Snort
Nev Cottrell (35)
A couple of years back, I discussed on this site the question of how to handle the problem of the GPS competition. My proposal then was that, if you were starting from scratch, you'd build a conference system. That system wouldn't be based upon how strong this year's 1st XV is, but on a variety of factors, the most important of which would be the number of teams in a school's Rugby programme, and the school's aspirations for its Rugby programme. So, let's say you're a school with six teams in each age group, and aspirations to produce players who will bcome professionals, and (to that end) an active recruitment policy, then you can go off and compete with the big boys. If you have a lot of teams but you think recruitment is the devil's own work, and you can't match the stronger schools without it, you go to the next conference. If you think that Rugby is a healthy, character-building exercise that boys should stop playing once they start studying to be doctors, you go into the equivalent of the Ivy League. I'm being flippant, of course, but the idea is to get people playing against each other who have similar ideas about what Rugby should be at school level. In 1899, that was what happened when Scots played Shore. Not this year.
Of course, it wouldn't be a perfect system. Of course, you can pick holes in the idea. More to the point, it won't happen, not in our lifetimes, because tradition binds the GPS to a model which has ceased to serve its purpose. Look, Shore is a great Rugby school. Michael Hawker, Mick Mathers, Phil waugh, David Codey, Al Baxter... how many Wallabies? And they've lost, what? A dozen or more GPS 1st XV games on the trot. That's not a "cycle", it's a philosophy playing itself out.
Actually, there is a conference system of sorts in place already - the GPS competition has two tiers within it. Maybe one day Shore and someone else will drop down to the lower tier, and GPS can remain in its own little world, two four-team competitions.
Some people seem to think the answer is to ban recruitment. But (without wishing to veer off onto that other thread), sports scholarships are banned already, and look how well that works. So I rather doubt that it's the answer.
It would be nice to see the GPS Headmasters get together and show some ledership on this. I'm not holding my breath, though.
Of course, it wouldn't be a perfect system. Of course, you can pick holes in the idea. More to the point, it won't happen, not in our lifetimes, because tradition binds the GPS to a model which has ceased to serve its purpose. Look, Shore is a great Rugby school. Michael Hawker, Mick Mathers, Phil waugh, David Codey, Al Baxter... how many Wallabies? And they've lost, what? A dozen or more GPS 1st XV games on the trot. That's not a "cycle", it's a philosophy playing itself out.
Actually, there is a conference system of sorts in place already - the GPS competition has two tiers within it. Maybe one day Shore and someone else will drop down to the lower tier, and GPS can remain in its own little world, two four-team competitions.
Some people seem to think the answer is to ban recruitment. But (without wishing to veer off onto that other thread), sports scholarships are banned already, and look how well that works. So I rather doubt that it's the answer.
It would be nice to see the GPS Headmasters get together and show some ledership on this. I'm not holding my breath, though.
