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Blazers and belligerence: An insight into the current state of school rugby

20th December, 2014
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Does Adam Ashley-Cooper deserve a spot in the Wallabies? (Photo: Paul Barkley/LookPro)
Roar Guru
20th December, 2014
110
1844 Reads

G’day everybody, hope you are all doing well, and let me state officially what a privilege it is to have you all peruse my thoughts, from those who are new here like myself, and others who have been involved in our beautiful game for over forty years.

I’m a complete rookie when it comes journalistic endeavours, so I’m hoping it’s first time lucky in regard to article standards, and I would be truly humbled for any feedback.

But first, a little about me. I was born in a rugby mad country to a rugby mad family, surrounded by a rugby mad culture, and just last year graduated from a rugby mad school.

Since first setting sight on the Crusaders side of 2000 just four years after I was born, I fell in love with the game and have played and followed it with a heartfelt passion ever since, with many an hour spent sifting through the countless articles on the Sydney Morning and New Zealand Herald’s websites for any scrap of information relating to team lists, injuries, new contracts and the like.

For my mind, rugby is more than just your typical Saturday slugfest, and reaches into the true fabric of mateship, camaraderie and other social paradigms, beyond just that of doing something you enjoy.

I can credit some of the first friends I have made since moving to Australia and starting school and university to bonding over our passion for an oval shaped ball, and I can say without pause that given the gentleman like values those that play this game treasure, it truly is the greatest game of all.

And the Sharks cheerleaders, they’re not bad either.

Which is why it pains me to no end to watch our game at grassroots level slip into the realms of elitism, financial strife and seclusion it finds itself in today.

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Australian sporting markets have always been a hard sell given the status of league, cricket and now the A-League, leaving some of us twitching nervously at what fruit the future may bear. The much maligned recent player levy tax imposed by the ARU may just be the tip of the iceberg, as the club level is increasingly neglected as the true basis of Australian talent in favour of the school system.

I will attempt to shed a little light on what I experienced over the course of six years playing and viewing Great Public Schools [GPS] rugby, which has reinforced my belief that Australian rugby’s continuative success will stem from a few seven-year-olds throwing a ball a size too big for them in a park, pretending to be the players they see on TV, more so than funding the top level ever could.

In this regard, and as much as I have cherished my time in the GPS environment, it has slowly morphed from a benefit to an obstacle in the pursuit of Australian rugby success. Refusal to open up the competition to the other school groups, combined with a growing emphasis on imported scholarships, has left a once revered competition on the brink.

I remember in 2010 watching our first XV play St Augustines in a trial match, a bit like the All Blacks-Samoa rivalry in a way, given the record between the two teams, and the perspective of the latter being viewed as a second tier team.

Except this time around, Samoa came down to Auckland and put a full strength All Black side to the sword by around 40 points. It is easy to pass off results like that as an anomaly, but GPS’ refusal to allow teams that are now evidently capable of competing to enter the competition, as sides like Sydney Grammar and Sydney High drop out of the competition due to the polar opposite, is largely questionable.

I do not intend to dismiss the school system as no longer important, but if it is to be nurtured as the dominant player pool more so than the clubs, then it must be exposed to a consistently even level of competition.

The Auckland schools 1A and 1B system, based around a process of relegation and promotion much like the English Premier League, would create incentive of smaller schools to not only try and enter the folds of the private schools, but to put themselves officially on par with them.

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When Scots beat the runners up Newington by so much that the scoreboard malfunctions, the problem becomes visible.

But the flaws do not just exist at the top level, and the first and second XV competitions are made to look like Super Rugby in comparison to the substandard playing field in the lower grades.

Week in week out, decisions such as uncontested scrums, and 12-a-side due to lack of players participating, turns what could be an esteemed competition into a farce. How can one view the system as a rugby talent breeding ground if the version of the game becomes so watered down that it can hardly be recognised as rugby?

Fifty-point, 60-point, even one 100-point beatings can become a common sight, and this is really expected to grow incentive to play? The coaching standard, and I do not wish to sully the credit that is rightly given to ordinary people who give up their time to coach youngsters, is not what it should be.

Key words: ordinary people. I have no qualms with merging the club and school system, and although I realise it is a hard task to complete, close losses can create a determination to succeed and ultimately play, more than beltings ever could.

I write this with a sense of foreboding concern, and I sincerely wish that my inaugural article could have been a little less grim. But this is what I have viewed, and what I believe would return this competition to the prestigious position it formerly dwelled in.

Those seven-year-olds in the park should be welcoming, not forcing those who they believe to be below them to watch in yearning from the other side of the chain-link fence. The school system should be gently reminded of its goal of nurturing young talent, with all schools aimed at this, and providing others with the opportunity to do so too.

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Black and white, blue and yellow, cerise and blue, it all adds up to gold in the end.

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