The boys were largely happy to play Joeys (& View & Scots) but the school made the decision to withdraw from the entire comp on their behalf after a review of the situation. Safety was the issue with Kings and Newington with serious mismatches in player size between Shore & these 2 sides. Those two particular sides seemed to grow significantly and find some new faces between 2016 to 2017 for some unknown reason
. Whilst they did get beaten by Joeys as well, the difference was more a skill and organisation issue early in the season. They played Scots later on and won that game (admittedly against a fairly depleted Scots outfit).
Loiterers post #236 above accurately describes what happened last year where the start of the season saw their larger backs and some key forwards missing plus there were a lot of rowers in the 15A's last year so training started very late hence early season was a real struggle. The second half of the season saw key players (5-6) return plus some external coaching input and accordingly they were a different team.
I dont know what will happen this season in 16A's. They have lost some key larger players to opens however they played and lost 14-7 against a very large Waverley team on the weekend and played with a lot of heart although it was a scrappy game dominated by mistakes and the ref. I suspect a call to proceed will be made after the trials.