Rugby Southland joins move to axe junior representative teams

Friday, 22 March 2019

The 2013 Southland under 65kg rugby team which won the South Island tournament in Dunedin.

Rugby Southland has followed New Zealand Rugby's advice and axed all it's representative teams from the under-14 age-group down.

The North Harbour Rugby Union created national headlines last month when it announced it would not field a representative under-14 side this season.

The Southland 2008 under 48kg rugby team after winning the South Island rugby tournament at Kaiapoi, Christchurch.

At the same time Rugby Southland and other South Island provincial unions were looking at implementing the same approach, which was initially flagged with the rugby community last year.

Southland has traditionally fielded under-14, under-13, under-65kg, under-48kg and under-38kg representative teams in the past but those teams have now all been canned.

The 2016 Southland under 48kg rugby team which won the South Island tournament.

* Junior representative rugby programme removed by North Harbour

* Age group South Canterbury representative sports teams are disappearing**

Rugby Southland chief executive Brian Hopley said the advice they received from New Zealand Rugby and other parties indicated that selecting junior representative teams was counter-productive when trying to keep children playing sport.

An email from Rugby Southland to stakeholders confirming the decision said; 'often the kids who miss out on junior sport rep teams are left with the belief that as they didn't get selected, they have no talent – and therefore no future in sport.'

New Zealand Rugby has identified the under-17 grade as the right starting point for rugby specialisation.

New Zealand Rugby officials also believe potential elite players benefited from playing multiple sports at a young age.

Hopley agreed the talent identification process in the age-groups below under-17 could be false.

'A kid might stand out in the under-12 or under-13 age-group because they have matured a earlier that others,' he said.

Rugby Southland was now working through developing a new model to replace the old representative system.

It would be broader than picking 'the best 20 players' for representative teams as had been done in the past, Hopley said.

Rugby Southland has told stakeholders the key task would be to come up with a new model that was 'exciting, inclusive, and enjoyable', as well as 'what is best for the participant in Southland'.

Hopley acknowledged the decision to axe the representative teams had been polarizing amongst the Southland rugby community.

'The thing is that kids at that younger age, they just want to play. Sometimes it is the parents that are not happy about it all, it's not actually the kid.'

The prospect of rugby losing talented young players to other sports which did provide representative teams has been raised, but Hopley did not believe it would be prevalent.

'There is always that possibility, but I think we would encourage kids to try those other sports. It gives them different skills and that is what it's about.

'But netball have already done this, football have already done this, so there are sports that have already done this ahead of rugby.'