Saecom, absolutely love your work. I would love to have a beer with you and hear some of your anecdotes regarding AIC and TAS rugby, regardless that you probably have a good 30 years on me. As for scholarships and recruiting, I can’t provide input on Eddies or any other schools but I do know some information about St.Peters. As mentioned before by someone (I can’t remember who) Peters, Ashgrove and Nudgee are all part of the Indigenous Education Scheme. Thus, people who are claiming these schools are handing out scholarships left right and centre need to be corrected. Now, I am by no way stating the Nudgee firm does not hand out scholarships, but a lot of there boys are enrolled due to the scheme. Furthermore, StPeters have a fair amount of aboriginal girls who obviously do not play AIC rugby. These girls are also on this scheme. All of these students are boarders. In terms of PNG boys, Peters have had a long association with PNG, with many Lutheran missionaries correlating to some boys coming down to Brisbane and attending a lutheran boarding school. I’m sure some of the older heads will recall that many SPLC teams of the late 90’s-early 2000’s had a whole cast of PNG boarders in this team.
As for this weekend, I am very much looking forward to it. Many great games and rivalries to be had, wish the season was longer!
Also regarding the introduction of Downlands and AIC schools playing a GPS school on its bye, Great idea. Some real good rivalries such as Marist v Terrace, Peters v BBC, Eddies v IGS, Villa v Churchie etc would just increase the rivalry, competition and atmosphere of Schoolboy rugby in Qld.
Thanks you for the compliment. The anecdotes would have to be over a beer and there could be no tape recorders running .... The world was much less PC in those days.
You obviously have great knowledge of St Peters and I am sure what you are saying is true. Being ancient, I can remember many boys from PNG in St Peters 1st XVs going back into the 1970s (& a bit earlier). I remember the St Peters Headmaster Carson Dron (?) was a very keen rugby coach and brought many of these boys through.
Ashgrove also used to have quite a number of these boys however they don't seem to have as many these days? Perhaps a poster with better inside knowledge than mine of Ashgrove could give us the history of that?
As regards the season being longer, I have mentioned this before but will throw this out there in a bit more detail.
Divide the school sport year into 2 seasons - Summer (Terms IV and I - in that order) Winter (Terms II and III)
Summer - home and away in cricket, volleyball (Friday nights) and tennis (so all 1sts start with Yr 11s in Term IV of previous year), Year 8s do not play in age groups and just play Term 1 and they would not be at the school in the previous Term IV - still have athletics carnival in late Term IV, still have swimming carnival in late Term I, short water polo comp Term IV (Friday nights)
Winter - home and away in bastketball (Friday nights),soccer and rugby plus cross country carnival late Term III
Advantages - all team sports (most popular with boys) have 2 rounds home and away, better (longer) use of facilities, more meaningful compeitions
Disadvantages - boys can not play as many sports each year (they have to choose - however they could still do cricket plus rugby plus athletics or whatever?)
Just an idea to kick around...