Growing QLD Schoolboy Rugby

[Set piece magic]

Bump.

Opinion:

Running the GPS comp outside of AIC etc means that some great footy teams don't play each other. The GPS is the traditional league and that's fine, and it appears that no amount of yelling will cause the powers that be (in my opinion the powers that shouldn't be) to include other schools.

Proposal:

New competition Running in Term 2, The QRU Cup.

Any school is welcome to submit there First XV, which are the only teams that participate

All schools, including every GPS school, every AIC school and whatever else are invited.

My list:

Anglican Church Grammar School
Brisbane Boys' College
Brisbane Grammar School
Brisbane State High School
Ipswich Grammar School
St. Joseph's Nudgee College
St. Joseph's College, Gregory Terrace
The Southport School
Toowoomba Grammar School
Downlands
Iona College
Marist College Ashgrove
Padua College
St Edmund's College
St Laurence's College
St Patrick's College
St Peters Lutheran College
Villanova College
Cannon Hill Anglican College
Canterbury College
Forest Lake College
The Scots PGC College
John Paul College
Ormiston College
Redeemer Lutheran College
Rivermount College
St Columban's College
St Paul's School
West Moreton Anglican College

Teams from each school will play in a knockout format, starting in term 2) Teams are seeded.

Round of 32 (Reigning GPS premiers to have a bye) (someone find 3 invitational teams)

Round of 16

Quarter Finals

Semi Finals

Final

Winner wins the QRU cup. Competition takes 5 weeks.

Rugby wins. Tell the TAS & AIC to move their season to term 3.

Injuries rebuttal: Teams play 5 trials anyway!!

This kind of competition would do wonders for schoolboy rugby.

 

[ruggasXV]

This kind of competition would do wonders for schoolboy rugby.

Except for the insanely huge scorlines between GPS teams and AIC/TAS teams.

 

[TheKing]

I'm currently working out a competition myself to suggest to schools.

I'm limiting competitors to 90 minutes in any direction from Brisbane. Any further is too far. say James Nash High School in Gympie has to travel to Toowoomba Grammar School. It's a 3 and a half hour drive with traffic!

Cutting the schools that lay 90 minutes outside Brisbane leaves 36 "traditional" rugby schools across the GPS, AIC, TAS and SCSS competitions.

Three divisions leaves 12 spots open to invitational teams like Keebra Park, Coombabah etc.

Pool stages sends the top two teams from each pool to the Top Eight playoffs for the Eales-Horwill Cup / promotion, while the bottom two teams go to the Bottom Eight playoffs to stave off relegation / battle for next year's seedings.

With three teams to be relegated from each division, the bottom eight semi-finalist who "wins" i.e, finishes fourth-last, survives. The rest get bumped into Div 2/3.

These are my thoughts for seedings.

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

I'm currently working out a competition myself to suggest to schools.

I'm limiting competitors to 90 minutes in any direction from Brisbane. Any further is too far. say James Nash High School in Gympie has to travel to Toowoomba Grammar School. It's a 3 and a half hour drive with traffic!

Cutting the schools that lay 90 minutes outside Brisbane leaves 36 "traditional" rugby schools across the GPS, AIC, TAS and SCSS competitions.

Three divisions leaves 12 spots open to invitational teams like Keebra Park, Coombabah etc.

Pool stages sends the top two teams from each pool to the Top Eight playoffs for the Eales-Horwill Cup / promotion, while the bottom two teams go to the Bottom Eight playoffs to stave off relegation / battle for next year's seedings.

With three teams to be relegated from each division, the bottom eight semi-finalist who "wins" i.e, finishes fourth-last, survives. The rest get bumped into Div 2/3.

These are my thoughts for seedings.

View attachment 8476

So this a Cup competition as opposed to a regular organised season? How many games will be played in the pool stages? Three or 6 (I'm assuming it's 4 pools of 4 in each division). Certainly an interesting format.

 

[TheKing]

Yes, a six week Cup competition to be played alongside existing competitions.

It bumps up the First XV season from eight games to 14, not including trials, and allows the more-conservative schools to hold on to their traditional competitions at the same time.

It has potential to be extended to nine weeks with a home and away pool stage.


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[WorkingClassRugger]

Cannot see the likes of the established competitions going for a 9 week competition. Though, I do think it could be used as a means of delivering more access to both Private and Public schools that fall outside of those associations.

 

[Dark Shark]

Good stuff Nic. Have to start the discussion somewhere and there are lots of different views, perspectives and agendas to overcome.

A div 1,2 and 3 promotion and relegation system sounds great. 48 teams spreads the love. The issue I have is the seeding is based on a prior year group's results. It can be very different from year to year. Just look at Qld GPS over last two years - ACGS from first to last or GT from second last to second.

So a solution may be to run an u16 and an Open comp. With both teams seeded in same comp and u16 results deciding next year's seeding.

Or you go same route similar to a Sevens Comp.

Having 8 pools of five teams and then a cup, plate, bowl, pennant and hub cap finals system with Quarters, Semi, ranking and Grand finals. All up each team would have 7 games. No seeding required and there may be blow outs in round robin games but the finals would hopefully bring some competitive games. But it does add 2 more games all up. Just trying to add thoughts.

 

[TheKing]

I think ultimately the seeding is irrelevant once games kick off.

All it does is pick out a spot for teams to start in. Their results in the pool stages will determine whether they're competing for the Cup or battling relegation.

For example, if the seedings I've proposed are accepted, the four pools would be:

Pool A: State High, Sunny Coast Grammar, St Pat's, and Downlands College

Pool B: Gregory Terrace, Ipswich Grammar, St Peter's, Churchie

Pool C: Southport, Padua, Marist, Matthew Flinders

Pool D: Nudgee, BBC, Toowoomba Grammar, Brisbane Grammar.

I wouldn't expect there to be more than one blowout game in each of those pools, regardless of year-to-year fluctuations.

And if there are, they're quickly sorted into appropriate playoffs so at absolute worst the school's will have three games out of their depth.

 

[BaysideBird]

How about we just make the Ballymore Cup a postseason cup for 1st XVs of sorts?

Just have it like the American college football, where you have non-conference matches in Term 2, Conference matches in Term 3 and a Top 8 finals at the end at Ballymore.

Play maybe 16 games, 8 or so Conference matches in your competition (GPS, AIC etc.), give automatic postseason entry to the winners of GPS and AIC as well as new Greater Brisbane, South Queensland, Central Queensland and North Queensland competitions, and 2 highest ranked non-champion schools, and you play them off over 3 or 4 days at Ballymore.

After a couple of years you could add 2nd XVs, 16s, etc, as well as a division 2 cup for smaller schools and new rugby schools as well as a girls competition.

 

[TheKing]

Another idea to make a Rugby Union competition more attractive to the League schools would be would be to play Rugby 10s.

Given some schools have already given Rugby Sevens a crack I think 10s would be a great next step to getting them interested in XVs


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[WorkingClassRugger]

Another idea to make a Rugby Union competition more attractive to the League schools would be would be to play Rugby 10s.

Given some schools have already given Rugby Sevens a crack I think 10s would be a great next step to getting them interested in XVs


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I actually think that would be a good option as an introductory tool. Still has all the basic structures but with a bit more open space. Also there's the numbers thing.

 

[I play wing]

The majority of GPS/AIC/TAS schools have been willing to participate in soccer's UHLsport Cup which is a round robin competition for independent schools run in term 2 (which is soccers term) so there is hope for this rugby comp.

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

The majority of GPS/AIC/TAS schools have been willing to participate in soccer's UHLsport Cup which is a round robin competition for independent schools run in term 2 (which is soccers term) so there is hope for this rugby comp.

But does Soccer have the same prestige and tradition that Rugby enjoys in most of these schools. That's probably one of the biggest hurdles to achieving this.

 

[I play wing]

But does Soccer have the same prestige and tradition that Rugby enjoys in most of these schools. That's probably one of the biggest hurdles to achieving this.

Definitely not. But I think it shows that schools can be at least willing to participate outside their own comps.

 

[warrenwobble]

Some one has to fund this or nothing happens. Headmasters buy into prestige and free-bees- The ARU needs to understand this if they want a say in Schoolboy rugby and how its run.
What headmaster wouldn't want their First XV playing a final of a national comp on Fox Sports with Marto and Kearnsey carrying on like greasey pork chops - if it's all funded by someone else??

 

[Lindommer]

All well and good to rabbit on about the appeal a school's "First XV playing in the final of a national comp on Fox Sports with Marto and Kearnsey carrying on" but the issue at hand is a simple one: INCREASE PLAYING NUMBERS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE COMPETITION, not more self-aggrandisement at the top.

The suggestion to run more 10s comps to attract league-playing schools is eminently sensible. I've reffed a couple of mid-week games for schools who don't take part in regular rugby comps, they loved it. For me there was no adjusting the laws (I think there was supposed to be a difference in the kickoffs, no matter) so I also enjoyed the experience. A lot of coaching about the Laws on the go.

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

All well and good to rabbit on about the appeal a school's "First XV playing in the final of a national comp on Fox Sports with Marto and Kearnsey carrying on" but the issue at hand is a simple one: INCREASE PLAYING NUMBERS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE COMPETITION, not more self-aggrandisement at the top.

The suggestion to run more 10s comps to attract league-playing schools is eminently sensible. I've reffed a couple of mid-week games for schools who don't take part in regular rugby comps, they loved it. For me there was no adjusting the laws (I think there was supposed to be a difference in the kickoffs, no matter) so I also enjoyed the experience. A lot of coaching about the Laws on the go.

Tens is probably a better pathway into the 15 a side format. It offers a greater degree of perceived openness which I think actually appeals to League players. I've had similar experiences with League players coming across. We would have them play in preseason 10s tournaments as an introductory to the game. It also had the benefit of teaching them that Rugby is what you make of it. If you just stood out there on the wing, sure you'd see little action but if you work as hard off the ball as you do on it you'll discover Rugby is a lot of fun to play.

A third terms 10s structure over 6-8 weeks plus finals would likely be a solid start.

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

Definitely not. But I think it shows that schools can be at least willing to participate outside their own comps.

I hope it would be an indicator of these schools willingness to look beyond their borders. Though, I tend to think comparing Rugby which draws in thousands to games to any other sport isn't a like for like comparison.

 

[Gary Owen III]

What headmaster wouldn't want their First XV playing a final of a national comp on Fox Sports with Marto and Kearnsey carrying on like greasey pork chops - if it's all funded by someone else??

I think you may find more wouldn't want this than would. As evidenced - NSW GPS rugby used to have a regular piece in the Sunday papers a few years back, until the schools asked for this coverage to stop.

 

[TheKing]

I think you may find more wouldn't want this than would.

Apparently there were many in the Qld GPS schools that were squeamish at even live streaming, let alone with commentators.

I think school's are desperately clinging to the notion that these players are students first and foremost, not semi-professional athletes.

A televised comp featuring athletes that have received thousands of dollars in discounted fees is not a look that the schools have any interest in showcasing.

On the topic on 10s, I worry that the big schools will treat it like a joke if it's not full blooded XVs.. They'll send a development 16As/Second XV hybrid squad to have a bit of fun, which detracts from the competition's prestige and legitimacy.


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