Oh my lord. What a problem we have this year and rugby in general.I am in shock..
As you all know:
-rugby,football,basketball & tennis are all to be played term 3.
-some schools want the 1st 3 rounds of rugby cancelled to enable "front row passports " to be obtained ;
-boys had to nominate which sport they will play.
I am in total shock at the number of football teams & the lack of rugby teams.
Some schools have 32 football teams and 9 rugby teams.
Figures came out yesterday.
Democracy in action . Sort of speaks volumes across many fronts though eh?
I can sort of understand why some schools are not rushing to prioritise Rugby in the middle of a crammed Sporting offering where the boys are deciding what they want to play , and also where , the delays being referenced make it impossible to have a GPS Rugby season in Term 3. If one was to exist it would have to extend into Term 4 , which has other impacts - especially for the Grade 12 boys that are trying to sit finals and finish school through October / early November.
About the only way you might make it work is ditch the bye round and if there are a couple of schools who want to opt out this year - let them .....and maybe pinch the first weekend of the School Holidays - a compressed 6 week season.
The other issue in all of this is money and resources ....and the cost of running these programs where some schools just don’t have the money, or are , and will continue , to experience issues with their customers being able to pay the cost of schooling.
And if you are a family that is experiencing and will continue to experience difficulty emanating from the ongoing impacts of COVID-19 you may well be looking at the real value proposition of education right now and exactly what you are paying for - especially scholastically.
I’m not casting aspersions on any “elite” private school per se .....I’m just saying for a good number of them will not be immune from the significant financial impacts of COVID-19. Their service offerings and their value propositions will be questioned more than ever before as they roll forward.
A really good case in point is a GPS old boy I work with who has 3 kids under 3 and is aghast at the cost as he’s looking at enrollments. He is going to try and re-direct to a Catholic option in the association at a $9k per year per child difference. For him that consideration wouldn’t have even been considered 2 months ago.
It’s a genuine paradigm shift folks but like the GFC everyone is a bit in denial and waiting to “get back to normal” without understanding that there has been a permanent shift in how life has changed.