Sydney Colts - 2015

[Brian Westlake]

7 of those 10 players are Gordon juniors.

Rather than bleat on why Deegan, Kellaway et al are juniors that aren't playing at Gordon, why not look inward and find out what you aren't doing to keep them there?
Did Gordon contribute to the development of these young men or expect, that due to a postal address, they would come running to Chatswood oval?
Did Gordon send representatives to their schools? I know that Saint Josephs College have a couple of Rugby teams there. There are other Catholic schools such as St Ignatius as well with in the catchment area. Offers to help coach maybe?
In the formative years from under 12's to 18's,did Gordon keep assisting the Kellaway twins or did they let Mssrs Kelly and Blackburn do that for them knowing that, because they live in the catchment area, they would come "home"?
I am Sorry Gibbo, but, you can't have it both ways. Having every kid from the Central Coast that didn't attend a CAS or GPS, running around for you and then saying that its not fair?
I am sure that the likes of Kirt Anthony or Jack Margin are now living in Roseville too?

 

[Gibbo]

Like I said... 'Grenade lobbed' .... I knew what I was getting into when I posted that

 

[Hugh Jarse]

<snip>
Both Sam Connor and his older brother Tom were both Hawkesbury juniors!!!

So why are kids not staying "local" and what can the ARU/NSW RU do about it?

It seems to me that kids are going to Wicks, Buildcorp, Norths, Hobbits etc because of the strength and reputation of their Colts programmes. The old WII-FM radio station (What's In It For Me).

Perhaps the "Powers that Be" need to have to look at the club structures and processes at the above Clubs and assist the Emus and Rats of this world to put similar in place to make those clubs attractive. While there are some awesome volunteers at Emus and Rats that keep their programmes going on the smell of an oily rag, how much better would they be if they had S&C staff, a Colts Director/Head Coach and other Coaching staff with "connections" to the inner sanctum, a strong culture based on discipline and an expectation of success, and career mentoring programmes?

If the ARU and NSW RU are fair dinkum about grass roots development and growing the game, then you can't get more grass roots in a potential growth area than Nepean Rugby Park, Andrews Road, Cranebrook, 2750 with the Emus.

It can be done if the will is there. The Mighty 2 Blues have also recently implemented a successful Colts programme turnaround (without any help from Rugby Central IIRC).

It is not about the "unfair" advantage of having access to campus facilities that the Corporation has. There are many young men, some even in the Camperdown residential colleges, who are enrolled at Sydney University that choose to play rugby with clubs other than Buildcorp. Wicks seem to have finally realised that there are potential benefits in having a strong partnership with UNSW, but again many UNSW students do not play with Wicks or the UNSW subbies Club. Gordon is doing likewise developing a partnership with UTS and the rugby section of their EAP.

Some will claim that it is all about player payments and scholarships that Buildcorp, Wicks and others have established. Having recently attended a careers expo I know that UTS, UNSW, Sydney Uni, UNE, ACU, CSU, UOW UWS and Macquarie all have Elite Athlete Programmes, or Assistance schemes in place. I also know that most "scholarships" are of very low value ($2k or less) with much of those in excess of $2k being in the form of contra rather than cash. @Cattledog recently said that he noted that The Corporation had 40 players on their injured or reserves list. As wealthy as The Corporation is rumoured to be, no club could afford to be offering payments, or incentives to 85 (3 teams of 15 and 40 reserves unavailable) young men. The Wicks have had to advertise pretty heavily and aggressively fund raise to support their scholarship programme (36 last year with target of 50 this year).

Players and parents are going to select clubs that they perceive will be in their best interest to join. I keep coming back to the ARU and NSW RU needing to help some clubs establish and maintain programmes that assist them to attract and retain players. Paying Development Officers to run lots of one day school carnivals that help to fudge the participation figures for the Annual Report will not achieve that.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

Like I said. 'Grenade lobbed' .. I knew what I was getting into when I posted that

It is important to have the debate. Well thrown Sir.

 

[Garza]

So if it is impossible to have a balanced competition because it is impossible to have fairly matched teams the why not a two tier system. Does anyone not know that the top tier teams have already shown their hand - let them play one another. No blowouts for Penrith of the proportion just seen with Syd Uni. No kids at Penrith the victim of that farce saying I am off to League or just getting out. No 18 year old is going to the Pub each weekend to say he got smashed again.
The real opposition will come from proud clubs who want to be top tier and wont admit they dont have the goods.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

^^ Is the Super Rugby competition balanced?

How can you stop young men who are studying at Sydney University from playing for their University?

What Club "owns" Jum Woodhill? A 2014 Shore graduate, and previously aligned with Mosman Whales Wahroonga and Chatswood Junior Village Club from the Gordon District. He is attending UNSW in Randwick's "Footprint". He applied for a position as an Undergraduate student there, and through an open and transparent application process he was accepted into their academic programme.
There are also strong family connections with UNSW. Why should he be forced to play for the Shoremen, Highlanders (or Easts or any other club)?

Your points are valid about the need to stiffen the Penrith (and others) club, but hamstringing the successful clubs like the Corporation, Wicks, Hobbits and Shoremen is probably not the best way to achieve that. It would be cheap and relatively easy to do, but IMHO it would have some fairly serious unintended consequences for ARU. There is no easy solution, and it will take a fair bit of time, money and intellectual horsepower but Australian Rugby needs to bite the bullet and look at more sustainable ways of assisting the "struggling" clubs to recruit and retain talented players.

Edit: Wrong again. Thanks @Rugby Addict. Should check the old programmes from JSC first. I had Jum lumped in the Whales with so many of the other Shore boys of his cohort. Post amended above. How many SJRU games did he play for the Chatswood Village Club in the U16's?

 

[I like to watch]

I think it's a bit silly to put the Shoremen,and Hobbits in the same category as the Wicks & Uni ATM.
You should remember that there is a finite talent pool.
For every recruit that joins the Wicks,it weakens the depth of an already weaker team.
if the Wicks have an average score of say 50-10 over the season,is that really good for anyone?

 

[Rugby Addict]

What Club "owns" Jum Woodhill? A 2014 Shore graduate, and previously aligned with Mosman Whales Junior Village Club. He is attending UNSW in Randwick's "Footprint". He applied for a position as an Undergraduate student there, and through an open and transparent application process he was accepted into their academic programme.
There are also strong family connections with UNSW. Why should he be forced to play for the Shoremen, (or Easts or any other club)?

Jum Woodhill played for Wahroonga and Chatswood in the Juniors and represented Gordon from U10 to U16. He captained the Gordon rep team for the last few years and got up and spoke of his love for Gordon to the other juniors. You are right HJ that no one owns him and good luck to him at Randwick - I am sure he loves the Wicks now.

I am old school and would have thought 7 years with a club breeds some loyalty.

Gordon realise they have made mistakes in the past and have been paying for it over the last several years. Good signs this year that many juniors do still have the loyalty gene.

Randwick recruit very well. They send their coaches into the Junior rep/state teams and develop relationships with players. The players love being told how special they are and Randwick would be the perfect place to develop. The UNSW scholarship/Cheika etc then adds weight to the value proposition. Kelly and Partridge have also done well to get players from the schools they coached at.

Uni did it better than anyone else for a long time. Randwick learnt from them and the others need to catch up and we think the gap is narrowing quickly.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

Change it maximum points allowed to be registered per club,instead of points per game.
Locals should attract zero points.

I think this idea has some merit worth exploring further, although the definition of "Local" could be interesting, given my various rants/well argued posts on the subject of convenient address for Junior Registration not always equalling an investment in the rugby development of said "local".

Most of the "high pointers", local or otherwise, have experienced most of their "development" through one or more of the Private School system, Junior Gold/National Gold schemes, or Schoolboy representative teams completely independent of any Shute Shield District academy or rep team they may have been in. Which mob should get the "local" discount them?

Another aspect worth exploring is the conversion and retention rate of colts into grade. Things have to be crook in Tallarook when a club like the Beasts has so many "Ins" into their Shute Shield squad. Their own Colts players should be graduating into 2nd and 3rd Grade, occasionally 1st Grade, to replace the retiring players or lucky folk who land a pro contract. With a bottleneck of talent in the Wicks and Students coming out of Colts looking for a gig in Grade 1 and 2, I would expect to see plenty of "Ins" from them in the Season Previews. Instead it seems that poor old Penrith, Parramatta and Pirates seem to continue to lose the more talented of their players to prop up player rosters elsewhere.

Hopefully the Wicks will stop the raids on Clubs to their West with quality product (local juniors and induced recruits) now coming through their Colts system. BuildCorp lose a few to ProRugby but they must graduate more Colts than they need to cover retirements and departing Profesionals. After 4 or 5 years in Blue/Gold or Myrtle Green, the players ("poached" or otherwise) are by and large fiercely loyal to their club and deserve to be considered "locals".

How can you use the Player Points system to encourage "surplus" talent from Wicks/BuildCorp to move to Pirates, Beasts or Penrith without penalising them?

Should Clubs have their Club Player Points Cap reduced/increased based on where they end up in the Club Champs each year? Instead of getting the desired redistribution of players to poorly performing clubs, this may just end up in driving players to Subbies or out of the game entirely. As said previously some of the more talented but socially focused players develop fierce loyalty to their clubs, and would rather not play than be forced to play for Club x.

 

[Gibbo]

One by-product on the single rego system for Junior clubs and Rep teams will be a single source of truth for the history of a player.
If a club develops a junior, through their system they should receive credit for it in whatever points system there might be in the future.

 

[I like to watch]

Big arse,anyone who has developed fierce loyalty to their club would,as a by product of this loyalty being nurtured over a period of time,carry neglible points.
They would not be forced to play elsewhere.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

^^ As I said previously I like your idea of an overall Club Points Cap, but think that it may have unintended consequences that end up with it being similarly manipulated as before. Discounts are always open for abuse.

I'm just thinking that a club desperate to keep under their overall Club points cap may be tempted to keep their rockstars at the expense of others. If there is a discount to 0 for loyal service after 4 or 5 years (colts, grade, juniors, or a combination) then there will be a temptation to warehouse talent until they get to 0 points and then the "rich" clubs stay "rich" as their rockstars and their battlers are all at 0 points.

How do you warehouse talent and get a good discount for loyalty?
Sign a School x boy up in Year 10 to play a couple of trial games for your Club outside the AAGPS/CAS/ISA season, and there is one years local discount. Rinse and repeat for Year 11 and 12 and the lad arrives at Colts with a fairly good discounted player points value. Better still if you get him at Year 9. Plenty of kids disappear from the Village Club environment in Year 7 and Year 8, as certain schools discourage playing on club footy on Sundays (for those in the Age Group A and B streams).

If the boy has played Under 10-U13 with their geographically aligned Junior Village Club (current points scheme only considers discounts from U10 onwards), before becoming invisible to SJRU on account of the child only playing School Footy on Saturday, then my little scheme above achieves the same loyalty discount.

There is no easy solution and clever sausages who can spot an opportunity a mile away abound in clubland.

 

[Jessie Trevenar]

I'm told Penrith have asked permission to play 21 and 22 year old lads in the Colts this season.
SRU are seriously considering the proposal but don't intend on putting it to the other Clubs.

On a similar note Gordon wish to play 20 year olds in the under 18 competition this season. They have lobbied their close friends on the SJRU Executive and the SJRU appear set to approve it despite strong opposition from other Clubs.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

One by-product on the single rego system for Junior clubs and Rep teams will be a single source of truth for the history of a player.
If a club develops a junior, through their system they should receive credit for it in whatever points system there might be in the future.

Agree absolutely ... ... ... ... provided that the Clubs can demonstrate the actual development that they have "invested" in that player. Simply being registered with Village Club x for 3 years from Under 12 to Under 14, and playing Under 13 and Under 14 District reps at Junior State Champs may not represent "development".

 

[AussieDominance]

Rather than bleat on why Deegan, Kellaway et al are juniors that aren't playing at Gordon, why not look inward and find out what you aren't doing to keep them there?
Did Gordon contribute to the development of these young men or expect, that due to a postal address, they would come running to Chatswood oval?
Did Gordon send representatives to their schools? I know that Saint Josephs College have a couple of Rugby teams there. There are other Catholic schools such as St Ignatius as well with in the catchment area. Offers to help coach maybe?
In the formative years from under 12's to 18's,did Gordon keep assisting the Kellaway twins or did they let Mssrs Kelly and Blackburn do that for them knowing that, because they live in the catchment area, they would come "home"?
I am Sorry Gibbo, but, you can't have it both ways. Having every kid from the Central Coast that didn't attend a CAS or GPS, running around for you and then saying that its not fair?
I am sure that the likes of Kirt Anthony or Jack Margin are now living in Roseville too?

Fair enough if Randwick recruit them to the program they run obviously some kids lifestyle decisions change (uni etc). Points should be heavily placed on clubs that have numerous of these types of players though.

Clubs that have local juniors playing for them should receive severe advantages in terms of sticking under the cap.

Other clubs shouldn't be recruiting from other clubs catchment areas they should be recruiting from Regional NSW and producing players on the club's own development system.

I think Randwick are better resourced than Norths were but Norths are now paying for a single minded assault on Gordon's juniors for 3 or 4 years(not the last two years with Gordon's revival in numbers) with little to no apparent leadership to know where to go now that Gordon have started to get there act together in Colts.

 

[Dingasden]

On a similar note Gordon wish to play 20 year olds in the under 18 competition this season. They have lobbied their close friends on the SJRU Executive and the SJRU appear set to approve it despite strong opposition from other Clubs.

There are 16 year olds playing under 18s. To play up they need medical clearance. Surely there is a duty of care to assess 20 year olds playing down looking at weight etc
I'm jumping through hoops to get a small non-rep u11 player born in mid December to play down in the 10s to get a run. All seems a bit upside down.[/quote]

 

[Brian Westlake]

One by-product on the single rego system for Junior clubs and Rep teams will be a single source of truth for the history of a player.
If a club develops a junior, through their system they should receive credit for it in whatever points system there might be in the future.

What input between the ages of 12-18 did Gordon have ?
I realise that you have put out the bait, but seriously Gibbo... Gordon Rugbu Club have done fuck all for these aforementioned young men.
They were trained in school, played in school, and in a few of them, lived in school.
To sit back and say they went through a program from 7 to 11 years of age has developed them to Australian U20 players is really clutching at straws my friend.
What was the first years program? Advanced rugby boot lace tying?

 

[AussieDominance]

What input between the ages of 12-18 did Gordon have ?
I realise that you have put out the bait, but seriously Gibbo. Gordon Rugbu Club have done fuck all for these aforementioned young men.
They were trained in school, played in school, and in a few of them, lived in school.
To sit back and say they went through a program from 7 to 11 years of age has developed them to Australian U20 players is really clutching at straws my friend.
What was the first years program? Advanced rugby boot lace tying?

I would say most Junior Rugby players with any potential are still playing club rugby at the age of U15.

So theoretically 12 - 18 is wrong.

I would say Gordon have invested a whole lot of infrastructure to set these village clubs up in the first place/run holiday coaching programs/provide coaches/provide player appearances/provide facilities/provide financial help in times of need as well as at other opportune times and even provide a development officer back in the day.

If you took all that away and they didn't participate in that program I guarantee they wouldn't be at Randwick.

So Yes Gordon has definitely developed them alongside the school developing them through generally the early gym phase of 15 - 18.

It's all well and good coming from a club that doesn't even theoretically exist in the Junior landscape let alone develop Junior players.

Just because Michael Chieka has pushed your envelope over the last few seasons doesn't mean Randwick Rugby Club are doing good things. Just remember he is not coaching NSW next season and thus cannot hand out training contracts and playing contracts to anyone he wants.

And yes if they are a boarder from a rural area and never played club rugby before boarding school the Gordon club or whatever club HAS NOT produced them.

 

[BellyTwoBlues]

In our experience, to turn things around you must first look within. As Hugh Jarse says above, why are kids not staying local?

Rather than go around with the poor me victim mentality, look at what you are doing and ask how you can improve it. Then get a visible weekly presence in local schools.

There's also no point in crying over what happened in the past. Juniors/Colts and Grade players left, for their own reasons, and you can't change that. Just make sure what you have now and where you want to get to is what your focusing on.

though I do laugh when Gordon people tell me the refs are against them! 11 other clubs would say differently.

 

[Colin Powell]

I think the best colts program's should be based on a couple of points.
Firstly the points of their 1st colts team and secondly the number players who moved into grade and are playing 1st or second grade.
Lower the player points of 1st grade colts vs the position on the table.
The number of colts in the top two grades.
These should give a true indication of who develops players and proves a pathway to higher honours.
Who develops and who recruits? Who is serving Australian rugby grassroots???