Lee Grant
John Eales (66)
What I meant HJ is that the Oz Under 20 teams in the past have been plagued by wrong selections because they haven't had the avenues of assessment as they have, for example, in England.
There they have a 6N Under 20 comp and their team would have a core of players from youth comps in previous years. The lesser players would have been weeded out year by year, and replacements added, from the time they were U/17s.
I called that weeding, filtering.
We can't hope to duplicate their system and have a core of players that has been filtered over a few years but at least we can filter the candidates in any single year.
On paper the U/20 regional trials will filter out players in a way that can't be done by just looking at them in regional camps or academy hit-outs.
Then the national U/20 competition will filter out the lesser players from the regional teams to get the cream for the Australian squad.
This is streets better than the current "throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks" approach of having camps and a match against Papua New Guinea—though it is more expensive.
And my digression about the new NRC is also apt.
Super Rugby teams have a difficult job in assessing players for Super Rugby from their performances in club rugby alone. They also need a filter.
The new NRC competition will get players playing with and against better players than they have experienced before, which is what they will have to do if they get on the park in Super Rugby.
It is the ideal filter for Super teams and it should see a reduction in the number of duds given Super Rugby contracts or EPS spots in the future.
.
There they have a 6N Under 20 comp and their team would have a core of players from youth comps in previous years. The lesser players would have been weeded out year by year, and replacements added, from the time they were U/17s.
I called that weeding, filtering.
We can't hope to duplicate their system and have a core of players that has been filtered over a few years but at least we can filter the candidates in any single year.
On paper the U/20 regional trials will filter out players in a way that can't be done by just looking at them in regional camps or academy hit-outs.
Then the national U/20 competition will filter out the lesser players from the regional teams to get the cream for the Australian squad.
This is streets better than the current "throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks" approach of having camps and a match against Papua New Guinea—though it is more expensive.
And my digression about the new NRC is also apt.
Super Rugby teams have a difficult job in assessing players for Super Rugby from their performances in club rugby alone. They also need a filter.
The new NRC competition will get players playing with and against better players than they have experienced before, which is what they will have to do if they get on the park in Super Rugby.
It is the ideal filter for Super teams and it should see a reduction in the number of duds given Super Rugby contracts or EPS spots in the future.
.