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Shout out to John Rownes; an amazing innings heading up Rugby at Knox. Couldn’t meet a nicer bloke who treated every player (and wider stakeholders) with kindness and care regardless of team and age. Enjoy the Long Service Leave JR

Both; came from UK two years ago with lengthy rugby experience and has been involved in u14s & teaching at Knox since.

John Oakes

One trend that has been prevalent of late, starts early and has huge implications in the future tho; rep selectors picking kids who haven’t/don’t want to play front row in the hope they can be “coached up” and will grow….

Wallabies winning, Lions tour, Waratahs Seniors stronger squad - all boding much better (still very long way to go) to win the hearts & minds of kids hopefully!!!!

Really hoping this HAS all been officially agreed by all schools/associations; has it?

Lots of blaming demographic change on demise at Knox ….. hopefully new DOR brings more ideas to address!

Any idea who of these are League leaning rather than Union?

Reallly?!!??!

Sometimes I actually hypothesise that selectors are preferencing League leaning players in the hope that they’ll consider staying close to Union, to the detriment of Union loyal peers who are actually (a touch) better but the selectors know they will be back trying again next year….

Very poor turnout at Super 16 & 19s grand finals held at Ballymore today ; why??

Congrats to the young lad, that is extraordinary….. but 1000% agree; any contracted League players should not play a minute of any Union rep games

Not much of a rethink required; basically like the Senior Super Rugby squads worked, pick the best 150 players nationally (yes more from NSW & QLD), allocating them equally across the brands (afraid it means quite a lot of local lads from ACT, VIC & WA would miss out though…) closer games...

Why do hookers need to be taller and heavier??!! No 1 job is accurate lineout throwing, then I’d love some Keven Mealamu clones who can be hard on the ball and get a few pilfer turnovers (we don’t need 8 massive ball runners…)

but there's ~12 players who are in the middle and didn't get picked in either (we're mothballed for the top team, didn't make it, and weren't eligible for the other team as they weren't allowed to play in the selection tournament [ASRU]....)

yes as mentioned - any of the other 12 injured, league or just missed out on both tours?

indeed - RA alignment may see the best 150 kids play in that tournament regardless of where they live, instead of the best 30 from each franchise? Unfortunately would very likely mean less spots from locals in their local franchise outside of nsw/qld though, more so in u16s than u19s?

Super U16s First Round: Waratahs 105-Rebels 0 Brumbies 18-Force 19 Reds bye

Yes & that’s the very point; picked way too early, missed out on games, and paid the ultimate price of not representing their country on either tour…..

After witnessing first hand how Ireland/UK run their underage programs, I think it would be amazing to curate the best (spread of location, following, backing etc) entities to form a ~16 club National Rugby Union Association, that is the nexus under State (Reds, Waratahs, Brumbies, Force), and...