2024 School Rugby
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@Nepia Did you actually read the article?
In a wide-ranging investigation, after speaking with school coaches, parents and player agents, the Herald has uncovered at least seven players from under 15s school teams in Auckland who have signed with NRL clubs and relocated to Australia.
Five leading players from last year’s Auckland Grammar under-15s team were targeted, with two moving to Australia to join the Sydney Roosters and one from this year’s team signing with the Newcastle Knights.
Those numbers merely scratch the surface of the issue, with other Auckland schools such as Saint Kentigern, Sacred Heart and Kelston, the latter with a traditionally strong league affiliation, also believed to have experienced multiple deflections.
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My experience is that heaps of kids go to Australia to make it in league, but few of them do. It's the ones with stars in their eyes and a bit of physical talent that leave. The dreamers.
The grafters, the ones that work hard and make it in the end, are not tempted to change countries at 15.
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@Tim said in 2024 School Rugby:
@Nepia Did you actually read the article?
In a wide-ranging investigation, after speaking with school coaches, parents and player agents, the Herald has uncovered at least seven players from under 15s school teams in Auckland who have signed with NRL clubs and relocated to Australia.
Five leading players from last year’s Auckland Grammar under-15s team were targeted, with two moving to Australia to join the Sydney Roosters and one from this year’s team signing with the Newcastle Knights.
Those numbers merely scratch the surface of the issue, with other Auckland schools such as Saint Kentigern, Sacred Heart and Kelston, the latter with a traditionally strong league affiliation, also believed to have experienced multiple deflections.
Yes. Did you actually read my post?
As I said, bucket loads of young rugby players went to Oz during the Holden/Toyota Cup U20s comp. I was an assessor for a Maori sports scholarship fund for much of that time and we processed loads of applications for year 12 and school leavers going to Oz league teams.
Similar to the other articles put in the last few weeks they mix speculation with some facts, there's no allowance for leaguies going to traditional rugby schools for education/professionalism purposes (they've repeated the info about the Warriors supposed rugby player defections when an analysis of that original list showed that most players/schools were already in the league pipeline), furthermore when you read deep into the article the anecdotes are less about what's currently happening and more about what's always happened (with old players like Taumalolo and non league players like ENS as examples).
Meanwhile we're seeing multiple articles about schools banning kids from playing league when the reality is they're wanting kids to honour a commitment to the team they've joined.
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@Chester-Draws said in 2024 School Rugby:
My experience is that heaps of kids go to Australia to make it in league, but few of them do. It's the ones with stars in their eyes and a bit of physical talent that leave. The dreamers.
The grafters, the ones that work hard and make it in the end, are not tempted to change countries at 15.
Yeah, the ones I mentioned in the scholarship programme above, sadly the majority never made it.
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@Chester-Draws Yeah there's plenty of stories like that in Chch. A lot of them get homesick, or they miss out on a team and are left at a dead end.
Funnily enough, playing 1st XV rugby is how they get exposure from league clubs and a fair few of them get picked up from there, but as Steven Luatua said, he was approached by NRL clubs straight after a NZ Schools match, he obviously said no, but all they did was just move on to the next kids out there and offer them around haha, so they're just waving around contracts without doing any sort of research on a lot if these kids, and them chuck a lot of them to the dumpster fire after a while.
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1A
St Kent’s 27 - 22 King’s College
Kelston BHS 56 - 0 Dilworth School
Sacred Heart 43 - 10 Botany Downs
MAGS 24 - 29 De La Salle
Liston College 14 - 41 St Peter’s College
Auckland Grammar 36 - 7 St Paul’s CollegeCNI
St John’s Hastings 17 - 43 Whanganui Collegiate
Wesley College 12 - 14 St Paul’s Collegiate
St Peter’s Cambridge 22 - 45 Feilding High School
St John’s Hamilton 46 - 22 Lindisfarne College
Rathkeale College 38 - 22 FDMCSuper 8
Palmerston North BHS 42 - 8 Gisborne BHS
New Plymouth BHS 32 - 41 Hastings BHS -
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Super 8
Napier BHS 27 - 14 Gisborne BHS
Palmerston North BHS 14 - 23 Hastings BHS1A
St Paul's College 7 - 24 St Kent’s
King's College 15 - 12 Kelston BHS
Dilworth School 0 - 44 Sacred Heart
Mt Albert Grammar School 55 - 9 Botany Downs College
Auckland Grammar 29 - 3 Liston College
St Peter’s 17 - 7 De La SalleCNI
St Paul’s Collegiate 72 - 26 St John’s Hastings
Feilding High School 48 - 15 St John’s Hamilton
FDMC 7 - 50 St Peter’s Cambridge -
Super 8
Hamilton BHS 39 - 20 Palmerston North BHS
Hastings BHS 27 - 28 Napier BHS
Rotorua BHS 12 - 10 Gisborne BHS
Tauranga BC 48 - 17 New Plymouth BHS1A
Dilworth School 5 - 68 St Kent’s
Kelston BHS 77 - 0 Botany Downs
Sacred Heart 18 - 17 De La Salle
Liston College 18 - 17 MAGS
St Peter's College 39 - 12 St Paul’s College
King’s College 26 - 30 Auckland GrammarCNI
Wesley College 24 - 14 Whanganui Collegiate
Feilding High School 41 - 17 Lindisfarne College
St Peter’s Cambridge 15 - 25 Rathkeale College
FDMC 13 - 31 St Paul’s Collegiate
St John’s Hastings 10 - 55 St John’s Hamilton -
@Nepia said in 2024 School Rugby:
@Bovidae said in 2024 School Rugby:
@Nepia The list I posted was from the Warriors website (after a google search). I've no idea what other articles have been published as I don't follow RL that closely anymore. I agree it's a promotion piece.
The player I mentioned who signed for the Titans (Caelys-Paul Putoko) did miss some later Super 8 games last year to play RL although I have no idea who he played for on those weekends. He was still selected for the NZ Schools team though (the starting 12).
That list was posted in the Daily Telegraph too, there seems to be two journos pushing it, a guy I can't remember and a lady named Fatima Kdouh. Kind of embarrassing for Richard Becht to be pushing it as a) a Kiwi and b.) someone who would know that Warriors junior teams have always had kids from rugby schools.
Richard Becht is also the PR and Comms Manager for the Warriors, so very much had a reason for pushing it...
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Super 8
New Plymouth BHS 34 - 34 Palmerston North BHS
Gisborne BHS 10 - 29 Hastings BHS
Napier BHS 12 - 52 Tauranga BC
Rotorua BHS 8 - 32 Hamilton BHSTBC are piling on the points.
CNI
Lindisfarne College 31 - 19 FDMC
St Paul’s Collegiate 8 - 36 Feilding High School
Wesley College 61 - 7 St John’s Hastings1A
St Kentigern College 69 - 10 Botany Downs
De La Salle 0 - 24 Kelston BHS
Liston College 22 - 42 Sacred Heart
St Paul's College 12 - 34 MAGS
St Peter's College 25 - 14 King’s College
Auckland Grammar 10 - 13 Dilworth
