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Larry Dwyer (12)
Saecom your suggestion does have some merit.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...
However it would kill club sport, something that sportmaster don't want to do. I know at times League/Soccer club causes availabilities issue for school. However certainly club rugby and cricket do not . I would suggest that it's at a club level in all sports the boys develop their skills, get the opportunity to play along boys outside of their school and even make mates from rival schools. And don't we love it when you get the opportunity to pay against them at a school comp.
The link to a club for the school boy is also vital for when he has finish with school,
I know that the AIC comp is heading for some changes in the near future regarding age groups, it has been proposed that the age groups will be replaced by year level like in CIC comp. This is to accommodate the increasing amount of older boys coming through the system.