W
The fact is that to keep school enrolments going forward AIC and with maybe 1 exception they are the biggest schools around now, offer AFL and Rugby League now on a 2 year trial. AFL wont be going away and alot of the rugby boys are shining in AFL.why ? because its mostly all about raw talent.
Hey TP, I'm pretty sure you're aligned to SLC, are they allowing their First/Second XV squad members to play AFL for the school?
I know that at Marist the rugby boys have been actively discouraged from playing AFL, which has significantly diluted the talent pool on top of the swimmers, cricketers and volleyballers being ineligible, but the MCA boys who are playing AFL are loving it with a number of boarders in the younger grades now looking to play AFL club footy on Sundays.
I can only see the AIC AFL comp thriving in the years to come, but this does not pose any threat to rugby in my view
The rugby league experiment in term 3 will be very interesting. I know some disagree, but given that the RL comp comes after the rugby season I struggle to see how rugby will be affected provided that the rugby program takes precedence as it has with Confro in past years.
In fact, as others have said, providing a school environment where boys can play both rugby and RL for their school might keep a few talented boys within the AIC system and maybe even attract some who like the sound of that that more than an 8 month rugby pre-season in the GPS.