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Australian Rugby / RA

The_Brown_Hornet

John Eales (66)
You really shouldn’t need to.

I’ve seen big kids play against my son and my son himself has always been a solid unit but I have always told him, everyone will catch up. The big, strong, fast kid at 13 is often just average by the time you get to 18.

Work on the fundamentals and basics. Work on the things you can control - work rate, fitness, technique etc and be patient.

Does not NZ have weight for age?
 

Dan54

David Wilson (68)
I know when I was tied up with kids stuff in NZ,it was a combination of age and weight, say a 10yo would play in whatever grade up until a certin weight, if he was too big would only play one grade up, so a bit 10yo would play with 11yo's and no higher.
 

The Ghost of Raelene

Simon Poidevin (60)
As long as the skill is there. I played league with a kid who was put up because he was enormous but not better than any of us.

Hated it because he had no friends. Even if it’s 1 age group the gap can be almost 2 years between kids. He couldn’t relate.
 

Wallaby Man

Nev Cottrell (35)
As long as the skill is there. I played league with a kid who was put up because he was enormous but not better than any of us.

Hated it because he had no friends. Even if it’s 1 age group the gap can be almost 2 years between kids. He couldn’t relate.
This always a tricky conversation because I know lots of kids that haven’t returned because they are fearful of getting trampled by the big kid. It’s one of those situations of perceived safety (kids are really in danger but they are fearful) over feelings.
 

Kenny Powers

Ron Walden (29)
NZ do in some comps have weight limits however you can exceed them and still play but have to wear red or coloured socks. This to make sure trophy hunting teams are not gaming the rules and have red socks players that start to dominate games.


This way the larger but lesser skilled kid who won’t dominate a game gets to play at the appropriate level.

SJRU had a combined weight and height criteria at one stage not sure if it still exists. However it was an absolute joke because you had to be over in both weight and height you would be an absolute statistical outlier.

Just another example in my eyes of poor rugby administration in Australia the do nothing approach.
 

The_Brown_Hornet

John Eales (66)
It's a balance for sure. Playing up can be tough for some of these lads, but equally it's not much chop having boys who are 20-30kgs heavier than the smaller kids smashing through everyone either. I think we've all seen it in the junior grades.
 

Rebel man

John Thornett (49)
You really shouldn’t need to.

I’ve seen big kids play against my son and my son himself has always been a solid unit but I have always told him, everyone will catch up. The big, strong, fast kid at 13 is often just average by the time you get to 18.

Work on the fundamentals and basics. Work on the things you can control - work rate, fitness, technique etc and be patient.
It’s about getting as many kids into the pathways as possible, educating them on athletic development and working on their skills
 

shanky

Darby Loudon (17)
SJRU had a combined weight and height criteria at one stage not sure if it still exists. However it was an absolute joke because you had to be over in both weight and height you would be an absolute statistical outlier.
Was never widely enforced and was quietly dropped the next year. For the reasons you outlined

…but not helped by this incident

 
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Sir Arthur Higgins

Dick Tooth (41)
NZ do in some comps have weight limits however you can exceed them and still play but have to wear red or coloured socks. This to make sure trophy hunting teams are not gaming the rules and have red socks players that start to dominate games.


This way the larger but lesser skilled kid who won’t dominate a game gets to play at the appropriate level.

SJRU had a combined weight and height criteria at one stage not sure if it still exists. However it was an absolute joke because you had to be over in both weight and height you would be an absolute statistical outlier.

Just another example in my eyes of poor rugby administration in Australia the do nothing approach.
What do the socks do?
 

Adam84

Rod McCall (65)
Was never widely enforced and was quietly dropped the next year. For the reasons you outlined

…but not helped by this incident


For this example weight classes realistically can only be introduced in scenarios where clubs have depth across all age groups to adequately balance and cater for all players.
 

Dan54

David Wilson (68)
For this example weight classes realistically can only be introduced in scenarios where clubs have depth across all age groups to adequately balance and cater for all players.
That is so right, even when I was involved with running schoolboy rugby 50 years ago, there were dispensations given to clubs who didn't have numbers to allow for all players in every grade. There is no perfect system.
 

half

Dick Tooth (41)
I fully understand how perfect our admins are and how superior to all others in Australia.

However, even allowing for our superiority, I will don my helmet and in this case hire a suit of armour.

I often commented that the Nobody Really Cares two attempts were totally rushed and in the haste to get them off the ground, the seeds of failure flowered. My theory has always been it takes about four to five years from start to its up and going.

With the above in mind, when challenged I used Football Australia, maybe only good thing they achieved was they spent four years getting what they call the "Australia Cup" off the ground similar to the FA cup in the UK. Its one of the few successful things they have done. This was seen by some as offensive as we all know that soccer is !!!!!!, useless example etc,- but some years on its getting stronger and within the Football community is very popular.

Why you ask bring it up again, well I am not, just as an opener, and working example.

A client and after 20 years as a client now a mate as well, he is a big Central Coast Mariners fan, anyway he sent me this link on something often discussed in various threads on this site, i.e. setting up a second tier competition, akin in many ways to the principals and objectives of the NRC concepts.

It seems Football Australia, started a process almost four years ago to establish a "National Second Division",

Today they announced they are in phase 4, [I assume there were phases 1, 2 & 3 no idea what they did over almost four years] but the point is FA announced today they plan on 20 November to announce the teams, and it kicks off in 2025 from the link my client sent me.

First on bended knees, can we get past its soccer and its crap, the real story is by the time this kicks off somewhere between 4 & 5, years of discussion, negotiation, Will it succeed thats depends on the expected KPI's I guess.

Rugby has deep issues that IMO are far more complex to fix than people think, I love the idea they spend around two years simply talking to various stakeholders. Those who think Rugby can, by changing a few simple things fix Rugby IMO are far off the mark, if it was that easy it would already have been done.

AS I have posted over the past few months, I no longer believe we can establish a professional national domestic competition, because we have fallen to far. Further we need to use revenue from Super Rugby to help fund alternatives so we can escape the golden gains Super Rugby is holding us with. However we need to determine the best way forward, and the concept of a NRC competition if done correctly would do that. However rather than like before we get it competed from on high, rather than a bottom up approach, which is what Football Australia did.

For anyone interested the link I received.

 
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