NSW AAGPS 2017

[Rugbybloke123]

By ignoring these rules,as a Knox supporter you have not done any credit to yourself, Knox Grammar School or the great game of Rugby Union.

Ours is the game of the gentrified Professional Middle Class, with its innate values, established traditions and accepted standards of personal behaviour.

I agree with what you've said about the game etc however saying "Ours is the game of the gentrified Professional Middle Class" is todays problem with rugby as many see the game as too elitist and only played by snobs. Its time to move away from these established notions of the game and to be more accepting is to who plays and supports rugby. At the end of the day a reason why rugby is failing in western sydney is because of these attitudes and we will not allow rugby to flourish until they are addressed.

 

[sidelineview]

Defeats are easily accepted when they are of this magnitude. And there have been plenty of defeats for the C@B faithful over the last couple of years, although few as comprehensive.

Just feel for the kids from Waves who got plenty of respect from their opposition but precious little support from their own. Hopefully there are plenty there to watch them at home against Newington.

It wouldnt have worried the players. From all accounts the relatively small band of Waverley supporters was very vocal.

Dont worry, home crowds are always significantly big and loud.

Clearly a petty issue not worth your mention.

 

[bigmac]

You flop, Shore is top 3 contender this year no doubt. Not only beating high, but doing so with a majority of 4ths and 5ths players

Hey back off my mate Jim. He is a strong TAS supporter and provides great input to the forum along with IS.

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[Black & White]

I agree with what you've said about the game etc however saying "Ours is the game of the gentrified Professional Middle Class" is todays problem with rugby as many see the game as too elitist and only played by snobs. Its time to move away from these established notions of the game and to be more accepting is to who plays and supports rugby. At the end of the day a reason why rugby is failing in western sydney is because of these attitudes and we will not allow rugby to flourish until they are addressed.

Yes Rugbybloke, you are perfectly correct and I now admit in a moment of utter disgust that I overreacted with those comments. What I guess I was trying to say that " Nice and well mannered people shouldn't disparage a referee who is doing his job on this site. We have established Codes of Conduct in order to maintain a certain sense of propriety and sportsmanship.

As a Rugby Coach I learnt over the years even in the most trying of referee decision making that " The referee is always right, even when he is wrong". That phrase has for me brought a sense of harmony that keeps me polite, gracious and appreciative of the referee's efforts in giving up his Saturday Mornings.

Yes, your right again that Rugby must break out of its North Shore/ Eastern Suburbs bastion. May I suggest that the best to achieve this is for the code to be instilled in the various Sports Highs throughout the state particularly schools such a Westfields and Hills Sports. Even the Catholic League schools should be considered. Although, I did suggest earlier this year that St.Gregory's College, should be incorporated into the GPS. The reaction I got on this site, I suspect from an Old Boy of the school. Was it would be a "Cold day in Hell" before it happened.

Nevertheless, such a schools should a key target for the promotion of the game. St.Gregory's already, play union on Saturdays, so we got a foot in the door now. Maybe ARU funded tours to NZ, Pacific Islands and even the UK might the way to turn such schools from the dark side. However, I not holding my breathe as the Shore Boys who currently run (or try to run Rugby, in view of the appalling Super Rugby Results) are very much your stereotypical projections of Rugby's social image. Also, I think the TAHs Coach said something similar about the social connections and its status as a top of the Town game over the weekend.

 

[Jim Belshaw]

Hey back off my mate Jim. He is a strong TAS supporter and provides great input to the forum along with IS.

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Thank you bigmac! Appreciated. I put the first and then the second list up to spark discussion. So fatboysunited is perfectly entitled to say that I flop and to nail his colours to the Shore mast. I would love to see Shore being competitive this year in the thirds, but the High defeat on the info provided does not convince me. More info fbu on the strengths of the Shore team as you see them?

 

[Quick Hands]

Re joeys 2015 i was referring to their 3rds team that dominated all others by a mile. Cannot speak for 1s and 2s.

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One of the best 3rd XV teams you'd ever see. I recall watching play Kings and it really was like watching boys playing men - and the skills on display were sublime.

 

[Huly]

My 3rd XV Prediction:

1. Joeys
2. TAS
3. Scots
4. Grammar
5. Riverview
6. Kings
7. Shore
8. High.

Your standard prediction but I sense that a typically strong 3rd XV school like Scots might have the edge over what I hear to be a relatively weaker Grammar side.

The situation at High is unusual, considering their size and experience (a large contingent of players are returning from last year). But I feel they may be missing the leadership of high quality players like Musgrove and Katafono. High's 2nd XV however is unusually strong, succumbing to TAS 2s in a nail-biter.

 

[KOB1987]

Interesting to note that Newington 3rds beat Riverview 3rds last week. (Which makes the decision not to have Newington in the 3rds competition even more silly than first thought). They've beaten Riverview and would most certainly be better than High.

Pardon my naivety, but why are newington not in the 3rd grade comp?

 

[Quick Hands]

Pardon my naivety, but why are newington not in the 3rd grade comp?

Very good question. I've no idea what the answer is.

The new format might have something to do with it, don't know? It reduces the length of the 3rds competition to 7 weeks - maybe this fits in better with the endless trials?

 

[The Honey Badger]

Pardon my naivety, but why are newington not in the 3rd grade comp?

To accommodate TAS.
TAS plays as Newington 3rds. As I understand it TAS has no home games

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[Johnny come lately]

The 2015 Joeys 3rd XV were simply more physical and aggressive than anyone in their path. The clearly had an excellent team dynamic and could've beaten most 1st XV teams.

 

[rugbyman03]

What has led to the demise of Shore's footy? Not so long ago they had players like Jordy Reid and Hugh Sinclair running around for them and also had teams capable of winning premierships.

I see that they still manage to field around 8 teams in each age group but obviously lacking quality players.

 

[Quick Hands]

What has led to the demise of Shore's footy? Not so long ago they had players like Jordy Reid and Hugh Sinclair running around for them and also had teams capable of winning premierships.

I see that they still manage to field around 8 teams in each age group but obviously lacking quality players.

They're lacking something and I'm not sure that the answer is as simple as random enrolments. With that sort of depth they should be doing better.

For example, they lost 1sts, 2nds and 4ths against Barker and their 3rds beat High 17-5 (Alos racked up 80 against High on Saturday). They lost 16 A & C v Barker and they lost 16B v High 16A and lost 16E v High 16B. They drew 15A with Barker, lost 15B v High 15A, lost 15C to Barker B and on it goes. They fared worse against Waverley.

Either the programme isn't up to standard, or maybe the players and/or the school have low expectations at training which is then reflected at games.

I'm not suggesting that they should be winning everything, but from the outside, logic suggests that they should be doing better. (I note that soccer expands there exponentially and that they now have 4 AFL teams - maybe the WASP demographic isn't as supportive of rugby as it once was?)

 

[Wristman]

What has led to the demise of Shore's footy? Not so long ago they had players like Jordy Reid and Hugh Sinclair running around for them and also had teams capable of winning premierships.

I see that they still manage to field around 8 teams in each age group but obviously lacking quality players.

The results of recent years do little justice to Shore.
They have won just a couple of games in 3 years but come close 8 or 10 times across that period against good GPS teams.
They almost ruined the record of an excellent unbeaten Scots team in 2014 playing with tremendous passion and commitment. Scots scored in the final minutes and denied Shore what would have been an epic and thoroughly deserved victory.

Based on pre season results though I fear they may have slipped a little. The next few weeks will reveal all as the teams settle down.

 

[Quick Hands]

The results of recent years do little justice to Shore.
They have won just a couple of games in 3 years but come close 8 or 10 times across that period against good GPS teams.
They almost ruined the record of an excellent unbeaten Scots team in 2014 playing with tremendous passion and commitment. Scots scored in the final minutes and denied Shore what would have been an epic and thoroughly deserved victory.

Based on pre season results though I fear they may have slipped a little. The next few weeks will reveal all as the teams settle down.

There's been no doubting the passion and determination of the boys in the 1sts over the past few years. They've been a credit to themselves.

 

[Jim Belshaw]

To accommodate TAS.
TAS plays as Newington 3rds. As I understand it TAS has no home games

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I don't pretend to understand all this, but based on discussion here there appear to be two sets of issues that overlap.

The first are the changes to the firsts/seconds comp with shortening plus more trials against CAS in particular but also ISA. We have seen how this has caused the forum discussions to overlap. What this means for the longer term is the subject of much discussion.

Shortening the top level comp had flow-on effects to the larger thirds comp. By larger, I simply mean more schools. Under the previous format all schools played each other with a bye to accommodate the fact that there are nine GPS schools. As part of the process, TAS had two home games. This meant that each Sydney school would, in theory, visit Armidale once every two years.

Maintenance of this format with a shorter top competition would have created two competitions of very different lengths. Some Sydney schools (one in particular I think) were already complaining about the travel, the impact of the bye plus the difficulties created where thirds teams were playing at a different venue. The shortening of the top comp accentuated these concerns.

One option would have been to exclude TAS, something that happened once before but which would have been very unfair. The end result was a somewhat messy interim solution. Newington took a a hit thus getting rid of the bye, while the number of TAS home games was reduced from two to one. The resulting competition is still longer than the abbreviated firsts/seconds comp.

I said interim solution. I don't think anybody knows what next year's firsts/seconds comp will look like. Decisions here will flow onto the thirds.

I may be wrong in my interpretation of all this, but it's the most rational explanation I have been able to come up with based on the public discussion.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

To accommodate TAS.
TAS plays as Newington 3rds. As I understand it TAS has no home games

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Aha - so New agreed to forego a 3rds team so SJC could avoid having to take their 3rds up to Armidale.
As long as SJC is happy - but I'll bet they're not

 

[Quick Hands]

I don't pretend to understand all this, but based on discussion here there appear to be two sets of issues that overlap.

The first are the changes to the firsts/seconds comp with shortening plus more trials against CAS in particular but also ISA. We have seen how this has caused the forum discussions to overlap. What this means for the longer term is the subject of much discussion.

Shortening the top level comp had flow-on effects to the larger thirds comp. By larger, I simply mean more schools. Under the previous format all schools played each other with a bye to accommodate the fact that there are nine GPS schools. As part of the process, TAS had two home games. This meant that each Sydney school would, in theory, visit Armidale once every two years.

Maintenance of this format with a shorter top competition would have created two competitions of very different lengths. Some Sydney schools (one in particular I think) were already complaining about the travel, the impact of the bye plus the difficulties created where thirds teams were playing at a different venue. The shortening of the top comp accentuated these concerns.

One option would have been to exclude TAS, something that happened once before but which would have been very unfair. The end result was a somewhat messy interim solution. Newington took a a hit thus getting rid of the bye, while the number of TAS home games was reduced from two to one. The resulting competition is still longer than the abbreviated firsts/seconds comp.

I said interim solution. I don't think anybody knows what next year's firsts/seconds comp will look like. Decisions here will flow onto the thirds.

I may be wrong in my interpretation of all this, but it's the most rational explanation I have been able to come up with based on the public discussion.

The solution is to have a two round GPS competition for 1s/2s (which goes for 10 weeks) and a 1 round competiton for the 3s which goes for 9 weeks. The 3s start one week later and then everyone finishes on the same day.

 

[Quick Hands]

Aha - so New agreed to forego a 3rds team so SJC could avoid having to take their 3rds up to Armidale.
As long as SJC is happy - but I'll bet they're not

As I predicted they SJC) still have to send teams to mutiple venues and host teams from multiple schools because no one has as many teams as they do.

 

[Jim Belshaw]

The solution is to have a two round GPS competition for 1s/2s (which goes for 10 weeks) and a 1 round competiton for the 3s which goes for 9 weeks. The 3s start one week later and then everyone finishes on the same day.

You won't get a fight from this little possum on that suggestion, QH.