101-0 just the tip of the iceberg for club rugby in Australia

It does have control over ATAR points though, just ask Penrith about the quality colts players from last season that turned up playing for Uni this year. Ask those players for the ATAR points they had prior to Syd Uni's additions, that's the real issue here, it's actually not about money in a real sence as I hear those players still have to pay for the degree, but, they get to study what they want with the extra ATAR point they got from signing with Uni & for a boy out west that's golden.

Here in lies the problem, 1950's thinking & GPS headmasters! The actual proposal doing the rounds earlier this year was for junior club rugby at a village level to finish at U11’s, so from U12's all the village clubs to combine to play as district clubs. In my area this would be Harbord, Seaforth, Forest & Manly Roos all combining into one Manly Marlins Junior age group and then grading would occur across that age group and teams from A's down to F's would be formed, although, I’d have to say that Forest would most likely want to stand alone from this as they have a subset team that they want to protect. Whilst my son is not in an effected age group yet, it is coming & there are currently two teams playing in this fashion as the Freshwater Vikings, essentially its the boys from Harbord, Seaforth, & Manly Roos that dont go the St Augustines (local private school) and they play in the D & F comps as 99% of U13 A’s from last year only play for St Augs now. I’d say this is an issue replicated across Australia, not just the Northern Beaches & Gordon would be the worst effected by this as its the largest catchment area in Australia. With the model described above, the A team in each age group would effectively be the A rep team that would traditionally play in the June State champs & would compete against local schools in the area that play weekend rugby. This would also effectively rule out the boys that go to the private schools from gaining rep status until at least the major schoolboy rep games kick in or Junior Gold Cup. One other offshoot of this is that you will see less Gordon teams competing at rep level as they tend to go downhill from U13’s onwards, from what I have been told many of the older age groups in Gordon are formed off the back of the local private school B teams, happy to be corrected on that though. Further to that, the competition structure was to be based on regional zones, based on Junior Gold Cup divisions, again, in my case it would then be Manly, Gordon, Warringah & Norths. All four clubs would field their combined teams alongside he schools teams that want to compete in a Saturday comp from within these areas & importantly for the western areas this comp would be on a Saturday not Sunday, this would allow the areas with strong religious ties on the Polynesian communities to have boys play rugby again. I guess as my son won’t be going to a high school that plays in a sat comp he is not overly effected & would continue to play rugby at a reasonable standard as a manly district player, not as a Harbord Harlequin, whilst I love my club I also want to see rugby be competitive for my son & this proposal does that.

In the deep, dark past only undergraduates and post graduate students could play for Uni. If Uni reintroduced that rule the competition would automatically become more balanced. Plus Uni would be embracing it's ethos even more faithfully and could claim moral high ground. Given the ever-decreasing age of representative footballers and the wealth of talent gravitating to Uni I think it's something to consider. Newington will be fine if their centres learn how to defend and their 5/8 varies his game with a bit of judicious kicking.

Sympathise with you and suggest this is what happens when you have Bankers, Lawyers and IT Entrepreneurs running the game. No vision, no developmental programme, poor membership results, little connection with the community, failure to win the hearts and minds of youngsters etc etc. They've completely ignored the base of the pyramid and believe everything will be solved by having a successful national team. Myopic, narrow and ignorant. It'll stay that way until the 'Mosman Mafia' is forcibly moved on

I'm sorry if rugby is to succeed in this country it has to start with Sydney? This is exactly the same 'top down' mantra the ARU use to 'boost' the profile of rugby in this country aka "if rugby is to succeed in this country the wallabies have to do well." While I agree that it is important for our national team to be doing well, I think we're missing the bigger picture! I've currently returned to my hometown of Port Macquarie, NSW which is the mid north coast, the breeding ground for country rugby league, and tirelessly competing, I began coaching an under 16s boys rugby team whose skill level is about the same of an under 10s team down in canberra! I have spent most of this year going right back to basics! But the gap in skill (and game knowledge) doesn't stop there! With many of our seniors not knowing basic laws (many of which have been changed recently), what does that tell you? What are the ARU doing to close this gap? Next to nothing! There is barely any media (due to the super rugby competition being on pay tv), and next to no development clinics! If the ARU really want to boost the great game they play in heaven then they need to make our game more inclusive! The way it was originally intended! There is no use in having government funded pacific participation and development programs if we can't even promote participation and development of it in our own country!

+1

Fair enough point Sheek, but there has to be a balance struck between clubs striving to be the very best they can be and working out ways ways for all clubs to be competitive. very difficult question.

That sounds like complete bull. Why would a kid deliberately not get selected in order to protect his school. Doesn't every kid have aspirations to be a NSW or Aus Rep?

Kings is No 1 in GPS!

I haven't heard any 'rah rahs' celebrating the private school links, but I have heard a lot of rugby haters accusing rugby union of being a private school only sport. I think your examples above prove otherwise.

Interesting to hear the GPS/CAS/ISA/CHS club idea. I coach football in one of those comps but make sure we play trials against sides from all those other competitions. With five games to game we have already played 34 matches....test yourself. The upshot of broader co-operation should be more evenly graded divisions. Effectively our Rugby guys get their most even competition pre-season against schools like High Grammar Alosius etc...from different competitions but at a similar grade

Exactly Dr Dave. It is interesting that the NSWRU are quick to cap the scholarships at 20% of players in a team for schools but have no such proposal for another educational institution being Sydney university. I was at their sports building last year and they list the current scholarship players on a wall. I counted about 41. That has been a major cause of the financial problems for many clubs as they have resorted to player payments they could not afford in order to keep up. But we don't hear Bo from the nsw hierarchy untill yesterday and they totally ignore these scholarships. The aru and nswru don't give a rats about club rugby...

A choice from who? Packer or Murdoch? They did go to fta with Ch7 as S12 was on there for the first three seasons at least. It was either that or get swallowed up in a World Series Cricket takeover.

I seem to recall when, I think it was in the 80's, CHS regularly flogged the Combined GPS schools in their annual representative match, to the point where GPS pulled out. That was when Rugby had a strong presence in the state schools, particularly in country NSW. With regard to the Shute Shield, it would be interesting to see some stats about the origins of Sydney University's elite players.

You suggest the belief that QLD GPS being the glue holding rugby in this country together is a narrow narrative. The narrative, which is actually broad when you think about it, is that this school boy system has been the most productive in Australia over the last 20 years, especially in the last 10. So maybe you shouldn't be taking 'cheap shots' at a system you clearly don't understand, from that high horse of yours.

Well said, couldn't agree more. Uni have done well but not all clubs can offer scholarships to players. Also, look how the waratahs and wallabies travelled when they had uni/Eastwood administrators/ coaches in charge. Boring!!!! They drove fans away from the games in droves. Thankfully common sense has been restored and running rugby has arisen once again.

There has been much wailing, rending of garments and strident public outrage because Newington were overwhelmingly defeated by the powerful and highly mobile Scots rugby team last weekend. Perhaps this humiliating problem might be avoided in future if the Newington rugby selection panel was subjected to an immediate taxpayer funded royal commission presided over by a couple of under employed High Court judges.For unknown reasons as both Nick Farr Jones and Phil Kearns will confirm neither of those two legendary Wallabies was ever able to secure a place in the Newington First Fifteen during their schooldays. On the other hand since time immemorial Scots has been notorious for the covert introduction of excessively highly skilled rugby players into lower grades. Only yesterday an old ex-Scots mate of mine was on the phone to tell me yet again about the memorable Saturday many years ago when Scots 9th Fifteen took the field with only 9 players! My now aged colleague and another then fighting fit Scots 1st grade rugby reserve were ordered onto the ground by a certain Scots master to act as reinforcements for the sorely depleted home side. The eleven supplemented Scots then inflicted a historic record defeat of 111 (YES one hundred and eleven) POINTS TO NIL UPON THEIR 15 VISITING OPPONENTS. Fortunately that amazing score was not eclipsed by Scots against Newington last Saturday.So perhaps the Newington defence in the closing stages of the game was somewhat more effective than that which was displayed by Jake White's Sharks in the Super Rugby Semifinal against the Crusaders But never mind - the sun will still rise again tomorrow morning.

Scorelines like this on a regular basis might be the death knell for the GPS rugby comp. However a "bad day at the office" for Newington does not warrant N Farr-Jones' remarks about safety. NFJ has clearly not been watching the GPS comp for some years as even on the receiving end of a 101 point drubbing there was no issue of safety for the Newington lads. One wonders wbat his agenda actually is? As a Newington Old Boy his reported remarks/ attitude might not be well recieved in the 1st XV changing room. Not that this correspondent has ever sighted him at Stanmore. Scots last year and this year look like a fine fine union side and play the game with precison and considerable speed. Newington select large "athletes" and have considerably less speed and precision and a very limited "pick and drive" minset. I wonder if Newingtons apparent obsession with sheer size is restricting their coaches game plan. The existance of Spoting schoalrships are continually denied but the allocation of academic schioalrships or Music scholarships are not. Do we hear howls of protest about the number of gold medals won at the NSW Band Festival by Newington, do we hear howls of protest about academic achievement at High/Grammar/Joeys/shore/riverview etc etc? There are 2 factors that may in due course kill the GPS comp in its current form. 1. the exponential increase in participation rates for Soccer in GPS schools 2. The insuarity of the GPS comp itself. Point 2 will need to be addressed perhaps by NSWRU and if they get it right (open up a high school comp) this might hlep to ensure that participation rates in school boy rugby do not continue to decline. If senoir/preofessional union squads could play with the skill and flair of the Scots College boys the stadiums would be full.

Sheek, The scary thing is that the Scots 1stXV team of last season in my opinion were actually better than this years team ( my boy is in this years 1stXV played 2's last year)

Scots disallowed some of their players to be chosen - to play down the scholarship business. So I heard.