Northland Rugby
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@taniwharugby that was a cool initiative with the 14 year old teams. Like to see that sort of thing with a bit more structure for the boys from 14 - 18, not too young.
The question I have about school boy rugby in Northland is what are the NRU doing? When I played in Waikato ( after being brought up playing club rugby in Northland ) I got the sense of tradition and how important school rugby was. Long time ago now but is sounds like nothing has changed back home. It we can’t create the tradition, maybe they create a sub union level competition?
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@kev as I said above, they were sounding clubs out about pushing things back to school, but not sure how that would look.
I mean this season there were 8 U14 teams, MId Northern, Marist, Kamo, City, Tikpunga, Northern Wairoa, Otamatea and Hora Hora...
so thats 6 teams in Whangarei, how do they push that many back into Boys HIgh and Kamo, without going down the 'elite' type scenario they are trying to avoid these days?
PLus, if kids leave clubs (as the odd ones are forced to do depending on age/weights) it detracts from fostering strong ties to clubs.
As above, there is no U15 grade for the kids to move into next year, straight to U16, Marist already fell apart in U14 this year, no idea what has happened to those boys.
I know Kamo will probably struggle to field an U16 team due to half thier team being small enough to play U14 again next year, and some parents already indicated that they would keep thier boys down.
City were pretty well resourced, although I think they have had a couple of thier better players head to Auckland schools, Mid NOrthern will be lucky in that half thier team this year were the older kids under the weight limit to stay down this year, so they should all move through to U16 easily enough.
Apparently there were 4 teams in the NOrth Zone, Kaitaia, Aupori, Te Rarawa and KeriKeri so played one another 4 times.
Apparently one option next year is to open it up NOrthland wide for U16, where there will be 10 teams at best, probably 9 as I reckon Tikipunga will drop out too.
For me, U14 and U16 are hugely important, these are the ages kids are dropping out and the one NZR and all these sports administrators are saying we need to do more to keep involved, but I dont know how, and neither do anyone else I dont think.
TR JNr has said if he doesnt grow much over summer (and is too big to stay in U14) he wont be playing U16....so he might not be leaving for the reasons of elitism and so on we keep hearing, but it is still a reason why other kids leave...although I think he will be fine and end up playing
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@taniwharugby to be honest I prefer the Club rugby setup. More inclusive and less elite.
But those drop offs in numbers are huge. Do the boys play touch during summer? Keep them with the club and in the system. That’s the way we need to think. Keep them in contact with the club ( sports club rather just rugby club ) building skills and fitness for life. A broad base will give the best results.
I always played weight restricted rugby at club level, didn’t play in 6th form, then first fifteen, didn’t play at varsity, then played under 77kgs in Auckland rugby which is now under 85kg. Our team played touch during summer and then morphed into cricket when we got older. But that grade kept me in rugby, sport etc.
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@Machpants At the end of the day sport should be fun. All the kids should want to participate just because of that. What is sports participation like now in schools? I know devices have changed all our habits, and work pushing into weekends and nights for parents means less time for structured community activities like clubs.
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I'm not too worried about this season. We've had absolutely rotten luck with injuries since pre season. A smaller province like us is always going to struggle with such a big injury list. The long term upside to so many injuries is that more guys get a crack so potentially better depth for the future. Guys like Stokes, Caird, Mayavanua, Atkins, McNamara, Byrnes etc have all played way bigger roles than probably expected of them and Matiu has had a breakout season.
I still think despite all the injuries this season if we had a functioning midfield we would have performed so much better. Hohaia tries hard but is probably better suited to the B team. Johnson will hopefully never play another game for Northland again. You could handle all his basic errors, missed tackles, handling errors etc if he was putting in 100%. Hard to believe he even got close to a S15 gig let alone had a season at the Blues. When he gets beaten in defence (as often happens) he makes absolutely no effort to get back and help in support or try and make up for it. The Manawatu game was telling - gaping holes in midfield defence and instead of chasing back he would just stroll back yet guys like Atkins and McNamara are chasing back basically on his behalf.
I think if we had stopped persisting with Gregory at 15 and put him at 12 we would have had a much better season. He would have offered a much bigger threat in midfield with ball in hand, would've created more time and space for J Deb and would've strengthened the defence. If he gets left to settle at 12 he will become one of the best in NZ. He's best suited to that position - can probably cover the outside backs if needed but doesn't have the pace to dominate as an outside back.
The backs (midfield) have really let the forward pack down this season. The forwards have battled bloody hard all season.