Continued decline in Sydney Junior Rugby

[Fat Cat]

QH the private school pathway and the village club pathway need to come together at some point preferably at state level. I am not sure but I think Manu Sutherland from the ARU has written a paper on how to achieve this before.

The JGC would be better if it took place and concluded at the end of the year rather than the start so you didn't have those silly mass selection trials, and you could pick all year from school or district rugby. That's why I thought tacking on to new NRC would be a good option. Also it caters for centres around the country which looks after other states and the bush . I know it does get busy at the end of the year sports wise though.

Does rugby league go to Sundays across Sydney at the 16's age group ? If so this must be because of Harold Mathews which is played Saturdays and which I think finishes by the start of March.

At the moment the village club comp compensates to allow private school boys to play union, they already play union ! The competition should be compensating for the boys who play league that way your numbers of players in total will increase.

 

[Quick Hands]

An elite level JGC at the end of the various seasons, aligned with the NRC would be a good option. When you explain it that way, we agree.

Clubs and schools run their own competitions prior to that.

In Sydney the solution is Saturday club rugby attached to the colts system in 15s and 17s, in country areas and non-traditional rugby areas a different solution run by the ARU would probably be a better fit.

Junior league in Manly-Warringah goes to Sundays in 14s, I think this is the same across Sydney, so having Saturday club rugby attached to Colts playing on a Saturday morning is the perfect fit I'd have thought.

 

[Fat Cat]

At the moment the village club comp compensates to allow private school boys to play union, they already play union ! The competition should be compensating for the boys who play league that way your numbers of players in total will increase

I think this is a pretty important point in regard to the name of this thread

 

[Runner]

Just out of curiosity. How many boys play rugby on a Saturday in the variuos school boy competitions .i.e CAS etc compared to the villages?

 

[Fat Cat]

buggered if I know

 

[Quick Hands]

Just out of curiosity. How many boys play rugby on a Saturday in the variuos school boy competitions .i.e CAS etc compared to the villages?

As a rough guide:

The bigger GPS schools (in terms of rugby), Joeys, Kings, Riverview & Shore have about 8-10 open teams each and go down to about Gs or Hs in 15s & 16s and down to Js or Ks in 13s & 14s, so very roughly they'd each run about 48 teams, Scots a few less maybe 33 teams, New a few less again maybe 25 teams, High and Grammar maybe 10-12 teams each. That's about 280 teams just in GPS. CAS a bit smaller might run 240 teams. ISA a bit smaller again in Div 1, but run 3 divisions so another 240 teams there as well.

So we're talking around 760 teams running around every Saturday - even if you only allocate 15 players to each of those teams, it's about 11,400 players plus.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

Just out of curiosity. How many boys play rugby on a Saturday in the variuos school boy competitions .i.e CAS etc compared to the villages?

As a rough guide:

The bigger GPS schools (in terms of rugby), Joeys, Kings, Riverview & Shore have about 8-10 open teams each and go down to about Gs or Hs in 15s & 16s and down to Js or Ks in 13s & 14s, so very roughly they'd each run about 48 teams, Scots a few less maybe 33 teams, New a few less again maybe 25 teams, High and Grammar maybe 10-12 teams each. That's about 280 teams just in GPS. CAS a bit smaller might run 240 teams. ISA a bit smaller again in Div 1, but run 3 divisions so another 240 teams there as well.

So we're talking around 760 teams running around every Saturday - even if you only allocate 15 players to each of those teams, it's about 11,400 players plus.

Suggestions Grammar will run down to a 4ths this year

 

[Ted S]

What we need to focus on equally is retention of kids that are not "elite".
The problem could well be a large part that people focus on the gold squads etc when there are plenty kids that just want to play RU for the fun of it but basically get forgotten

 

[BeastieBoy]

On this website today it states " Rugby League Fast Becoming a Rugby Union Feeder"! No wonder. The Rugby Union juniors are dying. The ARU don't care and want to suck $200 from them, The Rugby League juniors train in some instances twice a week. Rugby Union juniors once. The union junior training and games are a lot softer than the League. Yes league will be the feeder cause there will be no union juniors left.Kids would rather play League cause they get to run with the ball much more and tackle and be involved. That in addition to the lack of attention has caused the movement in club juniors to League. The elitist North Shore perception doesn't help.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

What we need to focus on equally is retention of kids that are not "elite".
The problem could well be a large part that people focus on the gold squads etc when there are plenty kids that just want to play RU for the fun of it but basically get forgotten

The SJRU charter is to foster and grow the game of Junior Rugby in Sydney.

Too often as @TedS has identified, the focus seems to be on the Grand Final, Rep teams, and the A Division competitions in the various age grades.

It is a funny mathematical thing that takes some time to get across the detail of how it works, but growing a game typically involves getting more players involved in playing the game, not just getting the good players playing better.

In my experience, the best committee and general volunteers for Rugby come from the ranks of the B, C, D and E divisions in Junior Clubland, and the School B, C, D and lower age group teams. Make their rugby experience miserable and in 20 years you will get the negative reward. These blokes are the ones who not only volunteer, but they bring their kids to the register for junior rugby, buy foxtel subscriptions, buy team merch, and sponsor teams.

Never, never, never forget the base of the pyramid. Neglect it at your peril. Ask Yertle the Turtle.

 

[Fat Cat]

big butt see post 217. Do you agree ?

 

[Hugh Jarse]

@Fat Cat your post 217 makes a lot of sense, like many of the contributions on this thread.

SJRU cop a fair bit of criticism on this and other threads. There are some good (and some very good) people involved in running SJRU, along with the odd pompous self-interested vain glory seeking twit living vicariously through their offspring and enjoying the power rush that being on the committee gives them.

The problem is obviously deeper than just the mob running the rock show because most of them are very capable individuals, and successive committees seem to have been unable to achieve the fostering and growth that their constitution requires. At best, it could be said that they have achieved the fostering and growth by preventing further shrinkage. Imagine what the team numbers could be like.

Knowing that there are some, if not many, good folk involved with the brains trust at SJRU who like many of us on here have a degree of common sense and good ideas of the nature that are being posted on these threads, what is going wrong that these ideas are being starved of oxygen at Committee and beyond? Is there a Joe Tripodi/Eddie Obeid like person/group involved that is shagging it all up?

 

[Quick Hands]

The fact that SJRU are going all out to reinvigorate Saturday club rugby indicates to me that they have recognised the problem and are moving to fix it. It may well be that the horse has bolted for them and we need to move 15s and 17s to colts.

I think one of the issues is that there are some people who will die in the trenches defending Sunday rugby. Their thinking goes; allowing school players to back up Sundays means more teams. (You'll notice I said more TEAMS not more PLAYERS)

Unfortunately the strategy isn't working and numbers are decreasing.

Keep doing the same thing and you get the same results

 

[Fat Cat]

I think Hugh that the SJRU and the district clubs act on behalf of their union members, the village clubs. And the problem is that the village clubs are not considering the bigger picture for a number of reasons.

• scared of change
• worried about teams folding if you have a year round district rep comp
• worried about moving to a Saturday because their club caters for a lot of private school boys
• committee members satisfying their own personal interests

A Saturday comp was offered in the 16's age group and they had 2 teams put their hand up.

If it was offered again now with people now knowing their team numbers, and where the kids go to school, and what day they play league on, maybe the SJRU would get a different response.

maybe the comp could start at the completion of Harold matts ?

Rego's in the older age groups are always difficult, they don't rush in like they do in the younger age groups on the designated days. So a lot of the time coaches and village clubs don't even know if they will have a team that early in the year when the SJRU asks.

Maybe if a paper went out to the stakeholders explaining all proposals first, people might not be so scared of change

 

[Hugie]

Last year I went up to the U17 state champs. Illawarra was giving Gordon a fair thumping. Gordon had its private school stars pull out 2 weeks before, and the team management had to get on the phone and pull together an new team, and get it together in 2 weeks.

These were the boys who no doubt love their rugby and turn up week after week to get a run, then try out for the district team only to be overlooked for the private school stars. Then when they can't play, loyally turn up again only to get thumped due to lack of training etc.

AND then, for a moment I felt sorry for them. I remembered they were Gordon, and got over it (my shrink says it's OK, it's when thoughts like that linger you have a problem).

If you treat people unfairly they'll stop coming. If they commit to you, you have to commit to them.

 

[Quick Hands]

It's probably no co-incidence that Gordon colts have been struggling to attract players over the past few years.

The boys of which you speak Hugie are the ones that Gordon should be supporting and promoting all the way through their junior programme, but they seem obsessed with maintaining teams propped up by private school players backing up and playing Sundays. Short term this is successful for them, but long term I'm not so sure.

 

[Runner]

Is there not a rule about how much time there should between boys playing two collision games? Saturday for school and Sunday for Village is within 72 hours. Or is it different because one is school and the other village?

 

[Inside Shoulder]

It's probably no co-incidence that Gordon colts have been struggling to attract players over the past few years.

The boys of which you speak Hugie are the ones that Gordon should be supporting and promoting all the way through their junior programme, but they seem obsessed with maintaining teams propped up by private school players backing up and playing Sundays. Short term this is successful for them, but long term I'm not so sure.

That overlooks a couple of things.
For season 2013 there was zero recruiting done apparently owing to administrative oversight.
Also, that u17s team would have been coached by Tony Dempsey (I think) who is the colts coach this season together as was this season's assistant.
Players like Matt Dixon and Mitch Hardy came from public schools into gordon colts but they were playing colts when they were still under 18. That was late 80's.
In the early 80's the place had a lot of public school kids. In 79 CHS toured Japan and half the Colts had CHS kit in 1980.
There hasn't been much change in the numbers of kids enrolled in the north shore private schools in the decades since so i think, yet again, there's a strong case for attributing this fall off to a decline in the playing of rugby in the public schools and a massive change in the demographics in and around Chatswood: a clue lies in the name of the centre where the club house once stood!
Presumably the concern you express is the reason for abolishing the grandfather clause: but don't expect to necessarily improve the quality or quantity of rugby, on the contrary.

 

[Quick Hands]

Much of what you say is no doubt correct, although my understanding is that schools like Killara High (top performing state comprehensive for at least 10 years) and Turramurra High are in demand, so maybe there are more public school boys out there than the powers that be at Gordon realise. But you see, there's no real incentive to chase them if your team has enough numbers courtesy of private school players doubling up. The incentive to go and recruit comes when your team will fold if you don't. I think Speiber correctly identified that it depends who is coaching the team.

I also view with healthy scepticism the line that someone forgot to send a letter out and therefore no 18-20 year olds between Willoughby and Hornsby knew about playing colts. Maybe those boys formed a view about where they fitted into the Gordon system and voted with their feet to play elsewhere?

 

[Battalion]

points of lost post was

1. districts and NRC best solution for Sydney
2. ARU must have the balls to stand up to schools and implement.
3. other areas need different solutions
4. eg NRC from Perth base could have their own levels below
5. QLD schools go to 17yrs completion. Solution ?
6. create Aust U/18 team instead of schools
7. if GPS and CAS don't want to be part of the pathway. Bad luck !
8. what is the time table for the NRC
9. what is the GPS time table ?
10. What is the school reps timetable ?
11. How can we make it all work

Not as good to read but there it is

you've saved a whole heap of scanning thru 16 pages of posts.

points
8. nrc starts in august
9. including trials, gps runs from 18 may to 7 sept http://www.aagps.nsw.edu.au/
10. have a dig through this http://www.nswschoolsrugby.rugbynet.com.au/