IRFU Jeopardise the future of schools rugby !!

[Durkah Durkah]

I am after reading back over my posts here and it appears to me, never mind anyone else(!), that I am very negative towards schools rugby. I'd like to clarify my position on this.

I believe that fundamentally schools rugby is a positive thing and that the vast majority of coaches are giving up their time to help out with teams and players, again in a positive manner. I would say that my main grievances are with the system and the "schools rugby lobby" for want of a better term.

I am a schools coach and also a club coach. With my schools team I spend more time on unit and team technical sessions, plus tactical sessions. I have 4 sessions a week (includes match) and so the players I am with spend a lot of time with ball in hand. They would also have conditioning sessions during the week too. I work at a league school not one of the "Top 6". At the club I get to do more individual technical sessions and mini unit sessions. I have two sessions a week with these guys and they have no supervised conditioning but have a fitness plan which is not mandatory.

The reason I have two different approaches is that I am preparing one group for competition and I am only working on development with the other group. If I decide to be rebellious and do development with the school team, they will get hosed every week by the other schools preparing for competition, from 1st year up and wont be interested and possibly give up as no one likes to lose all the time. I dont have the same competitive pressure at the club and my only goals are to try to make every player better by the end of each season and to have fun. We still have fun with the school team but it is different.
This is where are I believe the structure is wrong. How good would our adults be if everyone was working on individual skills for all of their rugby playing career up to say 16, rather than getting 1st years (some who have never even touched a rugby ball before) ready to play games and enter the U13 league? A possible solution would be that the first competition they come across is the Junior Cup and that could be in 4th Year. Imagine 3 years of development, no competitive noose, I believe it would be to everyones benefit.

Unfortunately, and here comes my second grievance, this would never be allowed by the Schools Committee, where politics, tickets for internationals, personal gain and alickadooism seem to be the only items on the agenda. When they don't get their own way it's due to the Leinster Branch or IRFU removing their power and not respecting schools. Of course the LB and IRFU are interested in their own agenda, which is to be successful at rugby so they make more money. But that wont happen unless they develop young players for the future. So there is a benefit to the young player.

If we all sang off the same sheet we would be flying but we wont because neither side will trust the other. And the saddest thing is that in between the politicing and bickering the majority of kids (not all) never get to realise their full potential.

[groundhog]

Excellent post DD. You echo my own sentiments perfectly.

[lebowski]

This is where are I believe the structure is wrong. How good would our adults be if everyone was working on individual skills for all of their rugby playing career up to say 16, rather than getting 1st years (some who have never even touched a rugby ball before) ready to play games and enter the U13 league? A possible solution would be that the first competition they come across is the Junior Cup and that could be in 4th Year. Imagine 3 years of development, no competitive noose, I believe it would be to everyones benefit.

There is no Official Competition before Junior Cup. Some school's have their own leagues at Under 13 and 14s but the vast majority don't. Its no coincidence that the teams that compete at the latter stages of the Junior League nearly every year, with the exception of Gonzaga, are not in the private league namely CBC, Newbridge, Roscrea and Pres Bray . These schools do focus on developing the players in first and 2nd year while St Andrews, CUS etc are too busy obsessing over a relatively meaningless competition. Our school would regularly lose to these schools in 2nd year but almost never in cup years. I know that in the past our school looked to enter the league and were not allowed to by the participating schools but we are glad now that we aren't in it as it looks like it gives coaches an excuse not to develop skills.

For the record, our first and second year coaches do follow the relevant stage of the LTPD Plan and the school's conditioning coach has developed a program to fit in with it for all age grades. The stage from JCT upwards (I think its called training to compete) fits in well with the competitive nature of schools game anyway. Our RDO reckons that the more successful small school are implementing it (but that might be a good sales pitch from him). He makes regular appearances in the school to make sure that the coaches are following it too.

I would also like to see the Junior Cup as a forth year competition.

I don't find any real difference between school's players at a young age and club players. I see a difference in the coaching that they get. When I go out to the club, I am often taken aback by the clueless people (normally parents) who have no real knowledge of rugby that are allowed coach the kids. I coach over 60 Junior Cup players with two other highly qualified coaches in the school. At Under 17s in the club there can be 10 "coaches" for 20 players. Maybe its just in my club but it is a shambles most Sundays. Some coaches want the team to play to develop while others want to play to win. It is possible to do both. I would imagine if you ask most 16 year olds they would not be happy to go out to have a run every Sunday. Boys by nature like competition.

I believe that the vast majority of schools have no agenda or power issues but the bigger schools probably do. They certainly have too much influence in the school's game. As was posted by someone else, the pool of players is too small for the Leinster Branch to be alienating any one section.