ARU Junior Gold Cup - National Junior Championships

[Gary Owen III]

When I stump up for Club fees, or Reps or the like they can usually give me a breakdown of the costs, ie Insurance cost pp, shorts, Jumper, socks, Affiliation fee pp, extras etc. There is almost $0 cost for labour (admin, coaching or managing) because most time is donated voluntarily, and transport is by participant arrangements.

What will the families actually be paying for in Junior Gold Cup?
The Coaches, Managers and Centre administrators positions are being advertised as voluntary positions, so there should not be too much in the way of labour costs to pass on.

How many kids in a centre? 30? $10k divided by 30 participants is $333. This could push the cost up to over $900 per person if the sponsor money is not found.

I thought the deal was that if sponsor money could be found, the cost per participant would be reduced by the amount of sponsor $.

With both U15 and U17 based at each centre, wouldn't the numbers be 60 players per centre?

 

[Hugh Jarse]

They'd be foolish to scrap this after a year even if it costs $1.5 million a year. It's something they need to support and look to grow. I've said this on other threads, but, I wouldn't mind if they chose to forego any movement toward a 3rd Tier if they chose to further resource this structure and look to introduce a U20s level but with likely less teams (12).

Every measure must be taken to broaden the participant pyramid, particularly in the early and mid teenage years. This is more important IMHO than developing a better pathway from adult club footy to International Professional footy (AKA the third tier). Listen to the Jesuits. Enough of the heavy hitters of the rugby underworld have been product of a sound education based on Jesuit principles.

The nonsense happening with Scots and Scholarships just shows how vulnerable ARU to the whims of a very small number of private schools in Sydney and Brisbane for development of their future elite and for overall participant numbers.

I think that the organisers have missed the mark a little in that regard with only making provision for 4 centres in Sydney for U15. I reckon that will be heavily oversubscribed, whereas the country centres will be underdone for talent. Come the actual tournament, the country centres will struggle to compete with the concentration of talent in the Metro teams. The NSW country rep teams struggle to be competitive at NSW State champs, and the City talent pool is dispersed across 9-12 District rep teams.

I'd imagine the situation would be repeated in Queensland.

In the Under 17's, have we gone for too much too soon? With the warehousing of talent in the Schools system, the numbers at State Champs drops off significantly in this age group. Kids in Open grade at rugby schools are often committed to preseason rugby or normal summer sports programmes and would probably struggle to participate in the JGC.

If this is a pitch for kids from loig in the West and South in the U17 age group, that would be awesome, but is Rugby aware that loig is very heavily subsidised, and there is a bit of a cargo cult mentality that may baulk at having to shell out $600 to participate in the JGC.

I hope I am wrong, but I am not getting a good vibe about the whole shebang. There is not all that much talk or excitement about it on the sidelines and that worries me.

The first year may be sub-optimal and I fear that there may not be the determination to give it a good 3-5 years to establish itself, before the beancounters with the budget hoover strike and pull funding from JGC in order to restock the ARU boardroom cellar.

 

[Aurora Australis]

Next years 2014 u17 just finished their national titles.
this must be a good opportunity to check "KPIs" of the selection process and delivery of JGS and NGS programs what ever they may be.

Will the students of the NGS program be expected to apply for this in support of this important ARU initiative, will they be designated to a district as part of the NGS programme I would think it would be important for the ARU to be seen to be supporting its own initiatives.

or is there already pockets of vested interest that means sharing the toys wont happen

 

[Hugh Jarse]

I think NGS will remain separate from the JGC programme, at least in the short term.

NGS generally contains Year 11 (U17) and Yr 12 (U18) boys. These boys are nearly all in 1st XV at their school or playing Colts 1 or 2 if their school does not have a rugby programme. The physicality of these games would generally preclude them from backing up on Sunday in Junior clubland. U17 JGC is attempting to retain players on the Junior Club pathway.

Snout tells me that there will be a national gathering of JGC coaches in Sydney on 20 October, so the machine is gathering momentum.

 

[Brainstrust]

I think NGS will remain separate from the JGC programme, at least in the short term.

NGS generally contains Year 11 (U17) and Yr 12 (U18) boys. These boys are nearly all in 1st XV at their school or playing Colts 1 or 2 if their school does not have a rugby programme. The physicality of these games would generally preclude them from backing up on Sunday in Junior clubland. U17 JGC is attempting to retain players on the Junior Club pathway.

Snout tells me that there will be a national gathering of JGC coaches in Sydney on 20 October, so the machine is gathering momentum.

HJ, I am hearing that the ARU will have the NGS boys that are eligible to play , playing? The NGS will most likely reduce its face to face time with those boys each week from 3 days to 1 or 2 days so they can participate in their JGC squads. Also From what I can gather the timing around 15 and 17 age groups creates a platform 1year ahead of Harold mats and then provides the same window between Harold and sg ball... The ARU are doing their best to start somewhere to try and engage players from outside the code, as well as offer a more meaningful pathway to the current junior players in rugby. Hopefully their pockets are deep enough..

 

[the baz]

They'd be foolish to scrap this after a year even if it costs $1.5 million a year. It's something they need to support and look to grow. I've said this on other threads, but, I wouldn't mind if they chose to forego any movement toward a 3rd Tier if they chose to further resource this structure and look to introduce a U20s level but with likely less teams (12).

totally agree rugger - i hope Pulver is more of a forward thinker than o'neill and does see value in putting ARU dollars into the program long term.

 

[Nos Tradamus]

have NSW coaches been named?

 

[Hugh Jarse]

With a gathering of coaches next weekend (Sunday 20th), one would hope that the list has been finalised by now with the successful candidates advised, just not published.

 

[pilot]

Does anyone know how they are dividing the four Sydney teams. Interested to know the geographic corridor and /or selection process?
IMO the 17 year olds would no doubt be dominated in Sydney by North Harbour if for instance you based selections on GPS, ISA and CAS schools and SJRU.
Would GPS schools North Harbour include Shore, Joeys and Riverview? CAS schools include Knox, Barker, St Aloysius and ISA schools Augustines and Pius + throw in all the CHS and CCC schools. In the State champs Warringah and Gordon dominated although apparently not all players were available for village club rugby week in week out. How could a Western Sydney team with one ISA team and no GPS or CAS players feeding into it be competitive?

 

[Hugie]

Does anyone know how they are dividing the four Sydney teams. Interested to know the geographic corridor and /or selection process?
IMO the 17 year olds would no doubt be dominated in Sydney by North Harbour if for instance you based selections on GPS, ISA and CAS schools and SJRU.
Would GPS schools North Harbour include Shore, Joeys and Riverview? CAS schools include Knox, Barker, St Aloysius and ISA schools Augustines and Pius + throw in all the CHS and CCC schools. In the State champs Warringah and Gordon dominated although apparently not all players were available for village club rugby week in week out. How could a Western Sydney team with one ISA team and no GPS or CAS players feeding into it be competitive?

You train them to be competitive. That's the idea. There is no reason to think that private school boys are genetically superior to CHS/CCC boys they just get more and better training. Solution give the CHS/CCC boys the same or better training and let the weight of numbers do its job.

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

You train them to be competitive. That's the idea. There is no reason to think that private school boys are genetically superior to CHS/CCC boys they just get more and better training. Solution give the CHS/CCC boys the same or better training and let the weight of numbers do its job.

Wouldn't that be the point of the JGC?

To provide an avenue to those outside the traditional or dveloping schools competitions to access similar levels of professional training and development.

 

[Hugie]

Wouldn't that be the point of the JGC?

To provide an avenue to those outside the traditional or dveloping schools competitions to access similar levels of professional training and development.

Exactly.
Then if we can get the Districts/zones to pick up the ball and take it forward with a district/zone comps with say 3 days/week training and say 5 solid rep games on saturdays that will give the clubland boys/non rugby school boys 10 good quality games before selection for high honours.

What's then has to be filled in is what happens for U16s and U18s?? BUT it's a start.

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

Well, surely the most talented 16 y.o's will likely just matriculate further into the U17s group. There will be some capable of doing so. A lot of the 18 year boy's would be looking toward Colts by that age.

In regards to the rep/districts particularly in the intermediate years between squad groups. I'd like them to work toward setting up independent age grade representative competitions where the play each other once before finals. Then you could have possibly up to 15 high quality. Or they and this is a very big piece if in considerations. They could also look to run similar squads out of these centres for U16s and just keep it to the NSW based teams before for that year in between.

 

[Hugie]

Agreed WCR,
Having watched this stuff for the last 7 years the missing link for the non-rugby school boys is the ability to move up to a solid competition that involves high quality coaching with a solid number of good fast games. The current district/zone competitions just lack the quality and quantity that the private rugby schools provide, BUT that is all that is lacking, the natural talent is there in numbers. (I don't know about 15 games+ seems a lot).

 

[lily]

Does anyone know how they are dividing the four Sydney teams. Interested to know the geographic corridor and /or selection process?
IMO the 17 year olds would no doubt be dominated in Sydney by North Harbour if for instance you based selections on GPS, ISA and CAS schools and SJRU.
Would GPS schools North Harbour include Shore, Joeys and Riverview? CAS schools include Knox, Barker, St Aloysius and ISA schools Augustines and Pius + throw in all the CHS and CCC schools. In the State champs Warringah and Gordon dominated although apparently not all players were available for village club rugby week in week out. How could a Western Sydney team with one ISA team and no GPS or CAS players feeding into it be competitive?

King's is in the Western Suburbs and so is Barker.

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

Agreed WCR,
Having watched this stuff for the last 7 years the missing link for the non-rugby school boys is the ability to move up to a solid competition that involves high quality coaching with a solid number of good fast games. The current district/zone competitions just lack the quality and quantity that the private rugby schools provide, BUT that is all that is lacking, the natural talent is there in numbers. (I don't know about 15 games+ seems a lot).

I don't see 15 games as especially high. You need to provide as many games as possible to talented footballers so they can develop further. The more tough, physical rugby they get the better they'll be in the long term.

The kids that want it bad enough can do it. I can only use my experience as a guide but I averaged betweem 30-35 games a year. I played my age grade, the one above me (which was usually two years above) and reps.

 

[lily]

King's is in the Western Suburbs and so is Barker.

That said anyone living west of Pittwater Rd is a potential domestic tourist.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

That said anyone living west of Pittwater Rd is a potential domestic tourist.

Viva La Republika Manly.

 

[sarcophilus]

King's is in the Western Suburbs and so is Barker.

Newington, St Pats, Oak hill, Epping Boys, The hills spots high, a couple of 2nd Div ISA schools

in this age group MWZ beat MNZ this season,
North Harbour will be further weakened if the lads travelling over the bridge for school are told they have to bolster South Harbour if they even turn up!

 

[Gary Owen III]

Newington, St Pats, Oak hill, Epping Boys, The hills spots high, a couple of 2nd Div ISA schools

in this age group MWZ beat MNZ this season,
North Harbour will be further weakened if the lads travelling over the bridge for school are told they have to bolster South Harbour if they even turn up!

Surely the aim is to pick the best 120 players and then split them over the 4 centres. If for instance 50% of the lads come from the North, then some of these players will be travelling to other centres for the duration.

I would guess that "where" you are from should be a later concern when they are doing selections.