Australia.” “Thank you very much to the staff noted above who work tirelessly to ensure the competition and membership data is up to date and as accurate as possible - their ongoing dedication and suc- cessful utilisation of LeagueNet is worthy of the praise ARLD have given it!” Canterbury Rugby League’s quick take up of LeagueNet pays dividends! Carol Crozier, Canterbury Rugby League’s Club Liaison Officer has been working with the LeagueNet application for 18 months now – here Carol shares some thoughts on her LeagueNet journey so far. “I went to the LeagueNet training workshop in Auckland in 2008, and from there started entering all our data into LeagueNet. “Combining our existing database into LeagueNet and matching up our old field names with the new LeagueNet field names took some time. Once I had all that sorted, I went through the duplicate players that the system identified, but once I had got through that it was on to the fun stuff.” The section of LeagueNet that Carol is really enjoying using is the Competitions section. Carol says, “Being able to link all the information for players and teams is great – weekly draws, grade tables, number of games Above: Carol with the played, number of tries scored – and then being able to load all that Rugby League World Cup information on to our LeagueNet website – it saves me so much time!” Of course, as with any new applications, there can be a few wrinkles to iron out. “The first time I tried to do the results from home my computer crashed and I thought we had lost it all. I didn't know how I would tell Rochelle who had spent months updating postal codes ready for the synchronisation. After a moment of panic, and a sleepless night I was most relieved to find there was no loss of data!” “This program has so many benefits for Rugby League Administrators. It takes a bit of work at the beginning, but after that it doesn’t take long for the benefits kick in. I am sure LeagueNet will be a success story for those people who put the time and effort in to it.” Northland steps up with Coaching The small township of Moerewa, about 60 kilometres north of Whangarei, was host to Modified Games and International Laws Coaching Certificate courses during June.