ARU Junior Gold Cup - National Junior Championships

[Westie]

Not too sure where you're getting your info from that the Aussie School Boys have had the wood over the Kiwi School Boys cause from my count over the last 20 years since Rugby has gone professional the total is NZ School Boys 14 wins Australia School Boys 5 and 4 of those have only come since 2008. Before that that last win by the School Boys over their Kiwi counterparts was 1997. That's 11 years of losing. The last 2 years NZ has won. Four wins in 18 years against the Kiwi's is nothing to crow about. saying we have the wood over them is a slight hyperbolie.

You might want to check the Australian School Boys website here to clarify. http://www.schoolsrugby.com.au/results/test-matches/

There are distinct differences between Junior rugby in NZ and Australia. NZ's systems are fully integrated from under 5s through to the All Blacks. At college age, all kids play for their school and there are no club teams. Club teams finish at U13 and then carry on again from U19 level when kids finish playing for there school. There is no competition between school and club for players. Players represent their province if selected at representative levels. There are no dual competitions systems that work against each other. They all work in alignment together. Here, at College they work independently of each other and not together. Dividing talented players, coaching and resources.

Why is that? Unusual.

In a country, states and regions where we are constantly competing against sports such as Rugby League, AFL and Football for players why would you have such dual competitions going against each other at such a critical age?

Can somebody explain? Seems senseless.

Because they don't care about success. Only control.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

Agree with most of your comment but I could never quite understand why the U18 Championships is limited to Schoolsboys and is not a U18's Championship in general.

An U18 is an U18 and a number of year 12 students are still 17 when they graduate and cannot participate the following year. How silly is that for Australian rugby?

And then its still punted as a National Championship and the pinnacle of junior rugby when they are specifically excluding a number of players.

Am I missing something obvious ?

Presumably the same applies to NZ schools: there's no NZ u18 side as far as I know.
The reason you have to be at school is that it's run by the ASRU which predates professionalism.
I doubt the ARU have the financial appetite to take on and run anon school based national tournament: ASRU have had to undertake their own fund raising efforts lately.

 

[Azzuri]

Emails for the lads selected for the NSW JGC squad were sent out late this afternoon.

..... And Ben Manion (North harbour) the new Director of Rugby at Newington will be coaching

 

[Shane Smeltz]

@ vegascane, Big fish are easy to land gotcha on the school boys
In all seriousness though Aussie will always have the two systems through the juniors there's not enough schools playing the game

It's not that there are not enough schools playing here; how the the NZ system works is that ALL high schools participate, private, public and Catholic.
All schools play in a Saturday morning or weekday comp. There is no club from U13, end of story.

The schools are graded into divisions, so for example here you would have your better GPS schools playing in Div 1, against the better CAS, ISA and public schools. Then Div 2 and so on.

It could work here. But we all know why it would never happen here - protected interests as so many people have said.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

It could work here. But we all know why it would never happen here - protected interests as so many people have said.

There's an alternative view: different school systems have different expectations from the sports they participate in in this country because there is no one winter code that trumps all else in all situations.
Thus the schools that offer more than 1 winter sport would have even more scheduling issues than they do at present - buses to away games for boarders being merely the most obvious.

 

[Bend Bind and Drive!!]

... And Ben Manion (North harbour) the new Director of Rugby at Newington will be coaching

Any team list out there of the selected players?

 

[Thomo77]

Any team list out there of the selected players?

Just announced http://www.nswrugby.com.au/Community/JuniorGoldProgram.aspx

 

[William Wallace]

Just announced http://www.nswrugby.com.au/Community/JuniorGoldProgram.aspx

Is it just me, or does it seem that the Qld Reds take a lot longer than other states to get information such as this to the rugby community?

 

[Bend Bind and Drive!!]

Just announced http://www.nswrugby.com.au/Community/JuniorGoldProgram.aspx

Thanks for that. As a supporter of South Harbour U15 a little disheartening to only see one make it. We won 4 matches and lost 1 not to mention smashing every pack at scrum time. Monumental task picking any team I suppose but good luck to the boys that did make.

 

[Rugby Spirit]

Any news on Qld team yet?

 

[vegascane]

It's not that there are not enough schools playing here; how the the NZ system works is that ALL high schools participate, private, public and Catholic.
All schools play in a Saturday morning or weekday comp. There is no club from U13, end of story.

The schools are graded into divisions, so for example here you would have your better GPS schools playing in Div 1, against the better CAS, ISA and public schools. Then Div 2 and so on.

It could work here. But we all know why it would never happen here - protected interests as so many people have said.

And as long as people put schools before country, Australia will always be behind countries like NZ, England, South Africa at the age group level. This flows on to senior levels as the top Australia age group teams are well behind the NZ, England, South Africa at both Schoolboys and U20 World Championships.

Why can't people see beyond their petty school biases towards achievement at wider representative and international levels?

Why get tidied up in a dual system at age group level when most of the world has innovated and moved on?

How much longer does Australian Rugby continue to want to be second rate in international rugby at age group level?

 

[vegascane]

There's an alternative view: different school systems have different expectations from the sports they participate in in this country because there is no one winter code that trumps all else in all situations.
Thus the schools that offer more than 1 winter sport would have even more scheduling issues than they do at present - buses to away games for boarders being merely the most obvious.

Sorry about your traditional thinking but it's exactly opinions and justifications like that that keep Australian Rugby at age group level where it is today. Always second, sometime third and fourth behind NZ, England & Australia.

Reactive and not innovative, always following and never leading.

Disappointing justification, scheduling issues...really, we are putting school scheduling issues before rugby development at age group level? Try telling that to parents that more than one child and work fulltime.

If there is a will then there is a way. Unfortunately here in Australia, no one has the courage to change the status quo and as long as that continues the Bledisloe Cup, Rugby Championship, Sevens World Series, U20 World Championship, Secondary Schools Trans Tasman trophies will all reside in countries other than Australia.

Playing rugby at school is important but it shouldn't hold the rest of age group development as a hostage. Streamline the competition at a local level. Make school and clubs play in one competition.

Isn't anyone sick of losing at the international level and coming second to NZ all the time?

 

[vegascane]

It's not that there are not enough schools playing here; how the the NZ system works is that ALL high schools participate, private, public and Catholic.
All schools play in a Saturday morning or weekday comp. There is no club from U13, end of story.

The schools are graded into divisions, so for example here you would have your better GPS schools playing in Div 1, against the better CAS, ISA and public schools. Then Div 2 and so on.

It could work here. But we all know why it would never happen here - protected interests as so many people have said.

I agree with you Shane Smeltz.

I'm new to this forum and don't want to assume anything but are the protected interests more important than Australia continually being beaten at age group level on the international stage let alone the development of Australian rugby at this critical age group?

 

[vegascane]

Because they don't care about success. Only control.

I don't mind if people want to control things as long as their system is producing the goods like consistent wins at the age group level internationally, but when it doesn't and we have continued to lose for so long why would we continue down that path of losing?

Most people would call that madness and insanity...Australian rugby authorities call that tradition.

Why would parents with children want to choose rugby over other sports when the tradition is one of losing on the world stage?

 

[vegascane]

@ vegascane, Big fish are easy to land gotcha on the school boys
In all seriousness though Aussie will always have the two systems through the juniors there's not enough schools playing the game

Old School it's not a question of not enough schools, it s question of developing rugby for all children at an age group level and doing that within the resources of Australian Rugby and in competition to other sports that want the changing demographic of children to play their games as well.

If there were not enough schools playing then there wouldn't be organised competitions and children would not be playing. There are 300,000 registered rugby players in Australia only 120 are professional, the majority at in clubs and schools, there are more than enough players to justify a competition.

Question is what is that competition at an age group level, clearly the dual system of school and club has failed, as it doesn't produce results at that level in comparison to our competition across the Tasman, Indian and Atlantic Oceans.

Wouldn't it make normal sense to any person to review the current system at age group level and develop a system that benchmarks itself against something that actually works age group competitions in NZ, SA and England?

Or does that make too much commonsense for us?

 

[Hugh Jarse]

<snip>
Why would parents with children want to choose rugby over other sports when the tradition is one of losing on the world stage?

The World stage for AFL is Zero. I guess Australia dominates that particular "stage" because we are the only mob stupid enough to play a sport that no one else does. To fabricate some form of international validity for a silly sport that rewards inaccuracy and being almost good enough, they have to invent a mongrel game that even less people actually play, or are interested in, just to be able to interest the Irish in playing us. Even so, after the annual brawl has finished, the Australian AFL All-Stars do not have a tradition of winning (the brawl or the game). In parts of this wide brown country, that doesn't stop parents choosing to register their offspring for AusKick clubs.

The World Stage for Mungoball is South Auckland, Northern England and PNG. Not so much a World Stage as a small balcony overlooking the delivery dock around the back, but we are good at beating the JAFAs, and some Pale skinned Vitamin D deficient Soap Dodgers from a days drive north of London.

The World Stage for Soccer is the World. We have a tradition of losing on the world soccer stage and yet that doesn't seem to reduce the desire of parents to register their kids with Diveball clubs.

I suspect that dominance on the world stage is not the most important factor driving a persons choice of sporting or recreational activity that they will support and participate in. It may be a important factor in NZ.

 

[Sunny]

I think your right, focus on 1 path,
To me the addition of Junior Gold Cup is great, even tho some school discourage participation, for what I've read on here.
Doesn't it actually cast a wider net over available players?
Readings through team list kids came from both private and public schools, and a great variety of clubs.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

By all accounts kids at Big Rugby Schools in the age group A Stream and 1st XV get "good" development, and don't really need to go to JGC.

Every spot in the JGC that is not occupied by a Private School Rockstar means that their replacement is getting an elite development opportunity, and face time in front of The Clipboards, that they would not usually get.

More kids getting gooder, not the gooder getting gooderer has to be seen as a positive outcome of the programme.

 

[Azzuri]

I think your right, focus on 1 path,

..... the addition of Junior Gold Cup is great, even tho some school discourage participation, for what I've read on here.
Doesn't it actually cast a wider net over available players?
Readings through team list kids came from both private and public schools, and a great variety of clubs.

IMO any additional channel into the pathway is in the best interest of broadening the base of talent from which to select future Wobblies. But let's not keep blaming the "evil empire of schools" and demonizing them as some sort of cancerous tumour that should be excised because they are actively plotting the downfall of alternate pathways.

I've personally heard coaches and officials who were involved in the first iteration of the JGC actively dissuading top players from participation in this year's program. If the opinion shapers and senior figures within the junior rep fraternity aren't on board then you have to wonder if the program has a long term future. I'd suggest its not in anyone's interest for the JGC to go the way of the dinosaur.

No one can deny the heavy lifting that schools do in junior rugby (albeit for not a particularly large group of juniors). If however all the self interested, patch protecting adults, from the various pathways spent more time cogitating on what is in the best interests of the game and how best to harness the power of all the different pathways including schools instead of doing their level best to scuttle such programs or deny them the resources they need to be sustainable then maybe, just maybe the Kiwis wouldn't be be smirking like Cheshire cats when strapping on their boots each year for the Bledisloe.

 

[BraveandGame]

Old School it's not a question of not enough schools, it s question of developing rugby for all children at an age group level and doing that within the resources of Australian Rugby and in competition to other sports that want the changing demographic of children to play their games as well.

If there were not enough schools playing then there wouldn't be organised competitions and children would not be playing. There are 300,000 registered rugby players in Australia only 120 are professional, the majority at in clubs and schools, there are more than enough players to justify a competition.

Question is what is that competition at an age group level, clearly the dual system of school and club has failed, as it doesn't produce results at that level in comparison to our competition across the Tasman, Indian and Atlantic Oceans.

Wouldn't it make normal sense to any person to review the current system at age group level and develop a system that benchmarks itself against something that actually works age group competitions in NZ, SA and England?

Or does that make too much commonsense for us?

Until the ARU can get its act together and run the game within its means and professionally all this is moot. How can you expect proper development and systems when the 120 professionals are asking the 300000 amateurs to foot the bill.

Rugby in Australia is broken - but that fact has nothing to do with schools and their programs actually the exact opposite they are what is holding it together.