CAS Rugby 2023

[Snort]

Between 1978 and 1983, St Pats and St Pius competed in the CAS Rugby rounds on a trial basis. The experiment was discontinued. It caused a bit of chaos because the CAS competition was then strictly unofficial, with no formal points awarded, and so no one ever ruled whether matches played by St Pats and St Pius "counted". Generally, teams counted those games if they won them, and not otherwise! There was particular confusion (from memory) in 1979, when Waverley was undefeated against CAS schools (don't mention the draw, though, WLF) but (I think) lost to St Pats, whereas St Aloysius lost to Waverley but beat St Pats - so at one stage both schools claimed a premiership, with St Aloysius counting the St Pats game and Waverley not. (Trinity also won against St Pats, so we were happy to count them!)

Anyway, it didn't proceed. My recollection is that it was decided that if the competition were to expand, two schools were needed (or else there would be a bye) and St Pius were seen as not being up to standard, and couldn't supply teams for the full range of sports (plus their 1st XVs of this period contained some alarmingly violent players, which didn't help their cause).

 

[WLF3]

Between 1978 and 1983, St Pats and St Pius competed in the CAS Rugby rounds on a trial basis. The experiment was discontinued. It caused a bit of chaos because the CAS competition was then strictly unofficial, with no formal points awarded, and so no one ever ruled whether matches played by St Pats and St Pius "counted". Generally, teams counted those games if they won them, and not otherwise! There was particular confusion (from memory) in 1979, when Waverley was undefeated against CAS schools (don't mention the draw, though, WLF) but (I think) lost to St Pats, whereas St Aloysius lost to Waverley but beat St Pats - so at one stage both schools claimed a premiership, with St Aloysius counting the St Pats game and Waverley not. (Trinity also won against St Pats, so we were happy to count them!)

Anyway, it didn't proceed. My recollection is that it was decided that if the competition were to expand, two schools were needed (or else there would be a bye) and St Pius were seen as not being up to standard, and couldn't supply teams for the full range of sports (plus their 1st XVs of this period contained some alarmingly violent players, which didn't help their cause).

Ok Snort, you have successfully poked the bear

My recollection of all this was nothing to do with a trial to enter the CAS, the Waves team was never told any such thing.
In those days the Waves played St Pats every year at some stage of the season, but it had no bearing on the CAS comp, only the current CAS school members made up the comp. These same schools competed in all other sports eg Athletics, swimming etc, no sign of Pats or Pius.
In fact Barker didn't even play Pius in 1979!
Waves won that year fair and square, undefeated in all CAS games, and it is correctly written in the CAS Rugby records.

Now times have changed and I think the case for new and stronger Rugby schools should be seriously considered for the Rugby comp, can't comment on other sports. I also think Rugby is quite a separate case to other sports due to safety considerations, ie, being truly competitive is a serious requirement, particularly in scrums.

For interest sake, I am aware that at least 1 CAS school, not the Waves as has been touted, voted against Pats joining, I am not sure Pius was really ever being considered but could be wrong in the case.

Will I see you at Trinity?

 

[Snort]

Will I see you at Trinity?

Hope so - planning on it.

 

[Elfster]

Found this.

Which also included a much younger me doing some officiating.

Must have been a hot and dry winter in 1995. Or the grounds just look bad due to the quality of the video

 

[Snort]

Ok Snort, you have successfully poked the bear

My recollection of all this was nothing to do with a trial to enter the CAS, the Waves team was never told any such thing.
In those days the Waves played St Pats every year at some stage of the season, but it had no bearing on the CAS comp, only the current CAS school members made up the comp. These same schools competed in all other sports eg Athletics, swimming etc, no sign of Pats or Pius.
In fact Barker didn't even play Pius in 1979!
Waves won that year fair and square, undefeated in all CAS games, and it is correctly written in the CAS Rugby records.

Now times have changed and I think the case for new and stronger Rugby schools should be seriously considered for the Rugby comp, can't comment on other sports. I also think Rugby is quite a separate case to other sports due to safety considerations, ie, being truly competitive is a serious requirement, particularly in scrums.

For interest sake, I am aware that at least 1 CAS school, not the Waves as has been touted, voted against Pats joining, I am not sure Pius was really ever being considered but could be wrong in the case.

Will I see you at Trinity?

I promise you it was a trial basis. But the Headmasters never turned their minds to what it meant for the competition, because they continued to pretend that there was no official competition.

Barker was drawn to play St Pius on the day that Australia played a Test against Ireland at the SCG. Trinity v Cranbrook and Barker v St Pius were also set down on that day, but were deferred to allow players to go to the Test instead. Trinity v Cranbrook was eventually played on a Wednesday afternoon after school, and Barker and Pius couldn't find a suitable date. But the game was part of the original draw.

I don't remember how it worked for other sports. St Pats played the cricket, basketball and soccer, but I can't recall whether Pius did.

Anyway, certainly agree with you that times have changed!

 

[WLF3]

I promise you it was a trial basis. But the Headmasters never turned their minds to what it meant for the competition, because they continued to pretend that there was no official competition.

Barker was drawn to play St Pius on the day that Australia played a Test against Ireland at the SCG. Trinity v Cranbrook and Barker v St Pius were also set down on that day, but were deferred to allow players to go to the Test instead. Trinity v Cranbrook was eventually played on a Wednesday afternoon after school, and Barker and Pius couldn't find a suitable date. But the game was part of the original draw.

I don't remember how it worked for other sports. St Pats played the cricket, basketball and soccer, but I can't recall whether Pius did.

Anyway, certainly agree with you that times have changed!

Not sure how you know it was a trial basis, that's news to many, but it certainly wasn't communicated to the CAS teams as such, and the fact that ALL the CAS schools did play each other but NOT the other 2 may be coincidental ( I think not ) but doesn't sound like a serious trial to me. If it was the real thing then Barker and Pius would have found time for just 1 game to complete the "Trial". Our Coach Br Murphy, who was instrumental in school boy footy at that time, never mentioned any such trial.
We were instructed that if we beat Barker at Barker in the very last game then we would be the outright winners of the CAS comp.
Had we lost, it would have been a 3 way tie with Aloys and Barker!

Such was the pressure and crowd for that last game, and the real winner is written in the CAS Rugby records, and it doesn't say Aloys!
It's an Aloys convenient conspiracy!
So someone else, ie the CAS board etc, must have also agreed who really won.
I did note that Aloys have a picture of the 1979 team as winners in their clubhouse, cheeky buggers, so do we at Queens Park.

FYI we never played Pats or Pius in any other sport!

Ancient history now, and Yes times are very different now, and we should move with the times.

 

[moa999]

Found this.

A dominant Knox team that year.

The entire 1995 team were selected for CAS representation including if I recall 14 of 15 in the named 1st XV squad, 8 players were selected for NSW and 5 went on to play for Australia.

 

[scrumhead99]

Knox 10+
Cranbrook 30+
Waverley 3+

 

[Running_rugby_1954]

The history of the competition is wonderful to hear. Snort I know you did a lot of work building the records formCAS rugby. Is it possible to share it on here again?

 

[Snort]

The history of the competition is wonderful to hear. Snort I know you did a lot of work building the records formCAS rugby. Is it possible to share it on here again?

Here you go - sort of up to date...

 

[moa999]

Here you go - sort of up to date...

What years was a home and away comp played?
Presumably from beginning to when Waverley joined in the mid-40s.
And again from somewhere in the 2000s to 2016?

 

[Game_Day_Ritual]

Not sure how you know it was a trial basis, that's news to many, but it certainly wasn't communicated to the CAS teams as such, and the fact that ALL the CAS schools did play each other but NOT the other 2 may be coincidental ( I think not ) but doesn't sound like a serious trial to me. If it was the real thing then Barker and Pius would have found time for just 1 game to complete the "Trial". Our Coach Br Murphy, who was instrumental in school boy footy at that time, never mentioned any such trial.
We were instructed that if we beat Barker at Barker in the very last game then we would be the outright winners of the CAS comp.
Had we lost, it would have been a 3 way tie with Aloys and Barker!

Such was the pressure and crowd for that last game, and the real winner is written in the CAS Rugby records, and it doesn't say Aloys!
It's an Aloys convenient conspiracy!
So someone else, ie the CAS board etc, must have also agreed who really won.
I did note that Aloys have a picture of the 1979 team as winners in their clubhouse, cheeky buggers, so do we at Queens Park.

FYI we never played Pats or Pius in any other sport!

Ancient history now, and Yes times are very different now, and we should move with the times.

Br Brian Murphy, blast from the past one of the finest schoolboy rugby coaches of that generation.

 

[Game_Day_Ritual]

I think Oakhill has shown they deserves to play higher teams on a regular basis

Maybe head down the path of the GPS. Looking at some results in reality and no dis service to Aloys maybe create a model like High and Grammar have. In essence play 4 home games then 4 away games. Aloys plays either in the seconds comp or thirds. In essence all CAS teams have two cracks at one another which means if you lose one game you can still go on and win the CAS (benefits include the premiership could go all the way down to round 8 and more footy for the kids which is a good thing given lost time in the Cov19 years). Maybe at the front end of the comp couple of CAS teams have an unofficial match up against Oakhill and Auggies and at the back end of the season this plays out again with different CAS teams at the back end. There can be a new competition and/or shield for these games which has the best of ISA play the best of CAS.

 

[Snort]

FYI we never played Pats or Pius in any other sport!

Ah, but WLF, I beg to differ. In the CAS round on 18 November 1978, Cranbrook beat St Aloysius, Trinity played a dull draw with Barker and Waverley played St Patricks in the cricket. It was a draw - St Pats 216 (Paul Grimble and the very slow Dave Thomas made runs), Waverley 6-165 (McKay and Coorey scored fifties). I assume this was the game in which John Coorey claims to have broken Justin Gleeson's glasses. Now, WLF, if what you meant was that you never scored any runs against St Pats...

 

[WLF3]

Ah, but WLF, I beg to differ. In the CAS round on 18 November 1978, Cranbrook beat St Aloysius, Trinity played a dull draw with Barker and Waverley played St Patricks in the cricket. It was a draw - St Pats 216 (Paul Grimble and the very slow Dave Thomas made runs), Waverley 6-165 (McKay and Coorey scored fifties). I assume this was the game in which John Coorey claims to have broken Justin Gleeson's glasses. Now, WLF, if what you meant was that you never scored any runs against St Pats...

You are being pedantic! Maybe I did forget about that Cricket game, as I don't remember it. It wasn't a CAS comp game! Of that I am sure.
And whilst unsure I would have thought we played Knox that day if it was a real CAS round!
Keen to know your source on this, and it may have been 1`of the few days I didn't score lots of runs

 

[Snort]

WLF, I disagree with you on few things, but the point to remember about CAS sport back in the day was the crazy pretence that (apart from swimming and track) there were no competitions. So in one sense there were no CAS competition games at all. Thankfully we grew out of that...

 

[WLF3]

WLF, I disagree with you on few things, but the point to remember about CAS sport back in the day was the crazy pretence that (apart from swimming and track) there were no competitions. So in one sense there were no CAS competition games at all. Thankfully we grew out of that...

Agree Snort, we disagree on not much, but this discussion has run its race. We will have to agree to disagree, my final word is that the season was always organized such that the CAS schools all played each other at the end of each season, logically why, to determine the best CAS school footy team. Everyone knew it was a comp for the member schools, if there is a technical reason why it wasn't a comp is silly (not from your end) because everyone knew what it all meant.

I will be at Trinity tomorrow, as will many other Waves fans, I REALLY hope Trinity has good support, the team definitely deserves it.
May the best team win!

Let me know, I hope to say G'Day.

 

[schoolboyfooty]

Go Waverley!

 

[DropGoal]

I my opinion CAS has been a more fun comp this year … and the people in the thread are cooler

 

[Snort]

Game day.

And it's odd, because there are three schools in the hunt for a premiership, but it doesn't really feel like a cliffhanger.

Waverley, of course, will be premiers no matter what happens. And I would love Trinity to upset them at Summer Hill this afternoon. But I can't see it happening. Waverley has too much gas, and Trinity probably pushed itself to the peak of its potential in beating Cranbrook and Barker. Knox put 50 points on Trinity; Waverley is better than Knox. Logic says that Waverley wins. I can't see Waverley being complacent about this one - it's their last game for the school and they're playing for an unbeaten premiership.

At the start of the season, when Waverley was struggling, I thought that Knox v Barker was likely to be the premiership decider. Now Knox looks by far the stronger side and I expect them to win fairly comfortably today. Even then they'll need a miracle at Summer Hill to get their hands on a share of the Plume Shield.

And I expect Cranbrook to flat-track-bully a win over St Aloysius.

It would be nice to be wrong (for once).