'Super Six rugby league is a bad idea'

By Johnson Were 

WITH the rugby governing body (URU) introducing a super six rugby league in the 2014/2015 season, the Sadolin Mongers tactician has joined the critics of the new format that is set to have only six clubs playing the premiership. 

Robert Powell said in an interview at Kyadondo that having a six team league will just kill Uganda’s rugby instead of developing it because it does not build and produce the quantity needed to polish into quality. 

“Yes you are going to relegate Lira Bulls and another to have six teams, but you can’t have a league of six teams that plays only 10 games a season, otherwise that is going to be a mockery league,” Powell stated. 

The former British army team hooker explained that Uganda’s problem is lack of a bigger pool of players to build the quality needed and if the premier league clubs are reduced to six, it will automatically affect the increase of quality players. 

“We are looking for just four quality props to strengthen my team but I can’t get them because even the current league has few teams with props on their bench that we can encroach on and that is again why I disagree with the format of the six-team league,” Powell explained. 

Powell’s rugby and coaching experience led Mongers to upstage Heathens 10-5 defeat in a league encounter this season. 

Late last year at the beginning of the season, URU insisted on the six team league but was over powered by clubs, after some had started an underground plot to form a parallel league. 

However, URU chairman Andrew Owor insists that the six-club format will increase competitiveness and improve the quality of players.