2017 AAGPS/CAS Combined "Comp"

[BRUMBIEJACK]

So the pre season CAS/GPS trials are over and what have we learned.
A riposte:

Here's my 2 penny worth.

• Waverley have a highly competitive side but it appears to hinge on a few high class individuals. This throws into question the longer term prospect of them remaining competitive in a new competition. Injuries in todays game are inevitable, depth in a squad is critical and there needs to be a long term program to ensure consistency year after year. Given the results & fact that a Waverley team with over a third of the starting team out still took it to the wire with SIC may be selling them short. The seconds lost by a try to SIC, beat Newington & Shore so the depth is greater than you make out. GPS schools' 'programs' can often benefit from talented kids on scholarships & full-time staff - by comparison Waverley operates on the smell of an oily rag given its foundational philosophy. Expect there to be peaks & troughs because that's what you get, but a new competition is not about whether a school can win every year. If you look at the Waverley 13s results against GPS schools (6 teams), there's another possible peak coming in a couple of seasons. The new comp is supposed to be about a long-term initiative for the good of the game, not what happens season by season in rugby enclaves (one of the things the ARU hasn't understood or done anything about).
• Knox have a large side that could compete every week but would likely be mid/low table in any combined comp. They have a deeper pool and are less vulnerable to injuries. Despite this, tied with Waverley for CAS premiership last year, which would indicate that this may not hold true.
• The GPS competition looks like it will be highly competitive with all 6 teams showing pre season promise.
• Aside from Knox the CAS schools lack the volume of teams for school to school matches across all age groups. Waverley puts out 23 teams which stacks up pretty well I would have thought (perhaps light on in the opens). What should the minimum # of teams be in your opinion - based on that logic SJC may wonder why they're havign to compete with teams who can't match their volume.
• CAS supporters don't currently travel in great numbers to away matches. Whether this was simply because they were trials I don't know. But support seemed light. The lack of Waverley supporters for an historic match at Hunters hill was strange. Only rugby is playing this hybrid comp so all other CAS sports are in full swing - hence no other Waverley sports teams played SJC that day. Also there are no boarders who may stay to watch or whose parents may turn up to see their kids and stay behind to make a day of it and catch up with friends etc. You need to compare like with like and understand the context of the day.

So from a GPS perspective a combined competition would provide a couple of new sides with whom to compete but no new level of competition that isn't offered by the current GPS competitors.

We lose a terrific 10 match home and away format for a bigger one match comp against a couple of extra sides.
More than in previous seasons the closeness within the GPS teams would make for a mouth watering competition under the old format.
An unbeaten team would be most unlikely, every match would be against a team that is, at the very least, highly capable of an upset. No match could be taken for granted, even by the strongest sides.
The experiment has proved little need for a revised format.
GPS rugby is alive and well.
The best CAS boys will still get to throw their 'hat in the ring' for NSW spots in the GPS/CAS trial.
In truth they are assisted by the fact that they will be more settled as a team with the majority of players coming from just 2 schools rather than 6.
What exactly do we gain?
Still struggling to work this out.

 

[Wristman]

All valid points BrumbieJack.
For the record
Joeys runs 41 teams
Scots/ Shore/ Riverview all run 31-33 teams
Newington and Kings 26/27
So 23 teams is a bit lighter in numbers.
If rugby is in ascendancy at Waverley then there would be less of an issue as the numbers increase.
It's good to see Waverley doing so well.

 

[Azzuri]

So the pre season CAS/GPS trials are over and what have we learnt?......

The experiment has proved little need for a revised format.

GPS rugby is alive and well....

What exactly do we gain?.....
.

Nicely summarised with the superb dramatic effect of a rhetorical question Wristy!!! Bring back the 2016 format for all and stop giving into the whining self interested Henny Penny acolytes. The separate associations are not responsible for the decline of Rugby, Third world hunger or the shape of Billy Shorten's head.

The AAGPS and CAS ssociations were doing just fine as they were.

This poorly considered and executed change has produced nothing useful so IMO it's back to drawing board for 2018 and this time they need to come back with something that is more inclusive and creative than just having two well resourced private asssiciations playing a round of interminable trials before they go off and play in their respective sand pits.

'Theres been a truck load of debate on this and other threads with the idea of bringing back the separate association comps of 2016, wrapping up the season over one or two weekends of inter association (more than just CAS and the AAGPS) competion culminating in plate, cup and shield finals. Simple, Elegant, no fuss and no smell of methane!

 

[Rachet_84]

What should happen in NSW is the cas and gps comp winners play off against each other for NSW champion and then play the QLD counterparts for national schoolboys championship.

 

[CatchnPass]

Why would the best team in nsw necessarily be confined to GPS and CAS? Consideration should be given to including at least the ISA premiers in any play off for this title.

 

[Rachet_84]

Have any association you want but there should 100% be a national championship, they do it is schoolboys rugby league, but it is undertaken in pools.

Why would the best team in nsw necessarily be confined to GPS and CAS? Consideration should be given to including at least the ISA premiers in any play off for this title.

 

[sidelineview]

Rachet_84
Have any association you want but there should 100% be a national championship, they do it is schoolboys rugby league, but it is undertaken in pools.

That would heighten the interest in and exposure to schoolboy rugby. Crowning the State and National Schoolboy Champion 1st XV teams. What a buzz for the winning school. Definitely televise the National play off as a curtain raiser to a major game.

Waverley would have won it this year for sure ..... nah, only joking but yeah who knows, maybe.

Anyway, it's back to the drawing board.

Who made the decision to trial the GPS/CAS trial ''comp'' this season? Heads of Schools? Sports Masters? Definitely not Old Boys.

Feedback needs to go back to the individual schools concerning this season, and especially from Old Boys.

 

[CatchnPass]

Have any association you want but there should 100% be a national championship, they do it is schoolboys rugby league, but it is undertaken in pools.

Then we are in violent agreement

 

[sidelineview]

Just on the proposed National 1st XV Championship, wouldn't the Australian rugby public enjoy watching two schoolboy rugby teams competing and playing confident running rugby.

It's not the role of the schools to be the saviour of Australian rugby of course but more exposure to it wouldn't hurt anyone.

 

[RugbyFan14]

All valid points BrumbieJack.
For the record
Joeys runs 41 teams
Scots/ Shore/ Riverview all run 31-33 teams
Newington and Kings 26/27
So 23 teams is a bit lighter in numbers.
If rugby is in ascendancy at Waverley then there would be less of an issue as the numbers increase.
It's good to see Waverley doing so well.

Agree nothing to gain for the GPS schools. Benefit on the CAS side is pretty much just to Knox who with large enrollments in recent years struggle to get games. Knox have also invested heavily in rugby with professional coach, summer training, physio, etc. In effect Knox have fractured the CAS and now want help.

Waverley are very good this year, but a strong cyclical element. Barker usually strong but off the cyclical peak. Cranbrook at a cyclical low. Aloys at about their long run average and Trinity probably a little weaker than their average.

CAS has generally been content to see rugby as a co-curricular activity and not professionalize it like the GPS (coaching, recruiting, prominence in the school life, etc). Knox have gone down the GPS approach to rugby and find themselves as an outlier in the CAS.

 

[moa999]

Agree it probably most helps Knox due to their school size, though disagree that they've had a recent focus on rugby, it has always been pretty central. Waverley isn't that much smaller. But then numbers wise it's a big drop to the other CAS schools (particularly as Barker moves to full co-ed). While that doesn't necessarily guarantee a competitive 1st XV it helps, and certainly helps fill out the lower grades.

Also worth again noting that the 2-round GPS comp is a very recent development, only starting in 2013. Before then it was single round of 7 and mostly 8 teams with a 5-6 game pre-season that generally included the CAS schools.

And it's not like the 6-team GPS comp has always produced an even comp, or is guaranteed to in the future - ergo 2014 Scots 101 - New 0

 

[brumbiesrugby]

The trials aren't quite over. One more week this week. GPS competition doesn't commence until after the Long Weekend.

 

[Jim Belshaw]

I don’t have a clear answer to the questions raised on this thread. I do have strong perceptions. Biases if you like.
I came back into GPS rugby because TAS was playing in Sydney. I remember how at the first matches I was astonished by the size and speed of the boys. Herein lies a problem. Top level rugby has become a game that very few can play.

TAS came back into competition GPS rugby because the problems faced by Grammar and High had created a balance problem, one that continues and not only in the GPS comp. The creation of the official thirds comp was the answer, one that has been opposed by those who regard senior schools rugby as a game of the tops and who have little sympathy for the minnows.

This is reflected in much of the discussion in comp restructuring as though if we get a good and strong top comp it will somehow drag more players and spectators through. It won’t. It will just move rugby further towards the ghetto.

Rugby’s survival starts by giving kids of all ages and skills the chance to play the game enjoyably and at their level. If that’s not in place, changes to the top don’t matter a damn.

I said in a comment on the NSW GPS thread that I had been looking at past Armadalians. One thing I commented on was the difficulty of lower level TAS teams getting games. Still, things were a lot easier then.

To begin with, there was a local Armidale Wednesday afternoon schools comp involving TAS. High and De La. This was of a higher standard than I remembered. In some cases TAS was beating Sydney schools but losing in Armidale! Then both the Teachers College and University had teams that TAS could play at the higher grades. So add in out of town games including GPS, Warwick and Toowoomba schools plus senior club sides at the top levels and there was some competition. Even then, some TAS age teams had no-one to play with.

Today and unlike soccer, there are no, not one, local rugby teams that TAS can play against. Even though TAS rugby fights back through things like the very successful primary rugby carnival, it is still a rugby school, it is hard going. If TAS loses NSW GPS access, and some of the Sydney schools would appear to support that, then how long can rugby survive except as a diminishing minority sport? I think that there are now as many boys playing soccer as rugby.

I don’t have an answer to this, but I would suggest that we forget top comp arguments. As a an Old Armidalian, it doesn’t matter if TAS plays rugby or not. If hockey or soccer provides the bestpath for enjoyment and advancement for those who are good at sport, then so be it. But I also happen to be a rugby fanatic, so I would like rugby to survive. Top comp arguments will not do this.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

Spiro Zavos quoted from a letter he apparently received from a headmaster, possibly of a CAS or AAGPS school:

“I, like a number of GPS Headmasters, have been totally disillusioned with the approach to grassroots rugby, especially as we rightly consider ourselves to be ‘grassroots’ … Some years ago the GPS Headmasters did have a major attempt at communicating our frustrations and ideas for the future of schoolboy rugby to the ARU in a meeting with Bill Pulver and many of his staff, with the promise that there would be a follow up with us … we have not heard a word about the promised annual follow-up from the ARU since that time. In fact, our frustrations are now even more intense.”

It is possible that this frustration, the escalation of importance in the minds of some of winning rugby premierships and the schools being taken for granted lies behind the GPS reduction to a single round and the depowering of the overpowering influence of rugby in the schools.
That creates an intriguing situation for the ARU - they have lost sponsors, credibility and to some extent their talent identification and development wing in the last little while.

 

[Armchair Selector]

That creates an intriguing situation for the ARU - they have lost sponsors, credibility and to some extent their talent identification and development wing in the last little while.

One has to seriously wonder how the future of the executive and ARU Board is tenable. How much worse does it have to get before they fall on their sword?

I doubt that on any measure (other then their own) their performance would have been deemed acceptable.

Interesting to see a renewed interest in grass roots Rugby with strong crowds at Manly V Warringah and Norths V Gordon last weekend. Contrast this with the pronounced disinterest in Super Rugby albeit performance related.

Cant wait for the next chapter of Pulver V Papworth.......

 

[bigmac]

One has to seriously wonder how the future of the executive and ARU Board is tenable. How much worse does it have to get before they fall on their sword?

I doubt that on any measure (other then their own) their performance would have been deemed acceptable.

Interesting to see a renewed interest in grass roots Rugby with strong crowds at Manly V Warringah and Norths V Gordon last weekend. Contrast this with the pronounced disinterest in Super Rugby albeit performance related.

Cant wait for the next chapter of Pulver V Papworth...

My money on a papworth walkover. He is very impressive.

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[Quick Hands]

My money on a papworth walkover. He is very impressive.

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Not a term that you could ever use to describe Bill Pulver

 

[bigmac]

Not a term that you could ever use to describe Bill Pulver

Pulver has struggled esp with the force v rebels fiasco.

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[Azzuri]

One has to seriously wonder how the future of the executive and ARU Board is tenable. How much worse does it have to get before they fall on their sword?

I doubt that on any measure (other then their own) their performance would have been deemed acceptable.

Interesting to see a renewed interest in grass roots Rugby with strong crowds at Manly V Warringah and Norths V Gordon last weekend. Contrast this with the pronounced disinterest in Super Rugby albeit performance related.

Cant wait for the next chapter of Pulver V Papworth...

Ya gotta love when history repeats itself! .......

......"The fire, the conspiracy, the numerous insurrections, and the empty treasury led to Nero’s (Bill's) demise. The Senate declared him an enemy of the public and named Galba (AKA Papworth) as the new emperor. Realizing his days as emperor were over, Nero attempted suicide but failed and needed help to take his own life. His last words were: “What an (Bullshit) artist dies in me.”


Somewhat spooky resemblance if you ask me...

 

[Inside Shoulder]

One has to seriously wonder how the future of the executive and ARU Board is tenable. How much worse does it have to get before they fall on their sword?

I doubt that on any measure (other then their own) their performance would have been deemed acceptable.

Interesting to see a renewed interest in grass roots Rugby with strong crowds at Manly V Warringah and Norths V Gordon last weekend. Contrast this with the pronounced disinterest in Super Rugby albeit performance related.

Cant wait for the next chapter of Pulver V Papworth...

You need to preach to the heathens on the what next for super rugby thread - there is a real concern and a decidedly anti shute shield or an thing to do with Sydney bias.
I think they would rather the code folded completely than turned to the clubs for survival