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ADDED SATURDAY 01/03/2008 Watching the local club rugby Friday night stuff last night, a few more pennies dropped for me in light of what we do, and in actual fact how well we do it and particularly how we do it against some big money outfits and operations. After wandering around between both fields looking at the younger age groups, and some scrappy football, due to kids being played out of position, (I don't mind kids being played in different positions, but they need some help, a kid that has only ever played number 8 is really struggling as a 6 ft 5 flyhlaf for one example, they need some help) and being unfamiliar with each other, I headed up sideline on the main field to watch the Under 16's go around, only to run into 3 brothers, 2 of them really passionate about rugby, one of them headed in the other direction and really passionate about league. We exchanged the usual hellos and the league brother hopped straight into whether or not I had heard about the Broncos deal at Toowoomba Grammar, which of course I had and have hinted at here. I said this, that I have heard of it, but that my opinion was that it would not benefit the code in any way. As passionate as I have been about rugby, this guy is about league, and he asked me how I could say that when the Broncos will now be developing the TGS kids from the 13A's to the firsts. This is fine conceptually, but the Broncos guys, as heavily resourced as they are, will not be able to intensively develop across that scale, what needs to be developed is the coaches, and one thing, amongst many that annoys me in rugby is a lack of coaching consistency of basics, and a lack of coaching evolution with the game. This area is particularly caught up in a 1980's rugby style of coaching and some of the rot you hear coaches go on with on the sideline just contributes further to my already over the top blood pressure, it shouldn't, but it does. My league counterpart, who I have great respect for, went on to say that the QRU has done little for rugby in this area. The Broncos won't do anything for rugby in this area either, they are in it for the Broncos, not rugby or rugby league locally. I am happy to criticize the QRU, ARU, and have done and will continue to do so as I see fit. I agree that the ARU and QRU have done little here for the code, but someone then has to make them take notice. Hopefully my college counterpart and I are on the way to making that happen, I certainly make enough noise. He further added that they now have access to Peter Ryan teaching them how to tackle, that's fine, Ryan is one of the nice hard men of both codes, and I like his simplistic approach to defensive and tackling techniques, but he has been there in 2007 and 2008 and the Reds are a leaky outfit when it comes to defensive systems. Ryan is yet to be proven as a great defensive systems coach. Also they will have access to Paul Green and the strength and conditioning stuff, now if the people in charge listen, the strength and conditioning stuff will be top field, but you still have to convince some old schoolers, not just show them. Anyway, the Under 16 match got under way and there were a number of "home grown" league boys all playing in the Rangers side. Very complete league players, in the Broncos programme, and three in that programme and attending TGS, one of them quite a gifted runner, the other quite a destructive runner and Qld league rep, there was at least one other, maybe 2. They were all in the Rangers side, along with three or four Regional College kids. The Bears side contained 5 or 6 Regional College kids, maybe more, and another gem that I have been watching for three weeks, that I invited along tot he College, last night. People were telling me that he doesn't pass that well, they just aren't seeing what I am, his ability to get to space, and get the ball to others in space is first class, great awareness and quite big and quick. As the game got moving, and there was a bit of feeling, and I do like a bit of feeling in a game, it was quickly evident that the kids from the Regional College were generally playing at a much higher level of rugby that all the others. Some of the spatial awareness and decisions from them on both sides was first class, and some of the pace with which raids were launched into space was outstanding. What I really liked though was the directness of running, the speed of line attack, the body heights and shapes at the breakdown, and the physicality of most of these College kids. We have been belting them pretty hard with contact drills now for a couple of weeks and it seems to be paying off. I will be personally asking, no hammering the QRU to look at some of these kids when Rep time comes around. Now whatever the Broncos budget, and however good the program is, and it is good, the league guys cannot coach the breakdown, it is not part of their game and they probably don't understand it. You have to do it alot to just have stuff coming naturally, a number of decisions to make on entry, and they need to come naturally, and the College kids were doing this very well. So I gave ourselves a rap, just two of us, average guys, passionate about a cause, and seemingly delivering, no big budgets, in fact some of the gear I was promised has not even turned up yet, and there are some other hiccups that I will take up with the QRU and not air publicly, but we have enormous room for improvement, and we have really only worked on basic skill development and enhancement, and my personal favorite, a can do mindset, at the end of the day, I am all about delivering better people into the world, and I am sure my counterpart is too. I am here to tell you this morning that as a rugby programme vs a league programme in a rugby school, we are delivering very well I believe, and we have enormous ability to improve. If these kids at these schools go back and can deliver some of what has been taught at their school level, then their school rugby will benefit too. They will have to be allowed to though. What is very exciting for me though is the development of kids, I call them smokies or roughies, from outside the "rugby school" system, and I think in this year's college these kids have been and continue to be strong performers and consistent and big improvers. I am really impressed with where a number of them have come from, and hopefully will be impressed with where they take themselves in the code. Rugby won't survive on a few schools scholarshipping all the talent, and must develop itself a net outside that base. One thing that really annoys me about rugby though, is a sheer lack of consistency across how things are coached. Again league beats us hands down in this area, and the code of rugby must pick up it's act here. Teach them the basics for goodness sake, get them to do it at pace, do some breakdown and bodyshape work, a little on primary support, and you will be on your way to a fair rugby side. Throw the set moves out the window, get them opening their minds to options, not set plays. I expect some heat over this, but anyway, I was pretty chuffed last night, the College guys performed at a very good level, above that of everyone else, which is what I expect.
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WE DON'T STOP PLAYING BECAUSE WE GROW OLD, WE GROW OLD BECAUSE WE STOP PLAYING. |
