I note that the term "arms race" was first used on the Scholarship thread by
smokinjoe on Jun 10 2011 and has been used on no less than 35 occasions since.
I have finally achieved my 15 minutes of fame!
I remember TAS drawing with Joeys when each school's team came from whatever students were enrolled.
I've seen the ACT comp almost ruined by recruitment leading to a concentration of talent and the GPS comp has already lost 2 major players due to the same approach with IMHO shore hanging in there. ISA is dominated by St Augustines has consequently lost St Andrews rugby down to a lower level competition.
Furthermore the concentration of talent, as players are recruited to elite GPS programmes, diminishes the junior club rugby scene and ultimately diminishes club rugby throughout the state (city and country). Australian Rugby is the ultimate losing end point as a result of a concentration of competitive players causing a weakened grass roots junior game.
The CAS comp has minimal scholarships and every team is competitive. The headmasters of schools who have recruited in the past have stopped and the competition is levelling out with no danger of a school having to drop down a level.
So from seeing TAS and Joeys draw, I now see diminished GPS and ISA competitions contrasted with a fairly evenly competitive CAS competition. Anyone at the recent CAS vs GPS matches will agree that both teams played good rugby and know who the players were who made the difference.
Recruitment is poison to any competitive rugby competition and by concentrating player talent, ultimately poison to the development of widely based grass roots rugby in Australia.