your recent posts are full of grievances, the level of complaint in them is literally dripping off the screen.
Portraying non-fee-paying schools as something from the director's cut of Angela's Ashes is about as dishonest as it gets tbh.
Don't call me dishonest never mind double dishonest.
You surely understand the difference between dimissing X and dismissing X as Y? So you're being doubly dishonest in trying to reframe the latter as the former.
For my part I have neither an agenda nor a grievance. The idea of a private school, or of playing high-level rugby, never entered my mind. I'm very happy that Ireland has a world class rugby team just as I'm cognisant of the factors that allow us to have one.
Likewise, I'm very happy to have been able to afford to buy a house and can recognise how hugely fortunate I am to be in that position. I don't go around puzzled as to why people who aren't that lucky don't simply inherit money from their grandparents.
I'm not dismissing the agendas and grievances. I'm acknowledging them.
It should be possible to have an honest conversation about how having an elite setup at underage level provided by outside sources frees up budgets that would otherwise need to be spent on funding a fully functioning high-level club game without people dismissing contributions as 'agendas/grievances'.
It should be possible to both recognise that there exists a gulf in opportunity between an expensive private school fully concentrated on rugby and a public school with neither the funding, the knowledge nor the interest to create a competitive rugby environment AND appreciate that the former goes a long way towards fostering a working professional rugby system and without it Ireland would probably be worse off than Wales.
Ah come on, you're making non-private schools sound like something out of a Dickens novel.
The coaches of this year's SCT in Blackrock are teachers; Justin Vanstone and Ben Mannion, with John McKee (from the Leinster Academy) involved as he's studying strength and conditioning outside of rugby.
Peter Smyth was a teacher in the school when he was Head Coach. The vast majority of SCT and JCT coaches I can remember from before my time there and beyond have been teachers.
= best league
ohh, but does that mean we all must check our privilege now??? 😁
The suggestion I'm questioning is that this is a near professional setup - do we think that setup is far removed from big GAA schools or clubs?
Michael’s is a complete outlier though, even compared to the other private schools. Blackrock may invest a bit in their rugby programme to try an compete but I’m not sure it’s as professional as that. This means that Michael’s players adjust to a professional environment much quicker. It also means that anyone who wants their child to be a pro would probably look at Michael’s if they can afford it. Does it make those players better over the span of their career? How can we know.
I went to a public school, that was an out and out rugby school. In the 80’s we had a gym. We had at that time 6 rugby pitches. We played rugby in PE. Had interclass tournaments and usually 3 teams at each age grade. We had outside coaches (unpaid) for our junior cup team. Won the Junior Cup twice in the 80’s. Through the 90’s and early 00’s the culture and emphasis of the school changed. Other sports were allowed to be played. Rugby became diluted as a sport and the school is barely section A at this stage. I think the culture of the school is a hugely important factor.
I think this all began in regard to the WRU financial crisis and its impact on the URC. Amazing how peoples long standing agendas/grievances can quickly take over a conversation.
Anyway. URC anybody?
From Andy Skehan, for example. It's five years old but Michael's have, if anything, improved since then.
I've never been a fan of the wanky expression 'check your privilege' but it seems appropriate for some of the Marie Antoinette levels of delusion some people are displaying about what is normal and attainable for the Hoi polloi and what is the preserve of the elite of society.
If there wasn't such an enormous difference in facilities and environment between public and private schools, why on earth would parents be throwing 10 grand a year per child away?
The school I went to had one sort-of pitchy area of grass, zero sports coaches of any description, no PE class after first year (and that was just the janitor watching kids play basketball, in their uniforms), no equipment at all and nobody had the first clue about rugby.
And this wasn't some Strumpet City tenement setup, just a normal, bog-standard 600-student, country, catholic, public school in the 90s like so many others around the country. We had a world champion martial artist, we had kids who couldn't afford books, we had teachers who organised chess leagues and table quizzes, we had students who missed weeks of school because they worked on the farm, students whose parents had two cars and natural suntans but mostly just a few hundred kids doing their best to get by and for whom playing sport was at best a second thought.
I'm not proffering an opinion on the private/public school debate, merely an amusing (to me) anecdote.
I'm from Celbridge and my secondary school (anyone from Celbridge knows which one by that statement) had a grand total of two rugby training sessions over the course of my time there. Six years, two sessions. Anyway, it was only due to a few of the teachers have a slight background in rugby. We trained twice (anyone who had any background from Barnhall or North Kildare) and then arranged a game against a local rugby side that a teacher had a friend who was a coach with. Yep, us with two sessions went up against ... Clongowes.
Admittedly their thirds side and we only lost by three points (aided ably by myself coming on as a sub for two minutes in sub zero temps and knocking the ball on with a three man overlap in the final seconds). Good craic, but jesus were we outmatched overall.
Michaels are a relatively new school at top end of things but many other schools can field large numbers and dont compete at top end - Cknock etc.
And for most Leinster schools its far more than having a coach and a gym. its 3 pitch sessions a week. coached gym sessions several times a week. video sessions 1/2 times a week.
Private schools mainly focus on rugby and excel at it. I can't think of any public school where rugby is the sole focus. Public schools might be very good at a particular sport like GAA but also have soccer, rugby basketball teams depending on the size of the school. Most large schools would excel at rugby if that's the only sport they played. Public schools reflect diversity of its students
I don't know where this idea that Leinster schools have a 'quasi-professional' setup has come from but its completely ridiculous. Somehow its been decided that having a coach and a gym = professional
As someone who went to a pretty rubbish rugby school, the most obvious difference was just playing numbers. Blackrock and Michaels could field 4/5 teams in each year, that breeds competition and drastically increases your chances of having good athletes.
Apologize! You serpent! How dare you go to a good school.
So it's the parents fault! God forbid some parents can do something great for their family.
The amount of finger pointing at people that have done well for themselves and their families is nuts. I've friends that went to Belvo and St Paul's. Their parents worked hard to put them into these schools.
Who's to blame for Limerick being decent hurlers? So what if private schools focus on rugby.
I went to a community school in west Dublin. We had sports facilities as good as any private school.
What we didn't have was a culture that as soon as you walk in the door, you're playing rugby and you'll play it every day for the next six years.
Everyone just played their own sports or none at all. That's the difference. It's not really about having a rich daddy. It's about a hundred years of having rugby drummed into you. It's about the entire school turning up to cheer you on.
pupils who barely have enough to eat,
Ah come on.
I was wrong
These schools you're describing, sounds like they need Michelle Pfeiffer rather than a visit from professional rugby players.
I know plenty of GAA schools where current and former panel players show up in the same capacity. Of course Blackrock is going to have past players return, the current Leinster head coach is a former student.
Your tone implies you think schools like Blackrock should be apologetic that they've had generations of talent pass through the school willing to give back.
Thats so naive. I ref schools games. That isnt the case in a lot of schools. Tony Smeeth trinity DOR is one of willow park coaches.... Yes your C/D/E teams are coached by past pupils but otherwise its not. Main principal teams are outside coaches.
The same cant be replicated by other schools. the budgets these schools have for rugby is ridiculous and many senior AIL clubs dont spend near as much on their entire season for the whole club as these schools spend
I'm pretty grounded thanks, I'm also very familiar with the standard of school and facility throughout Leinster and what you describe is a complete distortion of the norm.
Blackrock is a great school, I was the only sibling in my house that went private but I loved it there. I never played rugby, I trained to a FAR higher standard in sixth year than any of the SCT players did and the school had no part in that, just grubby pitches, hills and footpaths.
And I've been in 4 school gyms since September, Blackrock was not the best of them and the others weren't fee paying. A public school doesn't need to 'get good', it needs to be good for a generation.
I think the sheer volume of players involved in said schools along with a long standing track record of success are far more significant components when it comes to the Leinster senior Cup.
Virtually every coach from 1st to 6th year are teachers and outside of that volunteers (usually past pupils).
If more large, non private schools seriously committed to rugby I've zero doubt they could replicate the same success in due course.
The advantage I see with the likes of Blackrock is that the households are usually extremely driven, but this isn't exclusive to private schools.
Yeah, 'reality' for someone who went to BlackRock is probably worlds away from 'reality' in a poorer school where they don't have quasi-professional setups, world class gyms, top coaches, an insistence on rugby above all else and the funding of thousands of well-off parents.
Schools the length and breadth of the country have to make do with maybe one grotty patch of grass shared between four sports, an ancient set of mismatched Gaelic jerseys, disinterested teachers, pupils who barely have enough to eat, cold, dilapidated prefab classrooms and a distinct lack of Leinster, Ireland or All Black players popping by for a chat and a quick workout in the gym, which is also the basketball court and the canteen.
It's a frankly risible idea that public schools just need to git gud at rugby and they too can furnish the Ireland team with as many players as St. Michael's.
I thought this was the URC thread.....
A lot of the coaches especially for the principal teams in the schools ie cup teams are not teachers. in vast majority of the schools. they are outside coaches.
Blackrock are helped by being one of the biggest schools in country and yes coaching and competition are a huge help but you are very naive in you think what Blackrock can done can be achieved in a non private setting. 1 non fee paying school has won a schools senior cup ever in Leinster. The money the big schools like rock, michaels, etc put into rugby every year cant be matched by anywhere else.
Leinster are building 5 centres of excellence all around the province. They have heavily invested in recruiting outside the schools system. There are also plenty of schools in Leinster that play rugby but aren’t private. 5 in Tallaght alone.
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