Oh this is going to be fun.
State Champs is a NSW JRU activity. Everything in the programme should be viewed in the context of it being NSW JRU Policy. When they refer to higher rep teams they mean NSW State Team not the Sydney JRU or NSW Country JRU teams.
The "regional" tournament is a joint SJRU/NSW JRU tournament which is primarily used by Sydney JRU to finalise their teams for the SJRU vs Country games.
Literature from NSW JRU will point to the Sydney vs Country game being the main factor determining the selection into the State team. This is contrary to what they publish in their JSC material. To further confuse things, NSW JRU will always make exceptions, and the country folk will often cite that there is a quota in place for Sydney JRU in the State team when they win, and vice versa from the Sydney folk if the SJRU team wins.
The truth is somewhere in the middle.
Parachuting under age boys into higher age groups like Tyrone.
I see nothing particularly sinister with this,
provided they turn up to State champs in one or other age division. Many of these boys actually play their regular club games at an age level up. Some drop back to their proper age division for reps, some don't. This is not without ample precedent both in the Schools RU world or the Juniors.
There will typically be some U15 boys at U16 Schools trials at Knox. Sometimes these boys make the U16 Schools, or Juniors team. Similarly there are boys from the U16's that play for GPS III or ISA II or the like at the OPens (under 18 schools games) midweek, and then drop back to U16 for the Sat Sun U16 games at Knox. Sometimes they don't play U16 SChool trials at Knox, but get selected from their performance at the Schools Under 18's. Parachuted in yes probably, but at least these kids participated in a trial before the selectors.
I have difficulties with players who are uninjured who do not attend JSC who somehow find themselves nominated in the Zone teams for regionals or later trials.
These boys are the famous Hugh Jarse Paratroopers.
So performance at the Zone games at Regional tournament gets you selected into a Sydney JRU higher representational team.
The Country folk select their Country rep team before the JSC, so the teams at JSC representing their Zones are playing purely for their Zone/region, not for a position in a higher representative team.
It is all absolute gobbledogook and nonsense. There are far too many parties interested in their own importance, and the importance of their own organisation fighting over the same pool of boys.
Join
George Smith's revolution and help restructure junior rugby and realign and repave the pathway. Contribute to the debate on the National Tournaments thread.
The Sermon on the Under 16's can wait, but feel free to browse through last years thread. Very little has changed apart from the names of the rugby players and their parents.