Midwest Summer Meeting Recap

[SOUTH BEND, IN] This past weekend, the Midwest Rugby Union held its regular Summer General Meeting before the start of the new competition cycle. The meeting was attended by all Local Area Unions (LAUs) so please make sure you reach out to them for additional details on the meeting and any specific takeaways they may have for your Union. While the detailed minutes can be found here, please read below for highlights. CIPP Registration

• No one can register right now as it was closed a few days ago. Individuals looking to register for their Club for the 2024-25 Competitive Cycle will likely be able to do so starting on Sunday, August 18, 2024.
• For teams that begin playing on August 24th, please ensure all your players register that week for the new Cycle. We will not accept 2023-24 registrations for the new season even though it technically is good through August 31st. This is the same as last year.
• Teams seeking COIs for training or matches will be able to request those starting on August 1, 2024.

COMPETITION PATHWAY

• There will be no change in the National Championship Series (NCS) Pathway for the 2024-25 Competitive Cycle. What that means is that we will operate as we had this past year with Men’s D1 Champions, and the top 2 finished from Men’s D2, Women’s D2, and Men’s D3 moving on to the Northern Super Regional the first weekend of May. This year, the Super Regionals will be hosted by the Mid-America Rugby Union, likely in either St. Louis or Kansas City. Women’s D1 will once again move straight through to USA Club Rugby Nationals on the third weekend of May.
• There may be changes to the Competition Pathway in the 2025-26 Competitive Cycle.

DISCIPLINARY REMINDERS As a reminder, all teams must ensure that they are accurately reporting cards in Rugby Xplorer. Match Officials are also sending in reports for discipline and when the Union receives a referee report with no corresponding card submission in RX, we can only assume the infringing team was trying to not report it. All on-field infractions require a hearing, and a player is suspended until the hearing has been held. Failing to respond to a request from your local disciplinarian is not a way to continue to play. DUES While no governing entities (USA Rugby, Senior Club Council, Midwest Rugby Union) will be raising their dues for the 2024-25 competitive cycle, members will see a $5 increase in their payment. This is because in 2023-24, Senior Club Council offset USA Rugby dues by $5. This will not be in effect for this upcoming cycle, so dues will appear to have increased by $5. ELIGIBILITY

• There have been some changes to Senior Club Eligibility for the 2024-25 Cycle. First off, all match information must be entered into Rugby Xplorer within 48 hours of the conclusion of the match. This means roughly 4pm on Monday. If your team fails to do this, the game may not count for Eligibility purposes which will affect teams playing in the NCS Pathway.
• Players are no longer permitted to have their name withheld from Rugby Xplorer unless they obtain a waiver to do so.
• The Homegrown Waiver exception has been suspended. Senior Club Rugby will no longer permit teams to play additional professional players because they are “homegrown”. Any homegrown players will now count towards the number of professionals a team is permitted to field for a given game (5 for D1, 2 for D2, 1 for D3).
• The new Eligibility Regulations can be found on the Midwest website on the Policies & Regulations page.

FALL XVs At this point, all teams should be acutely aware of the fall schedules. Any teams needing to make changes, must negotiate those changes directly with their opponent and then confirm the change with their League Coordinator. Playoff structures have also been determined with only minor changes to Men’s D4 being made this past weekend. For teams affected, their Coordinators will be reaching out to them directly. Updates will be made to the Midwest website in the coming days. LAW CHANGES

• Some World Rugby Law Changes will be in effect this cycle and should be noted by all clubs. As you recall, the Union implemented the Global Law Variation on Tackle Height this spring and this will be official law for all Unions starting in September.
• Additionally, World Rugby made changes to offside in front of kicker, the crocodile roll, and removing the scrum option at a free kick. You can view all these changes on the Midwest’s website on the Policies and Regulations page.
• After polling the Union last spring, the Union has found that most teams did not support the law variation related to rolling substitutions. This will not be implemented in any way for the 2024-25 Competitive Cycle.

MEN’S DIVISION 1 All Men’s D1 teams will be expected to disclose their professional and foreign players using the process established last year. Additionally, the match rate for Midwest Referee Society appointments has increased to $750 per match. The Union has requested a meeting to discuss this with the Society and representatives from all affected Clubs. MIDWEST 7s SERIES Unfortunately, the Union saw a decrease in the number of teams participating in the Midwest 7s Series. For this reason, the Union is planning large-scale changes to the Series which will allow it to be more inclusive to teams. While a detailed plan will be released at next year’s Annual General Meeting, Members can expect a smaller, more centrally located Series that’s run directly by the Midwest. The Series should be less expensive and offer competition for more than just teams interested in qualifying for the USA Club Rugby 7s National Championship.