• Welcome to the Green and Gold Rugby forums. As you can see we've upgraded the forums to new software. Your old logon details should work, just click the 'Login' button in the top right.

Australian Schoolboys & National Championships 2009

Status
Not open for further replies.
R

rugbywhisperer

Guest
I will try my best to do a report for Monday's game at TSS. We have one of the Kiwi's billeting with us so i might try and get some stuff on their team as well.
 

Lance Free

Arch Winning (36)
Lee Grant said:
spectator said:
Ballymore the place to be next Friday 9th after work. OZ v. NZ schoolboys, looking forward to it.

Will look forward to your report speckie.

Lee - I'm doing a match review of this game for the website; looks like Ballymore is the place to be. Looking forward to your take on the match Speckie?

Shame about Joe O'Regan - he's our club hooker and a real tough cookie. Better news about Mitch Felsman who's our fullback - ultra talented and a real nice young bloke with it.

Some other games this week are the Queensland club U15 and U17 teams travel to Rat Park in Warringah (Sat 3.00pm) and Woollhara Oval (Sun 12.15pm) for matches against their NSW and ACT counterparts respectively. Lots of Queensland Schoolboys Opens players in the U17 team and age grade schoolboy reps from previous years.

Most of the club players play GPS (State High, Churchie, BGS, BBC)or AIC for school. Cayden Matahaere (Nudgee) has been added to the side now that he's not required by Oz.

The teams were selected after Brisbane City v Queensland Country games on the weekend.

The difference with the club side is it's from an U17 competition, so many schoolboys players (U18s) from those competitions are ineligible.

The teams are at:

http://www.redsrugby.com.au/library/news/2009/090928_qjru_teams_announced,69885.html

PS My avatar is still missing and I can't get beyond 22 Sept on the blog.....still!
 
T

TOCC

Guest
i was just watching some of the schoolboys clips on youtube...

jeez Kimamai Situata looks the goods
 

Lee Grant

John Eales (66)
Staff member
Toldya so.

I have mentioned that he plays like a young Lote Tuqiri and somebody took me to task.

I think I'm right. I'd like to see him trying to get away from a real fast player though. He looks fast but don't think he is young Tuqiri fast.
 
T

TOCC

Guest
cant say i saw much tuqiri in him..

the bloke has speed, great balance, nice footwoork and a nice fend...

you could probably liken those qualities to the majority of wings that have come through in the past 10 years
 

Lee Grant

John Eales (66)
Staff member
TOCC said:
cant say i saw much tuqiri in him..

the bloke has speed, great balance, nice footwoork and a nice fend...

you could probably liken those qualities to the majority of wings that have come through in the past 10 years

Thanks for posting that Utube link TOCC.


I don't know how much of the young Tuqiri you saw when he joined the Broncos, but obviously not a lot.


Kimami Situata's play is a dead ringer for that of young Lote in my book and the footage confirms it IMO though footage of a few of the incidents when he ran over people during the tournament week would make it even more obvious. Mind you, I have seen him only in 5 complete games - the 4 at the Oz Schools tournament and the test v Tonga.


I'm not saying that Kimami Situata is as good as Lote was when he joined the Broncs, though his footwork is better, and nor can I compare him to Lote at exactly the same age as I didn't see Lote as a schools league player. We will have to agree to disagree.


Situata passed a couple of times in that footage (for those who don't know: he was wearing the 11 Reds jersey) and that was about half of the passes he made the whole week. He's a bit of a hog, but that can be fixed.


The other winger, the 14 Chris Feauai (as he is now called) did a couple of good things on that tape). As I have mentioned before: he will still be at school next year. Handy.
 
C

chief

Guest
Ahhh well heard a few rumours from very reliable people, very reliable. We will probably be seeing Chris Sautia at school until 2011. Repeating. Will certainly boost the BSHS First XV side in 2011 mind you its still 2 years away.
 

Lance Free

Arch Winning (36)
Rat Park, Warringah today:

U17s Queensland 20 NSW 11.

Queensland U15s also defeated their NSW equivalent (don't know the score).

Apparently conditions were very poor.
 
R

rugbywhisperer

Guest
Word from a couple of insiders suggest that Chris Sautia nex year will be reverting to his previous 13 spot for school games.
Interesting to say the least.
 
C

chief

Guest
Its looking increasingly like that, and Curtis Browning will probably take out the number 8 position except he'll probably still be a jumper for school.
 
T

TOCC

Guest
Lee, thats fine we will agree to disagree, but before jumping to conclusions of how much i saw of Lote as a young bloke, i must admit i was broncos season holder up until 2000, for me i used to prefer the Broncos over the Reds..

All im saying is that Kimani shows similar traits to all schoolboy wingers who have come through in past years, they are big, good balance, fast and have good field positioning


IMO there best attributes
Young Tuqiri: speed, strength
Kimamai: Footwork, strength
 

Lee Grant

John Eales (66)
Staff member
Fair enough - I thought you said that you couldn't see much of young Tuqiri in him and I do - and I would add fending off players and running over people and ball hogging to the attributes of both players. Yeah, let's disagree and move on.


chief said:
Its looking increasingly like that, and Curtis Browning will probably take out the number 8 position except he'll probably still be a jumper for school.

Ahaa - Yep - he certainly looks like a no.8 playing in the 2nd row. His game in the final of the Oz Schools tournament was a tour de force of no.8 play, but he couldn't pick the ball up from the back of the scrum because he was playing officially in the second row. :)

From this years crop of schoolboy forwards there are a lot more valid candidates for starting Super15 spots down the track than I can remember in one year: 7. Liam Gill, 6 Luke Jones, 3 Paul Alo-Emile, 5 Greg Peterson, 8 Curtis Browning, 8 Jarrad Butler, and 7 Michael Hooper. The last two mentioned were crocked this year and didn't play in the schools tournament and may not even be fit for the EOYT, but you have to add them into the mix.

As usual, one has to add a disclaimer that they become big enough men with bodies that can sustain training loads and collisions, and that they can take their game to senior rugby and then to pro rugby. Apart from a question of the future size of the 7s, I'd back them all to become future Super15 starters, though I hope they are not chucked into the arena as early as some backs have been in recent years.
 
R

rugbywhisperer

Guest
lee if you could find a way to stop the rushing of players up the ranks I would love to hear it
 
T

TOCC

Guest
^^
stop the hemorrhaging of professional players in the 21-24yr old age bracket, it seems as though our S14 teams are to willing to discard the players in the 21-24yr old age bracket if they havent nailed down starting positions.

I know in many cases its also a situation where the players decided to chase the money overseas, but there have also been plenty of cases where the players themselves have had there hand forced and had to leave.
 
R

rugbywhisperer

Guest
I do agree. This has come about partly as a resultof the numbers of youngsters willing to take a step up.
I still maintain there should be a minimum age for 'starting' a super game - be it 20 or 21.
It will be interesting next year I believe. There will be an under 21/ or 20 series between the Aus and NZ provinces and this will give valuable game time and experience to these kiddies.
I still reckon SNZAR has to find a way to run a parallel u20 tournament with the S15 - and have a min age limit on the big mans game - if for nothing more than to give an apprenticeship to the young players before they get burnt out by rushing them up too early.
If beale, Cooper, O'Connor and many more had been allowed to develop their game free of the big pressure I am sure they would have turned out to be far better, mature and confident players than what we are witnessing at the moment.
I did a stat report earlier this year and in Aus -our s14 yeams on average were 4 years younger than NZ or SA, our youngest players were younger and we had more under 21 players that NZ or SA.
Very rarely do NZ or SA rush their young talent - they have great platforms for them to develop their games - and we don't.
 

RugbyReg

Rocky Elsom (76)
Staff member
and U20 tournament is a good concept. I'd prefer they all had to play 30 club games of so (just over a season) before being eligile for S15 selection.
 
R

rugbywhisperer

Guest
I will nominate that for a comment/suggestion of the year -
 

RugbyReg

Rocky Elsom (76)
Staff member
its why, unfortunately, private equity ownership of the S15 teams won't be great for rugby. The QRU and NSWRU etc need to realise that the Reds/Waratahs aren't their only marketable property. Their club program is a big scope for growing the game, profile-wise. If they can get the talent playing. So instead of throwing Beale and Cooper straight into the S14, let them play a season of club and promote the hell out of it! "Schoolboy superstar playing this weekend around the corner from you -free of charge" type stuff.

Private equity won't allow that. They'll just want the best players.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top