elementfreak
Trevor Allan (34)
What an interesting week of rugby.
Not just in the DS, but a lot of the games were all high scoring/close affairs with at least 3 games around the grounds decided in minutes 75-80.
What an interesting week of rugby.
Who is Billy playing for?EH 28 - 25 PH (4 Trys 4 Con v 5 try 0 Con) Billy Gray had a shocker with the boot.
Who is Billy playing for?
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House.
I haven't been following the Dewar Shield at all, but that's a shame because he was pretty much Melbourne all his childhood.
Good to see him playing at such a high level though.
Maybe that's it, to play at the high level he needed to look outside the norm and go to a club that would play him regularly.
(There's also a link between BG and PH that might have factored into the decision)
There's been a lot of equally talented 10/15s in Victoria that were not in their club's 1st XV first year out of school.
Melbourne do not have as good of a record of developing locals as they do getting opportunities for imports. Not judging, just saying that if I was 18 and wanting to play 1st XV but likely to play games in Colts too, I wouldn't go there.
They bring it through but get it once it has been largely developed elsewhere. The draw card for Quine is their tap to the Rebels and the coaching structure that they have attracted to the club. They're similar to the Vikings in Canberra.
It does cause an imbalance but no one will stop it. If you coach another club you just have to hope there are some kids out there wanting to play rugby..
I found this comment about Quins interesting so I thought I would do some digging - I don't have any strong affiliation to any one club but go to a number of Quins games just for the style of rugby they play. I rang Brock Parker their rugby supremo and simply asked him the origin of the 21 players listed for the Rd 8 Dewar Shield game V End Hills tomorrow. And to my surprise, and in quite a contradiction to your comments Pablo - 7 are Quins Juniors (1/3rd of the team) out of the 21, including that 7 a total of 12 came through Quins Colts - though Brock did state 2 of those were juniors from other clubs, 1 from Northern who at the time had no Colts or Senior rugby teams and one from End Hills when EH had no Colts team for him to play in so he came to Quins. That really doesn't sound like a club that "has talent developed elsewhere" - I can't imagine too many other teams in Victoria having 7 Juniors in their 1st Grade. Brock also pointed out to me that over the last 5 years Quins has grown to be the largest Junior club in the state - 7-8 years ago they were struggling to field 5 Junior teams and losing all their best players to surrounding clubs when the dreaded Private School years kicked in but due to a strategic plan the club adopted now boast 12 Junior teams through to U18 and last year won the VRU Top Junior Club Award, so he asked me if this sounded like a club that didn't develop their own talent - he didn't deny they would always welcome and try to attract the best talent but said what club doesn't.
I'll be honest mate, I don't buy a lot of this. It's at best a very rosey viewpoint and at worst a misrepresentation.
The Endeavor Hills boy who 'moved over because they had no colts' is a pretty out there comment, considering the reason Endeavor had no colts was because Quins and Melbourne took all the key players on, with renumeration. This is similar to the Northern players, though like you said they don't have a senior program (though they have a Colts this year, and Quins still took players from them that're Colts aged).
If you read my above posts I'm not out to get Quins, but I feel like this is an insider (not you, the bloke you spoke to) framing it in the most positive light possible.
Even counting through the 1st 23 man squad, 7 juniors is generous if you're aware of the individuals' circumstances.