I'm not saying anything about the Barker game. That is done as far as I am concerned. I have heard that 14/15 players from Waverley's team last year were non-ATAR students. Waverley went no where near beating Aloys in u13s - u15s and only won in u16's when all of the importing occurred. I recall it used to be mainly between Aloys, Trinity and Knox. Also, over the last 6 years in the 1st XV, It is 3-3 between Aloys and Waverley. My point is that this talk about relegation is ridiculous. This year at Aloys was a great team until injuries and GPS poaching took hold. Aloys seems to be the only team doing their footy all legit at the moment. You can see some absolute standout players in the team: 6, 7, 8, 9, 13, 14, 15. But when injuries take out the rest, it is hard for them to show it. CAS has always been an incredibly
competitive competition and it is immature to think that after 1 bad season there is a need to change it.
Who cares how many boys are doing an ATAR, not everyone should or can go to Uni etc,and if they did it would be a worry.
I bet there are also boys doing an ATAR who probably shouldn't, but all that should have nothing to do with Rugby.
As has been aptly pointed out by Snort and others, it is NOT all about the strength of just the 1sts that's important, it is about a schools commitment to Rugby and it's program.
My thoughts surround the future of the CAS Rugby comp.
Unfortunately some schools are losing numbers so quickly that they will really struggle going forward. Case in hand, Aloys have only 2 teams in the youngest age group, 13s, other schools have many more, so it's not hard to see what may well happen as this age group progresses. Aloys has only 12 teams across all age groups,all of whom get soundly beaten pretty much every week AND they are often matched against lower graded teams in the same age group.
A divisional competition, across some/all age groups, is not ridiculous, it makes real sense if you want teams of similar ability to match up each week. The other KEY point is about safety.
Last Sat we saw uncontested scrums in 1sts Aloys/Waves game, which says it all, and the scores in almost every game age game were horrendous.
If any school decides to significantly beef up its focus on Academia, and that's fine if it chooses to, but as a consequence. what will more than likely happen is an effect somewhere else because it is now attracting a different type of parent/ student. It is also not just because Aloys is smaller than the other CAS schools, that has always been the case, it's when you have the same number of students in year 7, as always, and you get 2 Rugby teams and 6 Soccer teams in the 13s.
This situation is already well documented in a number of GPS schools.
I am an Aloys fan with many nephews and cousins either there now or old boys, this situation applies to any school with these traits. I would also think that all boys, and parents, would much rather prefer an even contest than getting thumped most weeks.
