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.
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.
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.
Black and white, blue and yellow, cerise and blue, it all adds up to gold in the end.
Lizzie
Guest
10/10
Squirrel
Guest
80% of the wallabies are from these schools
Sean Turner
Roar Guru
glad to hear from you again after all these years, I trust you and the family are doing well.
Gary Henwood
Guest
Yep
duecer
Guest
The complacency was such that the ARU has missed out on the Western Suburbs when they should have made some initiatives many years ago when there was a large number of Pacific Islanders moving to the area. These guys, and similar guys in the future have been lost. You can understand a bit of reluctance taking on RL in their stronghold, but Soccer has done it very successfully and have effectively stymied any chance that Rugby may have had in the area.
Bakkies
Guest
40 hour week pfft. Hard yakka that. People do it in clubs so why not schools. Some of the best coaches out there are ex teachers.
Sean Turner
Roar Guru
This wouldn't happen to my former coach would it? Jake's father?
Johnno
Guest
@Bakkies But with cost of living rates going up, don't know if there will be lots of "volunteers teachers" willing to give up 12 saturdays a year for "free" after working a "40-hour week" to save Australian rugby.
Bakkies
Guest
Why change? That's where we are going wrong. People who say things are so fine and dandy but they aren't. I am aware of the ASRU. How many tours does the team do these days? The Aus Schoolboys team is an outdated concept. Some unions have changed them in to under 18s to help prepare for the under 20s which is where the ARU should be heading.
Bakkies
Guest
And if you have more than 15 up for selection? We trained twice a week and played on a Saturday which was plenty as others played league, various sports as well.
Johnno
Guest
O'Connor played for teacher's Brisbane, was a good player there.
Johnno
Guest
Good stuff on the Bill Turner cup mid. A good read, it's expanding.
Midfielder
Guest
Johnno I think the term rise or growth under estimates how big Football was or say old Soccer... The largest playing base always, a national domestic competition for years .. The issue was always poor management when decent management was appointed it started coming together, however the foundations where always strong.. What the last ten years has done is manage the code better and open many new doors... One of the new doors is the private schools .. What is often overlooked is the investment football folk have always made in park teams... and different forms from beach to 5 & 6 aside both indoor and outdoor... The growth in private schools has happen so fast and the rate of growth is so fast many in Rugby have not seen it ... its exploding my friend tells me he feels within a couple of years there will be more Football teams in private Schools than Rugby teams ... Events like the Turner Cup and Trophy [ie one is for boys and one is for girls] will become sort after with pride and achievement .. Have a look at this web site to see its size next year it is estimated over 500 schools will take part... http://www.billturnersoccer.com.au The issue for Union is if they don't create strong park sides and continue on with the private school as academies for player development then they will struggle for both players and players with heaps of knowledge in the future...
Gary Henwood
Guest
Sean a good article. The foundations of rugby in Aust and the way forward certainly need debating. Your work helps in that process.. Gary Henwood
Johnno
Guest
Mid The rise of soccer in the last 10 years in Australia(2005), is nothing short of incredible. -3 World Cups socceroos have made -Winning an Asian champions league club title -A new more modern professional soccer comp(A-League) -The rise of a west sydney team in the A-League -A FFA cup -Hosting the 2015 Asian cup -runner's up 2011 Asian cup -beach soccer almost makeing the world cup -A national youth league -The W-league developing nicely -And schoolboy soccer, it's no surprise that the private schools are being railroaded by soccer and AFL. Soccer's global appeal, and AFL's money make it irresistable. The ARU can't dream of building or maintaining schoolboy ovals. The poaching will continue, and I fear rugby union in OZ, well be on the same food chain level as water-polo,volleyball,and field-hockey. I knew anglo's back in 2005, and the WC Qualifer in 2005 vs Uruguay was the 1st soccer game they had ever watched. 10 years many have watched many more.
Midfielder
Guest
Johnno I have a friend who works as a Pastor at one of the better known private schools north of the harbour bridge. He has been at the school or two actually he left one and started a new one about 12 years ago, but he has 30 years of being a pastor at a private school. He tells me the appeal Football is brining to the private schools is simply starting to over power rugby... to explain Rugby often has tours and thinks to the UK, NZ etc and can get schools into some influential boards etc... Football can bring all of Europe and most of Asia... a tour of Japan, Spain etc... Asia's new wealth etc... my friend tells me it has become more appealing for parents to send their kids to Japan, Barcelona than Auckland and London... but you can still send your kids to both Auckland and London with Football... The growing wealth and increasing influence of Asia is a non sport related area but very much plays into Footballs hands in Asia... If you read the links I posted above you can see from almost nothing 6 to 7 years ago to were it is today .. As for the AFL they will build and maintain a oval for a school and open many doors in Australian business... almost drunk with money they see RU as an easy target and HAVE BEEN picking many of its best young talent for quite a while now. Johnno my friend tells me it is quite feasible within five years that Football in some private schools will be bigger than Rugby within ten years between a third and half of Sydney private schools Football will be bigger than Rugby ... no idea how factual his prediction is BUT he is a union man to his boots...
clipper
Guest
Agree, Midfielder - Rugby got a bit complacent knowing that league would never infiltrate their stranglehold on the more affluent demographics and took their eye off Football and AFL who began making inroads into these areas (Football into all areas). The change in Sydney has been remarkable from 30 years ago, in certain areas becoming an all code city, unfortunately at the expense of Rugby. I don't know the solution now, as for many years Rugby has been viewed as an elitist sport in this country and that image may be hard to realign in the changing marketplace.
Johnno
Guest
Midfielder It seems also the AFL/FFA seem to get on okay with GPS schools, as opposed to the ARU and Australian rugby fans for that matter. Maybe it's coz of the dependancy factor Australian rugby applies and pressure on these schools to be rugby factories, as the sole place to develop wallabies. AFL and FFA have youth teams, not all dependant on the GPS. Imagine if the socceroos only looked to the GPS for talent, and the FFA put a gun to the head of the GPS demanding a soccer style academy school, where the the only goal of the GPS was to produce socceroos. It seems Australian rugby has become or always been like that with rugby. Soley dependant just about on the GPS and other private schools to produce wallabies, that and poaching kiwi rejects.
Johnno
Guest
anopinion Maybe that's exactly the problem, the GPS don't really deeply care about how well the wallabies go or how many or how little rugby world cups the wallabies win. They just don't see it as there goal. In other words the GPS are not losing any sleep if the wallabies slide down the world rankings or never win a rugby world cup for another 50 years. It just doesn't mean enough too them, the fortunes of the wallabies. And nor should it, or should it? That's the question. I get the feeling the GPS are becoming increasingly annoyed at the ARU and the peer pressure from Australian rugby fans, demanding that they become rugby style academies or have merger comps to lift standards(promo/relegation divisions) that aussie rugby fans would love, to produce more wobblies.
Johnno
Guest
anopinion So what Indian parents of a GPS school where the parents are about now aged 45 (born in 1970) came to OZ say 5 years ago 2010, have any link or understanding or care of the history or tradition of GPS schools. The face of GPS parents are changing to a wider audience. It's not all cattle farmers, and old boys parents from Sydney.