One of the reasons why our Schools team is going well against the Kiwis is that we actually do something better than the Kiwis do in rugby. Our schools selection process is better.
I was sitting next to a big Maori guy at the 2010 Bledisloe and he had been involved in one of the Kiwi unions. He said that Kiwi lads who were not in one of the big rugby schools had trouble getting selected because the big tournament involved individual schools who had qualified for the national title. The schools who didn't go to the tournament would send in DVDs of their star players.
I don't know that that is still the case because he was talking about something of 5-6 years ago now, but in the TV broadcast of the game last Saturday Quinny said something similar.
Anyway, this bloke said the guys at the union would roll their eyes when they saw a lad picked when they knew that somebody else from another school in the union was much better, but his school wasn't at the tournament.
As soon as they left school though the union got their best players on the fast track and into the national system.
In Oz there are selection issues and there is unfairness, that we need not talk about on this thread, but at least our lads at weaker rugby schools, in NSW for example, get a chance to play in two levels of rep matches and don't have to have DVDs sent in for them.
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). In the replay it looked like a horrible injury. 