page_title: Sydney (NRC team)
section_title: North Harbour
hierarchical_section_title: Sydney (NRC team) / History / North Harbour
caption_attribution_description: English: Rugby player Josh Turner of the Sydney Rays is about to kick the ball during a match at Pittwater Park in Sydney against the NSW Country Eagles in Australia's 2016 National Rugby Championship.
context_page_description: Sydney is an Australian rugby union team that competes in the National Rugby Championship. Formerly known as Sydney Rays, the team is one of two sides from New South Wales in the competition; the other being the NSW Country Eagles.
  The current team plays as the all-of-Sydney side in the NRC and wears the traditional blue and yellow colours of Sydney's representative rugby teams. It draws on the metropolitan sides that have represented the city for more than a century. In 2019 the NRC side adopted as its logo the anchor insignia of the Sydney Rugby Union, which dates back to at least 1970.
  The team was known as the North Harbour Rays before 2016. It was renamed Sydney during a consolidation which reduced the number of NRC teams in the city from three in 2014 to eventually just one by 2018. The North Harbour Rays had been formed as consortium of four Sydney clubs; Gordon, Manly, Northern Suburbs, and Warringah in 2014.
  North Harbour took its identity from the Central Coast Rays side that played in the earlier national competition, the Australian Rugby Championship in 2007. It had been backed by the same four Sydney clubs, along with the Central Coast Waves.
context_section_description: The National Rugby Championship was announced in December 2013 to commence in 2014 with expressions of interest open to any interested parties and the accepted bids decided early in 2014.
  In March 2014 it was announced that the Rays would be revived as the North Harbour Rays to compete in the new National Rugby Championship. The new Rays team was backed by a consortium of the same four Shute Shield clubs involved in earlier Central Coast Rays team: Manly, Warringah, Northern Suburbs and Gordon.
  The team played in a quartered harlequin-style strip composed of blue, red, and two shades of green from the four constituent clubs. The sleeves were gold and black, collar and shorts were white and all four clubs’ colours were featured on the socks.
  The Rays secured Macquarie University as their principal partner on a two-year deal, to be officially be known as the Macquarie University North Harbour Rays for the 2014 and 2015 NRC seasons.
  Phil Blake was initially appointed as the Rays head coach for the 2014 season, with Scott Fava, Haig Sare and Geoff Townsend as part of the coaching staff, but after Blake accepted a coaching opportunity with Leicester Tigers, Geoff Townsend was promoted to the head coaching position, 
   Damien Cummins replaced Fava as the forwards coach in 2014, and Greg Peterson was named as captain. In 2015, Townsend was reappointed as head coach, and Luke Holmes was named as captain.
caption: Josh Turner kicks ahead for Sydney in 2016.
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