NTS/Gold Squads

[I like to watch]

I would say, that if you are given the best 20 16yo players in the state, intensively train them 3 days a week for 2 years. you should have developed these 20 kids to a standard deviation above the rest(who did not have these advantages).

IMO the graduates of the NTS are not sufficiently better than the rest to justify continuing with the status quo.This is in no way a criticism of either Hugh or Manu who IMO are very good operators.It is more an acknowledgement of the dangers of trying to pick winners at 16yo.

I believe these sessions should be open to many more players. For example the weight sessions in most cases should be school based. NTS giving out specific programs to guys who don't have that facility at their school. mondays could be 9 & 10 specific skills days , Tuesday back 3 etc etc.
These guys have plenty of Rugby knowledge to pass on. I think their skills would be better utelised on a broader base.
When you look at the graduates, nearly all of them come from a known rugby School. so they are all exposed to good coaching in their schools programs, so a lot of what they do in NTS is a duplication of what is provided by their school.
It's the CHS & CCC & to a lesser extent ISA students who are in need of a program like NTS for their better/keener players.
spread the love, share it around more, broaden the base

 

[Rothschild]

barbarians quote should always be thrown back to the naysayers who rear their heads from time to time and say if they're good enough, they're old enough.
It is just one issue I have with the current development pathway in Australian rugby, which sees kids picking up S14 rookie contracts before they have even played a game of 1st grade.
Love it.

Couldn't agree more with that Lee, but until the upper management of rugby here in Aus lay down some sort of minimum age edict for s15 contracts, there will alwaysbe the odd situation where some school leaver is given a rookie or even full contract. What's the kid to do? Say no to such an offer - and probably never get one again.
There is too much hoarding of these players by the super clubs and i for one would love to see some sort of minimum age criteria then, in their 20th year they are part of a draft.
It will never happen as there are too many self interested parties involved.

 

[Iluvmyfooty]

Couldn't agree more with that Lee, but until the upper management of rugby here in Aus lay down some sort of minimum age edict for s15 contracts, there will alwaysbe the odd situation where some school leaver is given a rookie or even full contract. What's the kid to do? Say no to such an offer - and probably never get one again.
There is too much hoarding of these players by the super clubs and i for one would love to see some sort of minimum age criteria then, in their 20th year they are part of a draft.
It will never happen as there are too many self interested parties involved.

I believe that it is now not possible for the super franchises to sign up players straight out of school. The ARU, I believe, has instructed the franchises that players leaving school must play at least 2 years of club football before they are signed by a franchise. This does not stop the franchises from signing them to the various franchise Academies but they cannot be signed to a super contract

 

[Lee Grant]

So long as they don't get on the park in Super rugby too early I'm not too fussed. It won't stop teams warehousing young players but it's better than nothing.

 

[Rothschild]

I believe that it is now not possible for the super franchises to sign up players straight out of school. The ARU, I believe, has instructed the franchises that players leaving school must play at least 2 years of club football before they are signed by a franchise. This does not stop the franchises from signing them to the various franchise Academies but they cannot be signed to a super contract

Well it is what the ARU tried to decree and I applaud their stance. The reality is that it was a strong recommendation not a direct instruction so we still might see a couple sneak through the cracks. School to pro academy is only a half step to rookie contract and all of a sudden he is on the bench in the latter part of the season when injuries start to bite.

 

[TheTruth]

Well it is what the ARU tried to decree and I applaud their stance. The reality is that it was a strong recommendation not a direct instruction so we still might see a couple sneak through the cracks. School to pro academy is only a half step to rookie contract and all of a sudden he is on the bench in the latter part of the season when injuries start to bite.

Could only be the mirror and comb lads - the pigglets need to let balls drop and develop man strength to play with the big boys - otherwise tjhey will probably have confidence shattered if pitted too early. Think a great example is young PAE at Force - big strong (needs fitness but) - if he came up against Benn Robo he would be flogged flogged and flogged. Better to let him develop slowly.

 

[CTPE]

Pretty sure that the ARU has two junior programmes that run concurrently - the Junior Gold Regional Talent Centres (JGRTC) which operate in a number of locations in Sydney and larger regional country towns (formerly called T.I.P squads) and the Junior Gold Squad (JGS) -formerly NTS. From what I understand U14 and U15 players trial for selection in the JGRTC squads around September each year and then undertake once a week training/skills sessions with ARU development coaches during the off-season. They also attend a couple of camps where all the centres players come together in trial games against each other (in mid-summer!!).
Not totally sure how the JGS selection works but I think it's on recommendation from the ARU's "talent scout network" or perhaps from the ARU development coaches. In any event I understand that most of the players selected for the JGS are also members of the JGRTC squads but do separate JGS sessions in addition to those they do with the JGRTC squads.

 

[Malcsy]

As with most things in junior rugby, the JGS seems to be heavily weighted on the school attended rather than pure ability. Maybe it's because the exclusive schools get a greater proportion of the exposure due to the way ARU "scouts", which would make sense, but doesn't seem like a sensible platform for nurturing talent in Australian rugby. Admittedly many of the top Junior rugby clubs contain players who also attend exclusive schools, but there are a number of CHS, CCC and AICES boys who play at the top levels of club rugby but will be under-scouted, purely as a result of attending the "wrong" school. A number will be lost to League/other codes.

 

[observer]

I'm not too sure of this Malcsy. I can talk from a CHS point of view that there are 4 boys from the CHS team last year now in the Tahs academy. Perhaps that is higher than usual I'm not sure but if you make CHS you can be assured the scouts are watching.

 

[Iluvmyfooty]

As with most things in junior rugby, the JGS seems to be heavily weighted on the school attended rather than pure ability. Maybe it's because the exclusive schools get a greater proportion of the exposure due to the way ARU "scouts", which would make sense, but doesn't seem like a sensible platform for nurturing talent in Australian rugby. Admittedly many of the top Junior rugby clubs contain players who also attend exclusive schools, but there are a number of CHS, CCC and AICES boys who play at the top levels of club rugby but will be under-scouted, purely as a result of attending the "wrong" school. A number will be lost to League/other codes.

Rhys Dombkins, who is currently in NGS was selected to participate while attending Hunter Sports High in Newcastle. The players will be noticed if they are good enough irrespective of the school they attend

 

[F1Fan]

In my humble opinion the nts/jgs is a total closed shop and a crock. Show me a kid who's benefitted from the training demands of the program and I'll show you 10 who have been spat out the back end of it, got nought and are completely burnt out and not even playing rugby anymore. I am unsure of what the nts was actually called before it became the nts but it has been around in some way and funded by ARU for well over 10 years. In NSW, the program did not produce a Wallaby until Lachlan Turner made it. Would you believe Kurtley Beale, for all of his schoolboy dominance, was not in the squad? If you start with a narrow base, you definitely end up with a very thin apex. Hence why it has taken Robbie Deans 3 years to develop depth in our national team. The program does not and is specifically designed to not capture the late bloomer. It makes rock stars out of 15 year olds. Another little known fact, the nts had 3 players in its program in 2009 that they kicked out because they didnt think the players were up to it. Those players, in the same year, all made Australian Schools. They were Scott Sio, Jacob Woodhouse and Marcus Heather.

One last question I'd like to ask?
Why is it that all 'graduates' of the nts all end up at Sydney Uni? Is there a kick back to the coaches of nts? Who did the nts coaching staff play their rugby for?

Ok that was 3 questions.................but feel free to answer them

 

[Malcsy]

I'm not suggesting that nobody will get through, and I am sure the scouts are watching whenever a player gets selected for rep honours. It just seems that the weighting towards GPS/CAS and to a lesser extent ISA is not reflective of the talent out there in the wider pool because club rugby plays second fiddle. Personally, I think most of the top A grade Sydney club rugby sides in all age groups (which include boys from all school associations, but more weighted to the non exclusive schools) are a cut above GPS etc school rugby. Just an opinion though...

 

[F1Fan]

I'm not suggesting that nobody will get through, and I am sure the scouts are watching whenever a player gets selected for rep honours. It just seems that the weighting towards GPS/CAS and to a lesser extent ISA is not reflective of the talent out there in the wider pool because club rugby plays second fiddle. Personally, I think most of the top A grade Sydney club rugby sides in all age groups (which include boys from all school associations, but more weighted to the non exclusive schools) are a cut above GPS etc school rugby. Just an opinion though...

Gee, I dont like agreeing with you manly folk but you make some valid points here. In the past, Manu would just pick the nts squad out of the Sydney U15 side. By the time he got em into nts they were U16 and they would never play club rugby again. Why is that? Recently though, they've just picked the guts out of the GPS and CAS comps as you mentioned and dragged these kids in. The issue is, that young players and their parents are of the belief that if they dont get into nts then they wont become professional rugby players. It will never be proved that this opinion has been formed out of what they are told once they go behind the closed door, NTS bosses are too smart for that, but these people get that opinion from somewhere. So who's telling them?

 

[Drew]

The NTS is kind of like Australian cricket at present, the selectors only offer a priviledged few a chance and when they fail to perform the selectors stick with them to justify their original decision.

The injury issue is another thing, I know of a kid who was picked in the NTS a few years ago with schoolboys honours supposedly on his horizon, he stuffed his knee at their training and for the next two years in 1st XV struggled with the injury and failed to live up to his potential (or maybe it was other kids caught up to the kid in size and figured out tackling him wasn't so hard).

 

[Parra GM]

The NTS is kind of like Australian cricket at present, the selectors only offer a priviledged few a chance and when they fail to perform the selectors stick with them to justify their original decision.

I agree with a lot of comments in this thread but none more so than this.

 

[CTPE]

It seems there is a common view that selections for JGS (formerly NTS) are shrouded in a fair degree of mystery with players being selected on a recommendation basis by various sources.
The good thing about the JGRTC squads (formerly T.I.P squads) is that the trials are open to any boy who plays rugby, either for just club or just school, or both. I think that the ARU even sends all U14 and U15 registered players an email about it. The trialists are rated on a series of skills drills, speed and stamina testing as well as their performance in trial games before being allocated to one of the Regional Talent Centres. The selections are made not by school or junior rugby coaches but by ARU development officers who run the JGRTC programme. I understand that close to 100 boys from the Sydney area particpated in a recent January camp held at Campbelltown with the same number attending an earlier camp at Kings in October. Apparently merit teams of both U14s and U15s get selected at the end of the programme in February. These merit treams then play against other merit teams selected from other areas of NSW (eg South Coast, Country etc). You'd think that the best of these would then go on to the JGS but I don't know if that is the case as I think the JGS age squads actually get "selected" at the end of the club/schools rugby seasons (ie before the JGRTC trials aree held!!)
Whilst JGS selection is quite mysterious I think the JGRTC programme is a very good one as it draws from a very broad base and gives any boy who wants to get involved in higher level junior rugby the chance to do so.

 

[Malcsy]

CTPE, sorry mate while I respect what you are saying, I comfortably reckon that I could pick a XV from the non NTS guys to thrash the pants off the bottom echelon of the NTS guys... Actually, they would give the top notch a run for their money...

 

[Iluvmyfooty]

CTPE, sorry mate while I respect what you are saying, I comfortably reckon that I could pick a XV from the non NTS guys to thrash the pants off the bottom echelon of the NTS guys... Actually, they would give the top notch a run for their money...

Interesting. Lets see your sides

 

[observer]

I think there will be flaws in any merit type system and there will be kids close to selection but ultimately just miss out. In the end I think the selectors get it right most of the time. The two people most mentioned in connection with NTS/JGS are Hugh Carpenter and Manu Sutherland. I have met both and you wouldn't find any more capable or dedicated blokes. Carpenter has just been appointed head coach of the Waratahs Academy replaving Scott Bowen he is now the Tahs back coach.

My son has never been in the nts/jgs so I am looking at this impartially. Not a perfect system but I think they get it right most of the time.

I would also like to see Malcsy's teams.

 

[F1Fan]

I would say, that if you are given the best 20 16yo players in the state, intensively train them 3 days a week for 2 years. you should have developed these 20 kids to a standard deviation above the rest(who did not have these advantages).

IMO the graduates of the NTS are not sufficiently better than the rest to justify continuing with the status quo.This is in no way a criticism of either Hugh or Manu who IMO are very good operators.It is more an acknowledgement of the dangers of trying to pick winners at 16yo.

I believe these sessions should be open to many more players. For example the weight sessions in most cases should be school based. NTS giving out specific programs to guys who don't have that facility at their school. mondays could be 9 & 10 specific skills days , Tuesday back 3 etc etc.
These guys have plenty of Rugby knowledge to pass on. I think their skills would be better utelised on a broader base.
When you look at the graduates, nearly all of them come from a known rugby School. so they are all exposed to good coaching in their schools programs, so a lot of what they do in NTS is a duplication of what is provided by their school.
It's the CHS & CCC & to a lesser extent ISA students who are in need of a program like NTS for their better/keener players.
spread the love, share it around more, broaden the base

Amen!