I've seen plenty of players come through colts at Uni and then leave to other clubs as they arent happy about being in 3rd or 4th grade. James Helliwell and Callum Fryer turned out in 1st grade for Randwick on Saturday were both Uni colts. Easts is the most common destination.
Tom Egan captained Easts after leaving Uni. I'm sure Bruce Ross has his bio on standby somewhere.
It's probably just a personal peculiarity but I think that sneering at young blokes who are still developing as players is poor form.
I know each of the players mentioned quite well - one of them still uses me as a mentor - and frustration obviously was a definite issue in them choosing to go to other clubs. But the real issue is why do so many others choose to stay. I remember there was considerable speculation about this during the fifteen or so years when Randwick was arguably the best rugby club in the world. My view from over the fence is that it came down to two things. The first was reflected glory. At that time if you said you played for Randwick people assumed you were a good footballer, whereas if you said you played for Uni a similar conclusion wasn't necessarily drawn.
The more important reason was that players were drawn to a particular playing culture. Playing for Randwick was fun and probably much more so because of their dominance. And there was the pursuit of excellence, although I don't think that extended to their training.
I think that too little emphasis is put on a club's culture; the need for it to be coherent and ongoing; and for players to have a real feeling of belonging. That's where more-or-less amateur clubs have a great advantage over professional teams. The franchises tend to chew people up and spit them out. When your time is up you're not really part of anything any more. And most contracted players don't find the lifestyle particularly enjoyable or rewarding.
Now to Sydney Uni. I coached First Colts - not very well - back in 1989. At that time, as at most clubs, the general approach was that players turned up at training twice a week if they had nothing better to do. But Uni was hampered by an outmoded and anachronistic game plan based on forward dominance put into practice by what were rightfully regarded as soft private schoolboys.
Transforming the Uni culture without renouncing it has been the work of two decades. But what I think has been perhaps the major catalyst for change has been a revolution in the approach to training. What you now have are players who train for 11 months of the year, with about one hundred players involved in either the Elite Development Squad or the Wider Training Group. And the emphasis is on training heavy with occasional instances of players doing PB lifts in the week of a Grand Final. Most of these players train like professionals and this training in itself can become addictive. Couple that with an appropriate playing style, what I have termed Physical Imposition, and you have an environment which enables players to explore just how good they can be. And it has to be acknowledged that Uni are in the fortunate position of being able to afford to employ top level coaches and sport scientists to assist players to do this.
I know that many people ridicule the idea that a large part of Uni's success can be put down to working harder and smarter, and it doesn't concern me that such attitudes persist. One of the principal rules of combat is to know your enemy.
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