After a warmer autumn, winter has arrived in Armidale. It was -2 in Armidale this morning, felt like -5. Tomorrow should be a little warmer and fine. Joker's description of playing a game in Guyra took me back. The coldest I have been was playing for TAS in Guyra (can't remember whether it was seconds or under 16) with the sleet coming in horizontally from the west across the lagoon. Fingers turned blue and mis-catching the ball on the finger tips hurt like blazes.
Tomorrow's game will be interesting because it provides a second test against a Sydney school. Maybe wishful thinking, but TAS should win. A week back the school and Farrer Agricultural High School took part in the annual sporting gig across multiple sports, in all 17 fixtures in six sports. While Farrer won the overall shield, TAS won 4 of the 8 rugby matches including firsts and seconds, with the firsts winning 22-17. Farrer is no push-over. While the school plays league as well as union, many boys play both, it has some 600 boys, 360 boarders. That's more boys, more male boarders, than TAS and has inflicted some heavy defeats on TAS. Overall, both the TAS firsts and seconds have a very good win/loss ratio this year including the NZ trip where the school drew one, won two.
An interesting feature of the Farrer visit was the parallel competition between TAS/PLC/NEGS across netball, hockey and rugby sevens. In the rugby TAS won both the under 15s and under 18s comp against a combined PLC/NEGS and Barbarian team. At a macro level on G&G the main worries about rugby competitors are league first, AFL and then soccer. Things are a little different up here at the microlevel. There is no AFL, league is relatively weaker, soccer is a competitive threat, but it's really hockey that is the up and comer at the moment. In this mix, girl's rugby is important because it is one of the things that maintains rugby's competitive strength.
I'm sorry that I can't provide a TAS team list. It's part of a frustration that I have at the moment re TAS rugby, the lack of information. The school really doesn't promote either local matches or give specific team information. Based on feedback I received when I was very active on G&G the school regards sport as a specifically school matter and was worried by some of the G&G coverage. That's fine, but it's frustrating for someone like me, an OA who wants to follow the school and is especially interested in rugby. I will follow up to see what else might be done.
