How to grow more home grown stars?

[The Oracle]

Need also to consider Regional, State and School commitments (training and games) on top of club rugby and its all a major commitment for boys and parents alike.

Presumably if boys wish to make it to the elite level they need to commit 5 or so training sessions a week to bring themselves up to a physical level where they can compete.

[Pacman]

Need also to consider Regional, State and School commitments (training and games) on top of club rugby and its all a major commitment for boys and parents alike.

Presumably if boys wish to make it to the elite level they need to commit 5 or so training sessions a week to bring themselves up to a physical level where they can compete.

Yes, that is right – the 5% to 10% of players you refer to (School, Regional, State & Academy) it is a big commitment by player and parents, but for rugby to strengthen in this state we need to bring along the 2nd tier players or simply put, ‘the Rest’ who play bugger all Rugby…….and I’ve watched school rugby, it’s a light training run compared to club Rugby!!!

[NTT]

Got some boys who play school rugby at Kala who treat school rugby as a bit of a joke which can be a pain in the arse because the we're shit hot attitude seeps into club from the boys who play for a dominant school side. Also because they play for 2 teams it can be hard to teach them the more technical skills because they start suffering rugby overload and tune out quickly. The coaching at school level is also a joke, none of them are learning the basics of rugby to a high enough standard. We basically have to try and keep they're attention span long enough to sort out the lack of technical skills being coached at school level. Coaching is critical, it has to be quality over quantity. Thats where things falls down a lot. The coaching accreditations are too easy to get, which is diluting the standard. But it's also a volunteer position being a coach and you don't want to scare people off. Each club could have a coaching co-ordinator who works with the RWA development team to ensure standards are being raised.

[NTT]

Apart from lifting coaching, training and strength and conditioning standards to more professional levels, RWA needs to really look at refereeing consistency. At times the refereeing in senior rugby has been of such a low standard, it make you wonder how do they get to become referees. Tonight alone i saw - a knockon awarded as a penalty, a try awarded when the player lost the bal 1metre off the ground, props deliberately boring in on hookers and trying to deliberately wheel scrums, players who leave they're feet at rucks not penalised, players in front of kickers by up to 8metres, crooked scrum feeds galore, players being taken out by decoy runners on multiple occasions and much more.
Lift your game referees, the current displays are hurting the standard of play.

[Political BS]

Great discussion on the issues around bringing the kids on.
Having had two sons go through the WAJRU system of State teams etc... I can really identify with the issue around player burn out. When my two boys played it was club training twice a week and game on Satuirday, State training twice a week and trial game or training on Sunday. Looking back on it now I am not sure that was such a great thing especially if you add to that school training and midweek games......
Ten years in Juniors, 2 to 4 years of Colts. Just how much rugby can we expect them to play when as parents we also want them to be well educated and able to earn a living and to find girlfriends etc...