Ideas to improve the standard of rugby in the NH

[Twebby]

I dislike touch. You can get the exact same benefits from 7's and it also helps the out at the tackling too.

Many of the skills are transferable, but it takes a different approach to score tries without anyone laying a finger on you. Even in 7s there is room for guys to just smash through each other. You also can't just kick the ball away when under pressure, it has to be worked away with good handling and teamwork.

I think both versions of the sport have their merits and can benefit players of the 15 a side game.

[big ginger 8]

The bad thing about tip is that you can't really use someone running a hard line like you would in a real match if the space and numbers aren't right it can get very lateral.

Fiji tip is a good game for working on offloading and support lines also great for fitness. If the same person gets tipped twice in possession or the ball hits the ground its a turnover. So you can get tipped once and offload. When you score you run it out towards the other line. Makes it very tiring.

[welshglory]

Executing skills under pressure is one the NH's biggest problem and no one can deny that, no matter how one eyed you are.

Why this is or how we can change it is up for discussion.

[Teh Mite]

Want to make rugby better? Simple... Concentrate on grass roots and work up instead of the other way around. Applies to the game worldwide.

Will never happen though with the old farts who run the game permanently ****** on gin (see: tossers like Francis Baron & Martyn Thomas), sucking down a huge pension pot for doing bugger all.

[j'nuh]

In a few of the NH countries (England, France, Scotland), football is the number one sport, and there's little media attention towards rugby. I'd say I'm a pretty devoted rugby fan, but I only watched my first rugby (league) game at 16. I was 17 when I watched my first union game. (From what I gather, this isn't unusual for a rugby fan in England, but would someone from the SANZAR nations be able to hold off watching rugby for that long?) I could have gotten into the sport a lot earlier, but I had no one ever telling me I should give it a go (media or friends). I've only ever had three friends who have cared about rugby in some form. (So spontaneous rugby with friends is out of the question.)

I was a big kid. One of the tallest, definitely the heaviest. It would have taken a pack of kids to pull me down. (Then everyone went past me in puberty... not bitter at all.) Still, no one thought to give me a rugby ball and make me throw kids half my weight aside. I was put on a football pitch instead, and was crap. If I was born in NZ, someone would have forced me onto a rugby pitch when I was a kid and I might have actually been half-good.

In countries like England, a lot of people join the game at a much later age. Most physical development happens in puberty so the NH hasn't missed out on matching the SH physically. However, the SH has years more experience of ball handling skills. Smaller framed players in the SH have had years to develop their strength and other skills, whereas their English counterparts fear joining the game because they don't have the talent in other ways to make up for their feebleness. We could be missing out on the next Jason Robinson because he's too worried about all the boys being bigger than him. (This has certainly made me worried about playing the sport.)

We need to abandon creating a rugby-mad nation. Won't compete with football. Instead, create rugby hotbeds with the same kind of passion for rugby that you see in New Zealand. New Zealand has dominated rugby for most of the last decade with a population just a bit more than half that of London. I find it hard to believe that we'll struggle to turn a few regions containing about 5-6 million people into ardent rugby fans. Spreading talent out across a large area just means that talent gets isolated and lost. If, instead, you concentrate talent into pockets, then sports colleges can draw upon and develop the best. Hartpury college alone has developed Charlie Sharples, Jonny May, Henry Trinder, Alex Cuthbert, Dan Tuohy, Ryan Mills, Tom Savage and more.

[big ginger 8]

Rugby is the fourth most popular sport in Ireland. Though we are a sport mad nation an most people play a few sports as kids but when it becomes more serious and you need to specialise when you reach your teens a lot of people will quit.

[Zed]

From a skills perspective you really need to focus on developing basic skills at an early age and I didn't really see that in the schools/u16/u19 rugby I've watched in the UK. Admittedly it wasn't the greatest level, but still the lack of basic skills was shocking. Just stuff like backs crabbing across the pitch, poor passing etc etc A junior coach should be anally retentive about little things like getting players to straighten up, drum it in to young kids so it becomes second nature. I was watching some youtube videos of U15 Grays College (Bloemfontein?) and the skill level was fantastic, especially considering their age. I have to say however, especially in WA, the good weather conditions make it much easier to throw the ball around, put in long spin passes, I did find it more difficult in the UK in the wet and perhaps that is one factor that hinders skill development> That said it's rarely not raining in NZ!

[heineken]

Is there something like a schools/provincial tournament in the UK?

Like in South Africa we have the U19 Craven week, which is this week in Port Elizabeth, where all the Provinces play in a week long tournament...

Then we have the U16 Grant Khomo week, and also the U13 Craven Week...

[Peat]

There's a national cup competition, sponsored by the Daily Mail, but I'm not aware of any week long things like Craven Week.

Amusing name really.

[heineken]

There's a national cup competition, sponsored by the Daily Mail, but I'm not aware of any week long things like Craven Week.

Amusing name really.

It's named After Dr. Danie Craven who was an integral part of South African Rugby

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danie_Craven

[Teh Mite]

Schools and regional rugby don't mean anything here (anyone who says otherwise is a liar). The RFU allocates catchment areas for junior players then there are 2 steps... Club -> Test.


Club is a higher standard then test.

[big ginger 8]

Some clips of Leinster Senior Cup rugby the schools competition that would get the most media coverage in Ireland. As it is a cup competition it is pretty attritional style used, it also starts in February when the weather is fairly crap and most matches are played on the Donnybrook pitch which is terrible however I think the skill level is still fairly good.




A number of players from this match were at the U20s this year.


Interview with Schmidt at the end.

[snoopy snoopy dog dog]

The Leinster schools Senior Cup has definitely improved in quality. Clongowes and Michaels are leading the way with some fairly enlightened coaching. This is seen in the number of players from those schools who are getting academy contracts as of late. Terenure next year have a few players who are good enough to go pro. Leinster Rugby are to be commended for taking a greater interest in coaching these players through camps over the least few years.

However this can be improved on significantly. Broaden the player base, get rid of competition at under 16 level (using other sports as a guide, this is done in Spanish football as far as I know) and focus on skills development and awareness. Apart from the school boys in the Junior and Medallion Cup competitions, nobody really cares about them and as such they serve no purpose. As has often been told in here, Brian O'Driscoll never made his schools Junior Cup team. Enjoying your rugby and broadening each players skill levels is a better way to go than focusing on knockout, competitive games at a young age.

[big ginger 8]

The Blackrock team a few years ago had something crazy 7 players now professional with a back three of Fitzgerald, Morris and Artymiev.

The Marys team from '08 also had a number of players who should have made it but didn't for various reasons. Jack McGrath and Darren Hudson are now of course with Leinster (though Hudson will probably have to leave) but Ian O'Neill an electric winger would have made it if not for injury problems and Eoin Moriarty turned Leinster down because he couldn't take the pressure.

Junior Cup rugby is a strange one it does generally come down to size over skill but it's still something no one wants to get rid of especially those involved.

Michaels have been using it pretty well to develop players the last view years. While they may not generally be great people it's hard to arhue against the standard of rugby being produced.

[Twebby]

Schools and regional rugby don't mean anything here (anyone who says otherwise is a liar).

Try telling that to Sedgefield, or Bedford, or Millfield, or Barnard Castle, or Hartpury, or Warwick, or any of the other huge rugby playing schools. I think it matters to them. Even in a lot of state schools, making the 1st XV is a huge goal for lots of aspiring rugby players.

[Conal]

aye but once you go remove ther nucelus of hard core private and grammar schools your left with 90 percent who dont give a ****. its just a thing some of the lads do during the week which the staff have no clue about

[Peat]

It's named After Dr. Danie Craven who was an integral part of South African Rugby

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danie_Craven

It's still an amusing name - you are aware of the word's most common useage in English language right?

Try telling that to Sedgefield, or Bedford, or Millfield, or Barnard Castle, or Hartpury, or Warwick, or any of the other huge rugby playing schools. I think it matters to them. Even in a lot of state schools, making the 1st XV is a huge goal for lots of aspiring rugby players.

Amongst my various uni friends was a guy who'd been first XV at Sedgefield. He'd basically been a semi-pro rugby player there in terms of amount and quality of training.

The Blackrock team a few years ago had something crazy 7 players now professional with a back three of Fitzgerald, Morris and Artymiev.

The Methody cup winning team of 3 years back (I think) look on path for something similar - Niall Annett, Adam Macklin, Michael Heaney, Paddy Jackson, Craig Gilroy and Blaine McIlroy all on one team, with a few others who appear to be getting lost in the churn but might yet bounce back.

If anything, the impression I get is that schools rugby is too big in Northern Ireland. You get kids coming out age 18 who've effectively been semi-pros and they've had enough. If they can't go higher than where they were - basically, more or less straight into the pro game - they're not interested. Obviously I wouldn't know myself but I've heard the story plenty of times, including from lads who basically did that. It doesn't help the cause of Ulster rugby that a lot of lads move out of the province for uni either.

[big ginger 8]

Yeah that was some team and last years Methody wasn't half bad either.

I wouldn't say that's the case in Leinster as far as I'm aware. Sure some players give it up or simply just play it at a more social level and don't become the player they could have become but many join AIL teams straight out (or at least from my school they do St Marys the school has a great relationship with St Marys Club). Seeing as most of the players coming through are schools players I'd say it's working to some degree.

[Teh Mite]

Try telling that to Sedgefield, or Bedford, or Millfield, or Barnard Castle, or Hartpury, or Warwick, or any of the other huge rugby playing schools. I think it matters to them. Even in a lot of state schools, making the 1st XV is a huge goal for lots of aspiring rugby players.

Still got bigger all to do with top level rugby. Playing top level for a grammar school has no more influence in joining a pro academy then achieving a colts shirt for a feeder club. I.e. Bedford athletic supply more players to the Blues then Bedford school.