I wrote an article about the powerhouse rugby province that the Newcastle/Hunter region would have been. Well, blow me down if my Newcastle mate did not report to me the Melbourne Storm SG Ball U/18 rugby league team won their first-round game 18-14 against Newcastle in Newcastle’s mud and slush.
The team had 12 players from the Storm’s Victorian Development squad who were nurtured from the age of 13, with 8 Victorian-born boys in their starting line-up (including two outstanding 15-year-olds and their captain Ken Bromwich).
I wonder if any have played rugby union? I know for a fact they have all kicked an AFL ball, with one centre being keenly chased by AFL.
The rugby league boys get to play in an U/18 competition involving 18 representative teams. Western Suburbs, Balmain, St George and Illawarra play as separate entities; Newtown replace the Sydney Roosters (from the NRL teams); and there’s an extra Western Sydney Academy team.
The Gold Coast and Canberra play in the NSWRL competition, but not the Townsville Cowboys and Brisbane Broncos.
The top 8 from the NSWRL competition then enter a semi-final series against the top four U/18 Queensland teams, who play in their own Northern and Southern conference state-wide competitions in an interstate playoff.
Obviously these players than feed through to the Toyota Cup national U/20 competition, now fully funded by Fox – not the NRL clubs – because of its strong ratings on pay TV.
This is no disloyalty to rugby, but it is difficult to hold rugby union players in their “senior” junior years. It’s worse in Queensland.
No matter what the state of their pokies or clubs are, rugby league is better at offering and maintaining junior development pathways. It is not because rugby union does not want to; it’s just that we do not have the experience. How this was not on the agenda after the 2003 World Cup beggars belief.
As they say, we can buy them when they are older but I envy rugby league’s structure and broadbased investment in juniors on a continuing basis.
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