Tony Wards wish list for season

ormond lad

Tony Wards wish list for the season

Tony Ward wrote:

25 steps
By Tony Ward
Tuesday September 11 2012


Most will say they saw it coming -- this contributor included -- but the 'blackwash' in New Zealand in June has left the Irish game in a strange and vulnerable place going into the new season....

READ FULL ARTICLE HERE: http://www.independent.ie/sport/rugby/25-steps-to-recover-from-the-horrors-of-hamilton-3226256.html

Terrible article i presume by number 8 that when tony wants to get rid of underage representative sides the first side he would get rid of would be the youths side and then he would get rid of the a schools(who he doesnt mention in the article at all).
Sorry tony but the number of underage representative side does not demean the honour for 17/18/19 year olds playing for their province

You talk about the club game yet you only mention old boy clubs of your beloved schools. open your eyes tony there is plenty more clubs(who are doing much more for the game than those clubs) throughout the country in rural GAA dominated areas

shuffol

Is the Diarmuid McCarthy he refers to in point 15 the former Munster youngster who was supposed to have some attitude problems, I remember Ward touting him for great things in an article a few years back.

Teferi

Why, at this stage of Kidneys tenure, would Joe want to be attack coach for Ireland?

The Kidney ship is sinking and Joe doesn't need to go down with it.

(careful with copy/pasting whole articles. Think that's against Seán Sherlock's rules).

fundamentally disagree with #8. There is method behind all those teams. Funny how the academy is the best in Europe, with an under-age structure that feeds it beautifully. Don't break this.

#11 & 12 very important. Get off the fence you idiots. 7s is important. It is not the same game. We (the 15 man game) will not immediately or visibly benefit directly from the game, but the indirect benefits are massive!

#17 & 18 are massively against what we have all discussed to be the problem with getting academy players playing AIL. The AIL's rules need to be tweaked.

# 19 very important. IRUPA should be looking at this. Perhaps BOD's new company will be the beginning of this? (but they need to be part of the IRUPA imo)

CIARAN_BOYLE

Deleted User wrote: »

# 19 very important. IRUPA should be looking at this. Perhaps BOD's new company will be the beginning of this? (but they need to be part of the IRUPA imo)

Isn't BOD's new company just another agency?

.ak

Deleted User wrote: »

(careful with copy/pasting whole articles. Think that's against Seán Sherlock's rules).

Indeed. Sorry ormond, I've snipped the article because of that. Link will bring you to the full article.

CIARAN_BOYLE

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

Isn't BOD's new company just another agency?

yes, but hopefully his close work with the IRUPA in recent years will mean that he/they realise that the two being interlinked massively improves their bargaining position as a whole, but also prevents issues like third party control (Mascherano at West Ham anyone?) cropping up.

Agents are an essential evil go between for Player and Company. The distinction between Johnny Sexton and Johnny Sexton.LTD is pretty essential in the process of contract agreements etc.

The 20min rugbydump documentary that featured John Muldoon had an excellent little piece from the English player who discussed the difficulty of contract negotiations, and how an agent is a necessity as a go-between.

That being said, agents can go too far. Certain groups have shown themselves difficult to deal with, drawn out contract processes etc.

irishbucsfan

We more than likely aren't going to qualify for the Olympics. It's such a shame and it's a huge missed opportunity by the IRFU. Imagine Ireland not being at the Olympics when countries like Portugal and Kenya probably will be. I hope the IRFU are embarrassed by that. They need to get their act together wrt the 7s series.

As for no. 8, I think the system could do with an overhaul. I don't think fewer teams is the goal, but I also don't think our current system gets the most out of our players. Underage rugby structures in general need to be looked at tbh. We need to start integrating schools' and youths' players earlier on and we need to be developing players better in the 16-18 age groups in order to keep up with our rivals at the highest level.

ormond lad

irishbucsfan wrote: »

We more than likely aren't going to qualify for the Olympics. It's such a shame and it's a huge missed opportunity by the IRFU. Imagine Ireland not being at the Olympics when countries like Portugal and Kenya probably will be. I hope the IRFU are embarrassed by that. They need to get their act together wrt the 7s series.

As for no. 8, I think the system could do with an overhaul. I don't think fewer teams is the goal, but I also don't think our current system gets the most out of our players. Underage rugby structures in general need to be looked at tbh. We need to start integrating schools' and youths' players earlier on and we need to be developing players better in the 16-18 age groups in order to keep up with our rivals at the highest level.

Fewer teams isnt the answer and the provincial staff(both sub academy/academy coaches as well as development officers) need to have more access to top underage players and schools cannot be let dictate this access.
Im not sure what kind of overhaul could be put in place. Fewer teams is not the way forward as the schools will exert pressure so that they totally control these sides.
Schools and youths should be integrated for example east munster u16/17 youths sides should be training in rockwell with rockwell and combining resources. the same in leinster with regional youths rugby squads training with schools like clongowes, roscrea etc
To develop players better the structure of u16/17/18/19 comps need to be looked at and IMO straight knock out cups as teams main competitions have to be replaced in favour of more league based competitions

.ak

A fairly naive article - and bizarrely a lot of the points have nothing to do with Irish rugby nor are in the control of the IRFU.

irishbucsfan

ormond lad wrote: »

Fewer teams isnt the answer and the provincial staff(both sub academy/academy coaches as well as development officers) need to have more access to top underage players and schools cannot be let dictate this access.
Im not sure what kind of overhaul could be put in place. Fewer teams is not the way forward as the schools will exert pressure so that they totally control these sides.
Schools and youths should be integrated for example east munster u16/17 youths sides should be training in rockwell with rockwell and combining resources. the same in leinster with regional youths rugby squads training with schools like clongowes, roscrea etc
To develop players better the structure of u16/17/18/19 comps need to be looked at and IMO straight knock out cups as teams main competitions have to be replaced in favour of more league based competitions

I pretty much agree with that entirely. The biggest problem with Irish underage rugby at the moment is the schools' set up unfortunately. It could all be done so much better, both within competitive schools' rugby and in the game as a whole.

It hasn't really been a problem up to now as the numbers of players coming through the academies mean it would take an unbelievable amount of mismanagement not to produce good players every year, but for rugby to grow at underage levels in Ireland there would have to be a change, and unfortunately the people with the power to make that change are all schools' men. I went to a rugby school myself but the sport here is getting close to outgrowing the shackles that are being put on it by the current underage setup.

I'd imagine what Ward means is he would like to see a clear u16, u18, u19, u21 setup at provincial level. One team for each age group. That way you have genuinely deserving players being given the honour at each level of being the best in their position in their province. He doesn't mention the fact that the current setup has evolved the way it is currently because the schools' power has made that ultimately impossible. The fact he has been/is (not sure what he's doing now) employed by schools as a coach might be impacting that. I would love to see a single team where everyone gets a fair shot, with schools and youths being given equal opportunities, I'd imagine that's what he means as well.