IN yet another blow for rugby in western Sydney, the Penrith Rugby Club have been cut from the Shute Shield competition, effective immediately, leaving the region without a senior club for the first time in 27 years.

The Sydney Rugby Union made the decision early Monday morning with president David Begg citing Penrith’s failure to meet a number of preconditions and the health and safety of the playing group as the cause for the immediate action.

“It was a decision we didn’t want to make and it was made after months of review and a lot of critical analysis,” Begg told foxsports.com.au.

“We didn’t feel like the Penrith Rugby Club, as it was presently constituted, was the right public face of rugby in that really important area of western Sydney.”

“We put in some KPIs as to their ongoing performance. We didn’t feel that all of them were being satisfied.

“We just felt the playing level, the fitness level and the preparation level that they were putting on the field was significantly inferior to the playing fitness and development level of the players that they were playing against, and that’s duty of care, that’s a legal issue right in front of your eyes.”

The decision to cut Penrith doesn’t come as a surprise.

The western Sydney club won just two games from their first 28 matches in seniors and colts from the opening month of Sydney grade rugby.

During that period the Emus’ first grade side suffered 62-7, 97-0, 43-10 and 87-5 defeats.

The winless start comes after they failed to win a match in 2017 and lost by an average margin of 38 points.

Politics within Penrith Rugby Club over the past six months are also believed to have hurt the club’s chances of progression.

The Sydney Rugby Union will now proceed as an 11 team competition.

For each of the four clubs that have already played Penrith so far this season — Southern Districts, Sydney University, Gordon and Warringah — their resounding victories will instead be credited with 28-0 wins. Those clubs still to play Penrith will have a bye instead.

Although Penrith Rugby Club will no longer participate in the Sydney Rugby competition, Begg emphasised that western Sydney remained an important region for Sydney rugby going forward.

“The direction of where we’re going with Western Sydney is just not around the Penrith Rugby Club,” Begg said.

“We need to give rugby a serious footprint in Western Sydney, so we’re undertaking a holistic strategic review.

“Penrith themselves are already doing a strategic review and our view is … it should and we see a role for a club in that area in the Shute Shield in the future very clearly.”

Part of that process will be to ensure that rugby breaks the perception that it is a game played exclusively in private schools and returns to public schools.

Begg added that Sydney Rugby were exploring partnership deals with big businesses and tertiary institutions in the region, but said that they wouldn’t be rushed into forming a new club without providing them the tools to succeed.

“A partnership with someone like the University of Western Sydney we would see as one of the many opportunities, but there are also big TAFEs out there,” Begg said.

“And there are a number of big profitable businesses, who, for whatever reason, haven’t got themselves involved in the local rugby club, so we would want all of those major players involved in corporate partnerships.

“But what we’re not going to do is say ‘OK, let’s get a Penrith team ready to go in 2019, let’s put them in the comp and just set them up to fail’ because that would be the worst thing we could do.

“They’re only going to come back in — and our definite desire is for them to come back in — but they’re only going to come back in if we have strategic involvement from Rugby Australia, NSW and everyone’s on the same page, and we think that this is a club that the community is going to proud of, it’s a club that’s representing the whole demographic mix of the local community and, accordingly, we think this is a half a chance of being a really successful club.”