First, a little history. The Athletic Association of the Great Public Schools formed in 1892. Its members, by April 1892, included King’s, St Ignatius, St Joseph’s, All Saints Bathurst, Shore, Sydney Grammar, Newington, St Stanislaus, St Patrick’s Goulburn and the finest school in all of Lithgow, Cooerwull Academy. Scots joined in 1893, the Armidale School
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Well written and well thought out as well as appropriately restrained in identifying the problem.
I suspect, however, that there is an issue being overlooked.
As much as the strong rugby schools want to be strong rugby schools I doubt very much that they are interested in getting into the inevitable US college style arms race that would result from the system envisaged.
For kings et al if it really came to it they would have to concede that the primary purpose of the school is to educate, not to prepare for a professional rugby career. Hell, in the case of Kings the headmaster is frequently engaged in gabfests in the media concerning the role of education, it's funding and philosophy. That is not intended, in this context, as a criticism.
This suggests to me that there is no will to further elevate rugby in the life of the schools which take a more serious approach to the game.
This probably explains the lack of Interest in imposing a solution and why the less serious schools are not asked to drop down, that decision being apparently left entirely to those schools.
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