Time to break up the schools?

Amazotheamazing

Looking at Ireland drifting further behind at underage, and the increasingly professional nature of the underage programmes in Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, England and France, is it time to set up schools academies for our most talented under age players. When even the best schools players are saying their schools coaching held them back (Fitzgerald), surely it's time to consign the schools to the amateur era and at least establish some level of academy where the very elite players work on the skills and strength.

The schools will obviously always have a place, but no longer home to the very elite players.

Is it time to move our underage development to the professional era?

anonymous_joe

Actually just talked about the problem in the Leinster thread.

How do you do it?

Those guys are in those schools until they're 18. Moreover, the glory and recognition is given to those competing in the schools competition. It would probably benefit are international team, but the IRFU would surely be wary of emasculating the Senior Cups and then seeing a raft of talented youth not bother with the game.

Amazotheamazing

What ever happened to playing because you love the game?

I don't see the allure of the Senior Cup sustaining us if we continue to collapse underage and eventually at senior levels too. It's all well and good saying things are fine now, but we're being destroyed by the other nations at underage. Hardly a good omen for the future?

dc69

anonymous_joe wrote: »

Actually just talked about the problem in the Leinster thread.

How do you do it?.

you do exactly what the french have done with football.

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

Or the English
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilleshall_Hall#The_Football_Association

Though,the english one isnt really used anymore.

anonymous_joe

Amazotheamazing wrote: »

What ever happened to playing because you love the game?

I don't see the allure of the Senior Cup sustaining us if we continue to collapse underage and eventually at senior levels too. It's all well and good saying things are fine now, but we're being destroyed by the other nations at underage. Hardly a good omen for the future?

I wouldn't say things are fine. I think Ireland is crying out for a well organised league to replace the Senior Cup. Certainly that way you can guarentee plenty of competitive rugby.

I just don't see a way to actually and realistically break the schools strangehold on young rugby players.

Not wanting to offend anyone, but I'm sure a raft of people here went to a posh rugby playing school, and would never have started playing otherwise. And that's merely a generalisation, I accept there'll be plenty of disagreement.

Tim Robbins

Amazotheamazing wrote: »

Looking at Ireland drifting further behind at underage, and the increasingly professional nature of the underage programmes in Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, England and France, is it time to set up schools academies for our most talented under age players. When even the best schools players are saying their schools coaching held them back (Fitzgerald), surely it's time to consign the schools to the amateur era and at least establish some level of academy where the very elite players work on the skills and strength.

The schools will obviously always have a place, but no longer home to the very elite players.

Is it time to move our underage development to the professional era?

Leinster schools should not be allowed to veto players from playing for their clubs. It is elitism and doesn't happen in any other sport.

Granted the schools get their players up to a very high level when they are 18, but as soon as they leave the school, at least 60% don't want to play anymore because there's no glamour playing under 20, J2, J3 or J4.

This doesn't happen in G.A.A. because club players feel loyality to their club, and have their local rivalaries to urge them on right through their lives.

The club scene in Limerick is reasonable good. It is one reason why Limerick clubs which have a much lower playing population than Dublin have completly out punched them in the AIL and it is one reason why the Munster pack (or 1 - 10) have won two heineken cups, most of those players came through their clubs. Granted they went to Rugby schools but they were playing AIL, with very competive local rivalaries before they went full time pro.

Shannon V Garryowen is a much bigger grudge match than Clontarf V lansdowne. When it shouldn't be.

As long as Rugby remains elitist we have no right to expect to compete internationally, as soon as the golden age retire we'll be back to the whipping boys and will struggle to give Scotland a game.

rockman15

schools rugby monday to thursday....provincial (pro academy) friday to sunday...easy as! mid week games for the Senior Cup...provincial league at the weekends...they are generally playing 2 games a week anyway this isnt a problem.

hold trials in september...building for an interntional tour in summer....gets players focused ont he reality of being a pro...if you d!ck around getting drunk or your grades suffer...your cut. that will give competition and structure on and off the pitch

ozt9vdujny3srf

Didn't we just win the under 20's world cup?

tHE vAGGABOND

First - I dont think our schools side is as bad as some here make out. We win and few games, and loose a few games every year. As we have done foever. Some years are better than others.

Or the English
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillesh...ll_Association

If you read that link of yours, the place was only open for a few years! It closed in 1989! It was deemed to be expensive and useless. The clubs themselves do all that now. As the provinces do the post-school development now.

We want our kids to get a good education, so they stay at school. Its not win at all costs, feck the persons non-rugby development. If they happen to be at a rugby school and are good at rugby, they play and train [one way or another] 5 or 6 days a week with the big rugby schools, with some of the best coaches in the land.

If they don't go to a rugby school they play with a club rising thru the clubs junior age ranks before a big club steals them when they start getting older and playing irish juniors [or whatever!] [Shane Horgan, Alan Quinnlan etc etc]

What else do you want? We are a small island, more people play rugby in england than live here. NZ are class, as its their first game by a long way, where we are a nation of many sports. So we punch above our weight on a consistent basis.

Stev_o

The school system is like the IRFU's daughter and what you speak of is pretty much going on the first date and doing her on the doorstep in front of the IRFU.

IRFU and schools are too closely linked, the IRFU wont let them go without a fight.


IRFU will never get it right :rolleyes:

anonymous_joe

Well that#s because the IRFU lads all probably went to Rock, CBC, et al.

dc69

tHE vAGGABOND wrote: »

If you read that link of yours, the place was only open for a few years! It closed in 1989! It was deemed to be expensive and useless.

Well ignore that and look at the french one,they have a similar thing for rugby aswell.

Look at the players its developed

Henry,Anelka,Saha etc

The english one closed because they care more about money than their national team.Arsenal for example can get a player on a full time basis when he is 14 or 15.He is trained in their academy.

If it was to work and we take leinster as an example.Leinster would have to set up a tutor and training facilitys and get their parents to let them go when they are 16,I cant see any parents letting their kids do it tbh.

Malmedicine

rockman15 wrote: »

schools rugby monday to thursday....provincial (pro academy) friday to sunday...easy as! mid week games for the Senior Cup...provincial league at the weekends...they are generally playing 2 games a week anyway this isnt a problem.

Have you ever played rugby? Really? To the standard your talking about. 7 days a week training, this would be overkill (remember they also have a leaving cert to contend with), player burnout is already massive after schools and especially after 20's . The schools system is working its producing players. Genetics probably has more to do with us being walloped by NZ in the u20's than lack of coaching IMHO .

anonymous_joe

Malmedicine wrote: »

Have you ever played rugby? Really? To the standard your talking about. 7 days a week training, this would be overkill (remember they also have a leaving cert to contend with), player burnout is already massive after schools and especially after 20's . The schools system is working its producing players. Genetics probably has more to do with us being walloped by NZ in the u20's than lack of coaching IMHO .

It's a factor, a major one, but not the only one.

burnedfaceman

Did Quinlan not go to Rockwell for a bit before leaving and playing club rugby?

CJhaughey

Mia Rotten Riot wrote: »

Didn't we just win the under 20's world cup?

I take it you weren't watching the NZ vs Ire U20 Game last night.....

dc69

CJhaughey wrote: »

I take it you weren't watching the NZ vs Ire U20 Game last night.....

You mean the samoa,Tonga and fiji players against Ireland U20's.I believe they have been told to stop calling themselves NZ

irishbucsfan

Schools rugby is what's keeping Irish rugby alive. It trully is. If you really believe half as many people would play rugby if it wasn't for schools rugby then you have another thing coming.

Also, our schools play at an extremely high level, I dont think most people realise this. Our schools are much more skillful at Under-18 than the schools that play rugby in England are, Im not sure if thats consensus, just my opinion from seeing both play.

I can see room for improvement in the organisation of the Senior Cup (1 game seasons for some schools... yuck, if that doesnt put kids off playing rugby i dont know what will) but the success of rugby in Ireland is based on the schools system. And the beauty of it is the publicity brought on by Setanta's coverage of it. And the reputation of the Senior cup is not something we should throw away.

Maybe something should be sorted out at the Under 20s level, because thats where it all drops away. None of the Academy matches get any publicity, neither do any of the Under-20 club competitions. Maybe, and I've been wondering about this for a while, a higher level college competition could be organised in place of those colleges playing the club teams or something? Not entirely sure.

themont85

Ireland won the u20s Slam last year, they're not a great team this year but thats the cycles thing really. Ireland isn't the only country with a huge schools system you know, England and all of the others have them too. Ireland's schools are magnified because there's so few, people continuousely ommit the fact when talking about schools rugby that thats the life blood of the game. The vast majority of our players come from schools, we're not that poor at rugby our we, Munster just won the H Cup with a lot of former schoolboy players.

Of course certain systems need changing but I would hate to see us going down the pulling of lads out of schools at 15 to do weights. Seeing some of the schools players this year I don't see how they can get bigger actually. It would be bad for underage rugby to do so. Of course there has to be certain structures early on but they're beginning guys at 15/16 gently. Way to go really, we can go like Wales and restrict guys at an early age and have less players than we could because some don't show till 17/18. O'Driscoll wasn't a schoolboy sensation really, if there were acadamies in his days we may not have him. Us Irish are late bloomers physically really so there's always a gap between us and the south pacific NZ guys. We could go to the option of just big lads and try compete better at that level although I don't see a problem really we just won a 6 nations title. Winning world cups at that level is all well and good, but in order for us to do that every year we'd have to go for big players to the detriment of good future players.

rockman15

Malmedicine wrote: »

Have you ever played rugby? Really? To the standard your talking about. 7 days a week training, this would be overkill (remember they also have a leaving cert to contend with), player burnout is already massive after schools and especially after 20's . The schools system is working its producing players. Genetics probably has more to do with us being walloped by NZ in the u20's than lack of coaching IMHO .

first off ive been playing this game for 18 years and continue to enjoy myself immensly!! . i played at schools level and in other countries after for a while too so ive seen various systems.

if you run an academy system like some soccer clubs have..lessons in the morning and training in the afternoon, it will work.

i dont think its a factor of "burnout", as more of kids going to college and going on the lash 3 nights a week and not being able to train or not being ar*ed to commit to it. for alot of schools most students play rugby as something to do after school. in college theres so much more going on and available many loose intrest in it. sad but true.

i think giving youngsters the early exposure to this environment (work experience) will persuade those capable of playing to properly commit to a plan.2

sorry just spotted the above post, the maturity age is true. the pacific islanders have better gene structre to develop quicker. i heaerd years back that NZ have had to divide their underage schools system into weight AND age catagories...please correct me if im wrong!...

dc69

rockman15 wrote: »

first off ive been playing this game for 18 years and continue to enjoy myself immensly!! . i played at schools level and in other countries after for a while too so ive seen various systems.

if you run an academy system like some soccer clubs have..lessons in the morning and training in the afternoon, it will work.

i dont think its a factor of "burnout", as more of kids going to college and going on the lash 3 nights a week and not being able to train or not being ar*ed to commit to it. for alot of schools most students play rugby as something to do after school. in college theres so much more going on and available many loose intrest in it. sad but true.

i think giving youngsters the early exposure to this environment (work experience) will persuade those capable of playing to properly commit to a plan.2

sorry just spotted the above post, the maturity age is true. the pacific islanders have better gene structre to develop quicker. i heaerd years back that NZ have had to divide their underage schools system into weight AND age catagories...please correct me if im wrong!...

Your right about the nz weight categories but I think you are wrong about the schedule you listed above,any player would get burnout if they did that for a few years,its way too big a workload.

anonymous_joe

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Schools rugby is what's keeping Irish rugby alive. It trully is. If you really believe half as many people would play rugby if it wasn't for schools rugby then you have another thing coming.

Also, our schools play at an extremely high level, I dont think most people realise this. Our schools are much more skillful at Under-18 than the schools that play rugby in England are, Im not sure if thats consensus, just my opinion from seeing both play.

I can see room for improvement in the organisation of the Senior Cup (1 game seasons for some schools... yuck, if that doesnt put kids off playing rugby i dont know what will) but the success of rugby in Ireland is based on the schools system. And the beauty of it is the publicity brought on by Setanta's coverage of it. And the reputation of the Senior cup is not something we should throw away.

Maybe something should be sorted out at the Under 20s level, because thats where it all drops away. None of the Academy matches get any publicity, neither do any of the Under-20 club competitions. Maybe, and I've been wondering about this for a while, a higher level college competition could be organised in place of those colleges playing the club teams or something? Not entirely sure.

On this subject, recently, curiosity compelled me to try and discover how many people from my year in school were actually playing in the Leinster Academy. (2 it turns out for definite) I found it unbelievably hard to find any information on Irish youth teams. Now compare that to the schools game, which gets massive coverage. The standard's surprisingly high, but it doesn't work for consistent development. You need to keep the interest and also facilitate frequent competitive rugby.

themont85

anonymous_joe wrote: »

On this subject, recently, curiosity compelled me to try and discover how many people from my year in school were actually playing in the Leinster Academy. (2 it turns out for definite) I found it unbelievably hard to find any information on Irish youth teams. Now compare that to the schools game, which gets massive coverage. The standard's surprisingly high, but it doesn't work for consistent development. You need to keep the interest and also facilitate frequent competitive rugby.

On the subject of acadamies its interesting to see just how few actually make it. I know of a good few props who went through this system and it was crap for them. Pucked out after 3 years and we all know how long it takes for props to develop. I don't know how many games they play but it doesn't get the coverage if there are many, from what I've heard they're basically doing a lot of training in weights ect. By throwing guys in there as pro rugby players from 15 onwards in such an enviroment is a bad idea. Most treat it like a second job anyway at senior cup level and work hard already. And before anyone starts saying that the schools cups aren't skillful I'd point to a number of great games there was this year.

thebaz

i think its over reaction, no doubt its a poor irish u 20 , that happens , next year the quality of player will be much better , for those that played schools cup rugby , its the ultimate , bar the odd O'Driscoll or O'Connel who can be mentored like Cian Healy into a professional env -- many people , me included have great (and bad :-( ) memories of schools rugby, and next year we will do better , from what i have seen this year

thehighground

Very few make it really - as far as I know out of the U19 World Cup winning team, the only ones to be playing professional rugby are BOD, Paddy Wallace & Donnacha O'Callaghan.

anonymous_joe

What year was that? 98 or 99? And who actually started that day?

tHE vAGGABOND

I did a google search, and this is from just before the tournament I think...

South Africa Under-19 17
Ireland Under-19 17
(SA win on penalties)
IRELAND'S under-19 rugby team staged a superb second half renaissance after being 17 points adrift at the interval to draw with favourites South Africa in the FIRA World Youth Championship at Londez, near Toulouse, last night.
But after the South Africans had won the subsequent penalty shoot-out by 4-3, the Irish management lodged an official objection since one of the opposing goal-kickers had not actually taken part in the match.
"At the meeting with the tournament officials immediately after the match, we were requested to withdraw our objection, but, with the backing of the IRFU vice-president, Noel Murphy, I refused to do so," said Ireland's team manager, Harry McKibbin.
A final decision will be taken this morning, (tuesday) McKibbin said.
South Africa scored two goals and a penalty goal in the first half to lead 17-0 at half-time.
Paddy Wallace got Ireland's first try, converted by Brian O'Driscoll, in the 50th minute.
Chris McCarey then crossed, O'Driscoll converted, and then added a penalty goal late in the match.
McKibbin said: "Had there been extra time, we would have won.
"The forwards were magnificent and completely destroyed the South African pack in the second half."
IRELAND UNDER 19: D Rossi (Clontarf); M Cupitt (Instonians), S Moore (UCD) capt., B O'Driscoll (UCD), D Holt (UCC); P Wallace (Campbell College), C Campbell (London Irish); A O'Brien (UCD), A Flavin (London Irish), F Roche (Bohemians), D O'Callaghan (Cork Constitution), D Broughall (UCD), C McCarey (Ballymena), N Coughlan (UCD), A Kearney (St Michael's College).
Replacements: B Urquhart (MCB) for Flavin (50), C Schofield (Bangor) for Roche (60).

Note B O'D doing the goal kicking, and not Wallace! Even then he was rubbish

Tim Robbins

tHE vAGGABOND wrote: »

I did a google search, and this is from just before the tournament I think...

Note B O'D doing the goal kicking, and not Wallace! Even then he was rubbish

And how many came through at senior level? Not many...

irishbucsfan

Tim Robbins wrote: »

And how many came through at senior level? Not many...

Which has nothing to do with the Schools system. Surely, if anything, it proves that the schools system is working? Because at that level (fresh out of schools rugby) we were at that time the best team in the world.

It only proves that we need to work on our rugby after the schools level. The academies and so on.

Palmy

dc69

Just to note 99% of young Nz under 20 or even older players from Samoa,tonga and Fiji are born in New Zealand,and in fact more samoans live in New Zealand than in Samoa,If you haven't been to New zealand or from there you will not know how it is such a multi cultural country.You might even find that Ireland might have a few Nigerians or Polish in the National side,or second generation.:D

themont85

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Which has nothing to do with the Schools system. Surely, if anything, it proves that the schools system is working? Because at that level (fresh out of schools rugby) we were at that time the best team in the world.

It only proves that we need to work on our rugby after the schools level. The academies and so on.

+1

Acadamies may be important but are no match for competative games.

dc69

Palmy wrote: »

You might even find that Ireland might have a few Nigerians or Polish in the National side,

Hopefully soon enough,the polish are beasts and the nigerians gots to have some speed:D

Palmy wrote: »

dc69

Just to note 99% of young Nz under 20 or even older players from Samoa,tonga and Fiji are born in New Zealand,and in fact more samoans live in New Zealand than in Samoa,If you haven't been to New zealand or from there you will not know how it is such a multi cultural country.

I didnt mean to offend with the other post,I havent been to NZ but I have heard it is very multicultural.Its just odd for me,because we dont get to see much of nz and the old teams I remember looked alot different,ethnicity wise.Changing times

Palmy

dc69

No Offence taken,just thought i would add that as alot of people think New Zealand is taking players from these countries for the national side.Alot of areas in New Zealand and especially pacific island players play rugby league,Jonah Lomu never played rugby growning up,and didn't play until he was 16.
But i think now alot more pacific islanders are playing rugby since it turned professional,and they can actually make a living from it playing for there province,or even getting into a super14 side,and the possiblity of being able to head to europe for the european clubs.;)

il gatto

I think the schools coaching should be more intensive. I know it's hard with a hectic curiculem coming up to the Leaving Cert. but I think our players at underage (see NZ vs. Ireland this week. 65-something) always look undercooked. The ability is there, but the physique and skills are not right.
Not a good enough reason to abandon the schools set up though.

irishbucsfan

il gatto wrote: »

I think the schools coaching should be more intensive. I know it's hard with a hectic curiculem coming up to the Leaving Cert. but I think our players at underage (see NZ vs. Ireland this week. 65-something) always look undercooked. The ability is there, but the physique and skills are not right.
Not a good enough reason to abandon the schools set up though.

This is very true.

But with the extremely small pool of rugby players in Ireland we just cant expect our under-20s team to be consistent. I dont think an improvement of coaching or facilities at school level would necessarily change this.

Also, again, it comes down to rugby after schools level, with a better setup those players would have been physically able to take on the All-Blacks. If we could set up 2 or three academies with the quality, for example, of the Leicester Rugby academy (which if you ever get the chance to visit is amazing) then we'd be much better off.

Chucky the tree

As long as the majority of schools players spend there time in the gym routating between the bench press and doing bicep curls they will always be phyisically dominated.

JWAD

anonymous_joe wrote: »

Well that#s because the IRFU lads all probably went to Rock, CBC, et al.

Wrong. Very wrong in fact.
And you will find the difficulty/stumbling block is actually at Provincial level rather than national.

Sheesh, some people should do a little research before chucking out bland and baseless statements.......:rolleyes:

RugbyFanatic

Chucky the tree wrote: »

As long as the majority of schools players spend there time in the gym routating between the bench press and doing bicep curls they will always be phyisically dominated.

In fairness nearly every schools team concentrates on bench,squat,deadlift,cleans and pull ups which is perfectly acceptable

It's when they go into the academies that the problems start with an emphasis on aerobic-esque weights and working the core when even the most basic conditioning coach outside of the IRFU will tell you that in order to gain strength and size you must do low reps of high weights

No joke I've seen a youth programme done by one of the provinces and it involved sitting on a swiss ball and doing 30 shoulder presses with 10kg dumbells.....girls in my gym do that

Chucky the tree

RugbyFanatic wrote: »

In fairness nearly every schools team concentrates on bench,squat,deadlift,cleans and pull ups which is perfectly acceptable

Any time I see them in the gym they dont go near the squat machine, and when they do they make a meal of it.

RugbyFanatic

Chucky the tree wrote: »

Any time I see them in the gym they dont go near the squat machine, and when they do they make a meal of it.

Are you sure you aren't just seeing schoolchildren because nearly every big rugby school has their own gym where they would train

Chucky the tree

RugbyFanatic wrote: »

Are you sure you aren't just seeing schoolchildren because nearly every big rugby school has their own gym where they would train

It could be, they all were there school rugby socks though, clowns. The gym is over-run with them now.

dc69

Chucky the tree wrote: »

It could be, they all were there school rugby socks though, clowns. The gym is over-run with them now.

probably juniors.Even my old school CBC is taking it a bit more seriously now and have invested in their gym,so id say most of the big schools have good gym's now.Whether they restrict juniors access is another question,although looking at some of the juniors now you would think they are on steroids.

NaiveMelodies

We just have a ****e bunch atm to be honest, once this cycle is done, we have some brilliant players from this years sct from all provinces, who will be training in academies next year.