How Italy revolutionised their youth system to produce a golden generation – and what Australia can learn from it
They used to be the laughing stock of the Six Nations. Winners of the wooden spoon 18 times in 24 years. Never escaping from…
Opinion
I wrote an article on this site a few years ago entitled ‘The anatomy of the tribe‘, and while I thought it was one of my best pieces – and I still do – it attracted only four comments, and one of them was mine.
I’m not sure why that was, but it’s probably because it didn’t give the armchair experts a forum. But who knows?
Anyway, in that article I postulated that I probably wouldn’t get involved in a Brisbane club after I finally moved up here after four and a half years of commuting Monday to Thursday.
I sort of got involved in one club because my boy played a couple of seasons there with his school mates, but I couldn’t really get into it. But after a couple of years in the wilderness and a season of running around with my son all over south-eath Queensland while he played gridiron – talk about watching paint dry – I now have the passion back.
So I’ve joined Brothers, given they are my local club. I got an email from the club looking for an assistant fifth-grade coach because the regular coaches have challenges with work commitments et cetera, so I put my hand up. Who could refuse?
They suggested I might like to turn up to the final trial on the Saturday before the competition was set to start – even though we had the bye in Week 1 – and meet the lads, which I duly did. It was a trial against Uni. I met some of the boys, watched the game, shook a few hands, got to know the coach, Nathan, and the manager, JD.
Then I went home to hear the news that the bloody elephant in the room, COVID-19, had postponed the season until 2 May. Crikey, that could be the shortest comeback in rugby history!
One day!
It immediately reminded me of another short interlude. In 1998, coaching fifth-grade at Norths (Sydney), the club got hit by a few injuries one particular week and I was forced to select myself as tighthead. It was a crunch game against Manly Marlins, which we won, and I had a lot of fun bludging around the edges.
At the bar later on someone suggested that, at age 45 and not having played by rugby at Norths, I might have set a record as the oldest player to make his debut for the club. This was very quickly communicated by osmosis – in other words, he was standing next to me – to sixth-grade coach Larry Ward.
Once he realised, he practically begged me to pick him next week. It turned out he was a year older than me, so if I did have a record, it lasted a week, because I wasn’t about to back up, and the late Larry (rest his soul) ran on, had a good day out and never did shout me the beer that he promised me.
Anyway, the point of the story is not me – I was looking forward to being involved at club level this year after being out of it for a while – but the players.
I really feel for the players, who put in a preseason and got so close to a start. As a young bloke you work hard all week, train hard two nights a week and really look forward to Saturday, when you can run, pass, ruck, maul, scrum and generally smash into other blokes before getting out to your favourite post-match venue and tell lies about your prowess. I feel for the guys who are missing out on it this season.
We can all spare a thought for us old tragics who have no rugby to watch, but I feel for those guys who have no rugby to play.
That is what our beautiful game is about at the end of the day.