Australian Schoolboys & National Championships 2012

[Brian Westlake]

Indeed, including some injured players, who missed the Oz Championship, like 2nd rowers Tom Staniforth of Canberra Grammar and Josh Schwager of Joeys (who can also play no.8).

Apart from Rorke, the Oz Schools 2nd row is lacking something IMO - not so much in lineout expertise, diligence, general skill or even work rate - but in physique, toughness and bloody-mindedness.
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Why not look at ManBearPig in the second row? Its obvious that someone somewhere wants him in a team. he not a front rowers b*& hole so why not put him in the double bum lounge?
Aside from him if Bertie Hemopo doesn't get the contract, Matt Phillips from Augs, or Mick Gunns From Churchie? That lad has more than plenty of mongrel and a fair amount of heart too. A lot of the boys mentioned earlier could show his ticker.

 

[lily]

Tepai Moeroa and Taane Milne have both been named in a NSW 17's development team to play an England Academy team at the NSWIS on the 25th of July.

 

[Lee Grant]

Which code?

 

[Lee Grant]

Why not look at ManBearPig in the second row?

What's his real name?

 

[lily]

Which code?

Rugby League.

 

[Brian Westlake]

What's his real name?

Pryor Lee from Newington is ManBearPig. Robertson is ManSwine. Mustn't confuse them. Actually you can't confuse them

 

[Hugh Jarse]

Manbearpig is a reference from South Park.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manbearpig

The young'uns have their own set of nicknames for players, same as us old folks. They do not always align.

Al Gore's manbearpig as shown above would be better suited in the second row or at #8.

 

[Lee Grant]

Rugby League.

They both look more like league players don't they? To be fair to Milne he didn't get a fair shake in the Oz tournament having to play on the wing when he's only a 12 in our sport IMO, though playing 13 for New. Moeroa looks like nothing except a league player recruited to play rugby union.

Stewart is the league recruit I would like to keep most in the union code. I think he has a future as a 12 as a senior player.

lily - apart from the two you mentioned, and Natoli, which of the Oz Schools and Oz A Schools players from NSW have had rep connections with league in the past (or present) and are likely to sign in that code, or have already? Is Stewart safe for union - or apparently so?

Anybody got the same info about the Queenslanders in the two Oz teams?

[For those who think such info may prejudice the chances of the lads to be selected for the Oz Schools tour: I have been assured by the ASRU that no regard is paid to what the lads may or may not do after they leave school, or if they have signed with the other code already, or may sign. This was done in the past but they found that it was counter-productive.]
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[lily]

I like what Michael MacDougall chose to do. If you can, play 2 years of league, where firstly you will be payed and this will also give you the opportunity to train fulltime. That's a win win situation for mine. Surely the player will not lose too much by not playing a year of colts and possibly grade.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

Some food for thought for the Organisers of the Championships.

Source is http://schoolstribune.com/lamentable-state-of-affairs-in-aussie-schools-rugby-p648-1.htm

The article is entitled
Lamentable State of Affairs in Aussie Schools Rugby

SYDNEY, NSW (15/07/12) - In a fortnight that SRT has had a wealth of media releases, event advertisements, high resolution photos and almost anything we could ask for, at our disposal to cover the Coca-Cola Youth Weeks in South Africa, (courtesy of an officially appointed publicist), the administrators of schools rugby at the highest level in Australia have come across as a laughing stock comparatively. The contrast could not be more stark.

Just this past week David Campese (now resident in South Africa) lamented that 'if only Australia had an equivalent of the Craven Week'. Well, Campo, we do! The fact that you yourself seemingly did not know that the Australian National Schools Rugby Championships had just concluded, shows just how poorly these events were promoted to the general public.

In addition to the Australian Nationals Schools Rugby Championships, two Internationals (Australia Schools A' vs Tonga on Tuesday and then Australia Schools vs Tonga on Saturday) were played, yet, to the best of our knowledge, not a single media release was issued (certainly we have not received one, nor have we seen anything in the mainstream media).

The ASRU website, whilst showing the results, does not have any match reports, photos or anything that could be used by the media (assuming they would even take a look). Surely these events are of sufficient importance to warrant a dedicated effort to provide the media with releases to cover the events? And if these events are not considered important enough, then what is?

The mainstream media interest in rugby does not extend beyond the Wallabies and Super Rugby. Anything below that flies way below the radar, but that does not mean that those charged with marketing the game should give up! That is the very reason Schools Rugby Tribune came into existence. Yet, how does anyone expect the media to start covering schools rugby, unless the effort comes from those charged with promoting the game?

Super Rugby crowd attendance has a highly elastic correlation with the fortunes of teams. The Waratahs, a decade ago, attracted an average of around 34,000, now it barely gets 20,000.

The ARU / ASRU efforts (or lack thereof) in marketing the elite schools rugby events speaks of people that either no longer 'believe' in the cause, or alternatively are embracing the 'rah-rah' private school paradigm whereby rugby represents the elite in society.

One can expect and accept that private schools sports associations will do little to promote rugby, after all, rugby is not their 'raison d'être'. But surely the rugby authorities ought to?

Oh, just in case you wondered, Australia A defeated Tonga Schools by 29-5, and Australia beat Tonga by 70-13.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

Gaggerlands very own Uncle Lee gets a special (positive) mention under this title,
Aussie Champs; Disgraceful Media Disregard
http://schoolstribune.com/aussie-champs-disgraceful-media-disregard-p623-1.htm

SYDNEY, NSW (3/07/12) - Unfortunately SRT does not have a reporter on the ground at the Australian U18 Rugby Championships that kicked-off at St Ignatius College in Sydney on Monday. Thus far the Australian Schools Rugby Union's website shows no results or reports on Day One.

This contrasts vividly with the Coca-Cola Youth Weeks in South Africa, which employs professional public relations companies that provide regular media releases, reports, results and photos. It is a disgraceful situation that the Australia's leading youth rugby tournament is held in such low esteem by its own administrators and indicative of the problems the code faces in this country.

For the moment, we have to rely on the only source of information on schools rugby in this country (other than SRT itself) and that is the Green and Gold Forum.

The following match reports were written on the forum by Lee Grant.

...snip...

 

[stem]

Gaggerlands very own Uncle Lee gets a special (positive) mention under this title,
Aussie Champs; Disgraceful Media Disregard
http://schoolstribune.com/aussie-champs-disgraceful-media-disregard-p623-1.htm

And so it should be....Lee shines as a beacon in terms of fair and unbiased reporting.
More importantly ..Whats with the orange font quotations as footnotes on comments???....am I missing something? OR seeing something I should not???
Finally I could not agree more ...Disregard is too soft a term....at the elite level we are incredibly predictable and boring...why would the media show any interest. And so to Schoolboys....
IMO the lack of interest in Rugby Union at the present time is a function of boring pedantic unimaginative nervous and scared coaches demanding from young impressionable players a structured, safe, conservative, game-plan
focused purely on their personal goal..........to obtaining the 4 points for a win.
free spirits should be allowed to express themselves for better or worse.
Are we in fact stifling the raw talent???

 

[Lee Grant]

Its unfair to compare the interest in rugby in the two countries at any level, including the school level.

Both countries have 'soccer' but imagine if the RSA had 15 professional rugby league teams and 18 South African Rules teams, their 5 Super teams and no other senior rugby apart from amateur club rugby [because the rugby market isn't big enough to finance a Currie Cup etc].

Imagine also that these sports have about the same proportionate following in both the general public and in the schools.

Would Craven Week then have any more impact than our Opens and U/16 National Schools tournaments have?

I don't think so either.
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[Hugh Jarse]

I acknowledge that we can not match the Darkness or Saffers with crowd numbers and televised schoolboy games like is claimed elsewhere but you have to admit that the media coverage from the National championships was pretty poor.

But for the G&GR on-the-spot contingent, almost nothing would be known about the tournament.

ARU allegedly commit $100k to running the Championships. You would think that they would want some decent media exposure and good news stories from that investment. It doesn't take too much to prepare media packs, home town stories, posting of timely and up to date results, player profiles etc, etc.

On a seperate but related issue, I also get sick of the Saffer and Darkness attitude about how much more committed they are to Heavensgame than us. Lee has already thrown some figures out there about the number of professional sports teams we support in the Sunburnt Country.

Routine club mungo crowds are around 15000-20000 average. Routine Cross Country Volleyball crowds are around 40000 average with plenty of games topping 80000 spectators. In terms of sports watched and supported by the average Nigel Nobody in Australia, we are right up there with the best of them.

Rugby is a minority niche sport in Australia, and yet we have won Bill twice, and are perennial #2 IRB rank. Not bad.

 

[barbarian]

Surely it would not be too much to organise someone to take a couple of snaps of each game and write a report or two.

FFS I do that for my subbies club each weekend, and it only takes about an hour out of my Sunday to get it all published and online.

Plus they have an army of schoolkids at their disposal, some of whom would no doubt enjoy the exposure and experience that comes from being the sole correspondent for a fairly prominent sporting event.

The Austschools website is a shambles. It is clear they aren't trying to drive interest in Aussie Schools rugby. They just do the bare minimum every year, sometimes less. What about setting up a twitter account to update scores live, and selections at the end of the final day. Surely it's not that hard!
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[Inside Shoulder]

Surely it would not be too much to organise someone to take a couple of snaps of each game and write a report or two.

FFS I do that for my subbies club each weekend, and it only takes about an hour out of my Sunday to get it all published and online.

Plus they have an army of schoolkids at their disposal, some of whom would no doubt enjoy the exposure and experience that comes from being the sole correspondent for a fairly prominent sporting event.

The Austschools website is a shambles. It is clear they aren't trying to drive interest in Aussie Schools rugby. They just do the bare minimum every year, sometimes less. What about setting up a twitter account to update scores live, and selections at the end of the final day. Surely it's not that hard!
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Isn't this the price we pay for the independence (as shown by Lee's info concerning indifference to the kids post school intentions) from the ARU?....or am I being naive in thinking that ARU involvement would improve publicity?
I presume that the ASRU is run by teachers looking to justify student free days....or am I being too cynical? If so its not that surprising that there's no PR etc. The way the media is these days they could write their own stuff - promos, match reports and photos - and someone would publish them online because free content is good content.
Frankly all the websites run by verve are pretty ordinary: the village club sites, NSWJRU, Sydney JRU. its no that hard!
Having said that there are DVD and photos mentioned in their site: http://austschools.rugbynet.com.au/

 

[Lee Grant]

The ASRU operates on a shoestring budget: they even held the Div I and Div II competitions together for the first time in 12 years to save money. Most of the people who run the thing: selectors, coaches etc, are school teachers or ex-teacher volunteers. I'm guessing that the ARU provides stuff like looking after travel and the nuts and bolts that are normally done from an office.

Their brief is to run the competition not to do the stuff we want to happen. I'm sure they wouldn't mind if the ARU did some media stuff on the games but they don't have a staff or such to do such things. I'll ask about that during the U/16 competition to confirm all of that.

I expect I will get a smile if I ask to see the media liaison person. At Riverview I was closest to being a media guy - asking for the team sheets every day. After a while I got my own stack with "M" written on it and there was another stack: "S" for the selectors.

The Tahs provided a media release after the Tonga "test" including a few photos from Seiser photography, and it mentioned the tournament the week before. It was all from a NSW angle, of course.

http://www.waratahs.com.au/News/NewsArticle/tabid/157/ArticleID/7182/Default.aspx

For all I know the ARU sent media releases out also.

I guess my point is to blame the ARU, not the teachers from the ASRU.
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[Newbie]

They both look more like league players don't they? To be fair to Milne he didn't get a fair shake in the Oz tournament having to play on the wing when he's only a 12 in our sport IMO, though playing 13 for New. Moeroa looks like nothing except a league player recruited to play rugby union... ... ... ... ... ...

LG (and others),

A point I have been banging on about for a while in this site is the ability of league to compliment and enhance the skills of good rugby players (and vice versa), especially with respect to defence and sheer toughness! As 'Lily' often and effectively (and quite rightly) states, "junior representative league players tend to invest some skin in the games they play!"

I don't disagree with your point that Moeroa 'NOW' looks like a league player, however I strongly disagree with your view that he has been recruited from league to play rugby! From my understanding Moeroa has been playing league and rugby concurrently since he was 12 (perhaps even earlier). It is also my understanding that he has always had a preference for rugby and I believe his representative honours also suggests this to be the case.

Moeroa's undoing as far as rugby has been concerned is how Parramatta (being the Eels) have developed him in the last 3 years. Let me explain. Moeroa was selected in the powerhouse Parra HMC side of 2010, which IMO was a most exceptional feat as he was selected a year young (i.e. U/15) but such was his talent. During the HMC competition that year he was selected at full-back and therefore had ample opportunity to do what he did best; run openly a freely!

Come 2011 suddenly Moeroa is playing in the forwards; I was mystified and bewildered with this decision, moreso with those looking after the lad for allowing it to happen. For those not conversant in the positional play of league, Moeroa was suddenly turned into a 'crash ball- smash it up - league drone', difference being he could actually pass! IMO such a move was akin to de-skilling. Suddenly the lad was bulking up (as is required when playing in the forwards) and was losing a yard of pace!

Now here we are in 2012 and it is noticeable that Moeroa has lost that rugby flair that he used to possess in abundance not more that two years ago. IMO a good junior player (until he has to elect) can transition across both codes to extent that the positions in both codes are quasi-congruent (e.g., centre to centre). Where the conflict arises (and ultimate and consequential detriment) is when the respective positions are incompatible and/or incongruent as in Moeroa's case!

Dual code young'uns take note!

 

[Lee Grant]

I don't disagree with your point that Moeroa 'NOW' looks like a league player, however I strongly disagree with your view that he has been recruited from league to play rugby! From my understanding Moeroa has been playing league and rugby concurrently since he was 12 (perhaps even earlier). It is also my understanding that he has always had a preference for rugby and I believe his representative honours also suggests this to be the case.

I stand corrected Newbie. It's a pity if his union skills have been depreciated by league participation, but I haven't seen much else from him but crash ball play. Mind you: I have seen him just in the last couple of years. You could see his ability in the Oz Tournament Final when he made a long break and dished out for the try, but those incidents were uncommon to someone like me, who saw him infrequently, and only this year and last.

By the bye: he reminds me of another schoolboy player, a while ago now: Lloyd Johansson, and I always thought he had a bigger future in the 13 man code.
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[CTPE]

Newbie

Moeroa has still got a reasonable amount of toe for his size....I'd like to see him play at 13 rather than as a "crash" 12 as I'm sure that little extra bit of time and space would enable him to redevelop his footwork and also bring back what once was an awesome fend.