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With the start of the rugby league season looming, many junior players will soon be trying on a new set of boots.
In recent years, the age versus weight debate has raged in junior rugby league.
Size and physical maturity differences between kids of the same age can be huge.
In age-based competitions, it can often be a case of young men playing both with and against boys. There is certainly an argument that this doesn’t benefit either in the long-term.
Skilful smaller players can have their confidence sapped and potentially be lost to the game due to injury or their parents not allowing them to play because of safety concerns.
On the other hand, the short-term dominance bigger players tend to experience often comes to an abrupt halt when their size advantage reduces over time. Also, running roughshod over physically weaker opponents in their formative years isn’t necessarily ideal for their skill development.
The alternative is weight-based competition. Many years ago, this was a more common format for junior rugby league, but it’s not today. Ironically, differences between the physical development of kids has never been greater than they are today. Australia’s increasing multiculturalism is one of the reasons for this phenomenon.
There is an old cliché in sport that “a good big man will always beat a good little man”. NRL champions who played well above their weight like Geoff Toovey, Allan Langer, Clive Churchill and Preston Campbell all had a unique combination of skills and toughness to prove this theory wrong.
Would it have helped the development of any of those champions if they had played their junior rugby league in a weight-based competition? Probably not, and one thing is certain. Players of that size at the elite level are becoming increasingly rare. Even your typical modern halfback isn’t small.
Smaller players were disadvantaged when interchanges were introduced at the elite level in the 1990s. Long gone are the days when once you were replaced, you were off for the match. At least a reduction in the number of interchanges allowed in the NRL in 2016 will hopefully give smaller players more chance to show off their skills late in games against tiring bigger men.
This is a step in the right direction for the game. The attraction of a team full of 100kg plus clones may diminish slightly.
Where do you stand on the junior rugby league debate?
Who are the ‘little big men’ whose toughness and skills you have enjoyed watching at NRL level over the years?
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