GROUP Three Rugby League secretary Barrie Smith has labelled the revamped Country Rugby League representative program as 'ludicrous.'
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Mr Smith was speaking on the eve of North Coast's clash against Canberra in the opening round of the Country Championships at Tuncurry on Saturday.
Winner of the match will go through to the top tier of the CRL championship, with the loser to contest tier two.
North Coast is made up of players from Groups Two and Three, the squad selected after the representative clash earlier this month at Coffs Harbour.
The team will be coached by Group Three's Phil Trembath. Winning coach from the group game also gets the North Coast job.
This is the second year Trembath has coached North Coast.
North Coast will go into the match much-the-underdog.
"There's eight ex-Canberra Raiders players in the Canberra side,'' Mr Smith pointed out.
North Coast were finalists in the tier two last year and for this reason they are now in the promotion/relegation game.
Mr Smith believes the majority of North Coast players will be happy just to get through tomorrow's encounter without injury.
He thinks the CRL should have stuck with the concept that saw groups of similar standard involved in a tier two competition, with traditional CRL heavyweights including Illawarra and Newcastle playing each other in tier one.
Mr Smith said after years in the doldrums representative football was revitalised when Group Three played as a stand alone team.
"We had players fighting to get into the side,'' he said.
"And we attracted some good support. We had 30 or 40 people travelling to players like Forbes and Narrabri to watch the team play.''
He recalls a semi-final played at Tuncurry three years ago attracting a solid crowd to watch Group Three beaten by South Coast-based Group Seven in the tier two semi-final.
Mr Smith understands the CRL reverted to the divisional competitions to cut costs with the representative program, although he questions how successful this has been.
"The CRL funds all the gear playing gear while they're putting the teams up in a motel in Forster on Friday night. That's starting to get expensive,'' he said.
Mr Smith added that while the team goes under the banner of North Coast, there is no actual North Coast body, as was the case in the previous divisional system.
"All the arrangements are made between Group Three's president Wayne Bridge and Group Two's Warren Gilkinson,'' he pointed out.
Junior sides go under the banner of the East Coast Dolphins with players selected from Groups Two and Three and the Northern Rivers Rugby League.
Mick Henry from Taree City and Old Bar's Dale Clacherty are members of the North Coast side.
However, the exact makeup of the North Coast side still hadn't been determined at the time of going to print yesterday because of injuries.
Up to four players have been forced to withdraw because of injury, coach Phil Trembath of Port Macquarie revealed.
The North Coast side won't have a run together until this afternoon.