Schools rugby combusts
So the 2018 rugby season felt rather rugged, one best consigned to the archives. Perhaps it was because we had the stale All Blacks hitting the wall and even the much-lauded women’s team being munted up front by the French. Perhaps too it was the Manawatu¯ Turbos failing to live up to their nickname, with just three wins from 10 games.
Heartening though was the Thames Valley Swamp Foxes swamping the Heartland and the youthful Aucklanders taking the jugger out of the Canterbury juggernaut.
The most explosive story, though, came out of Auckland and schoolboy player poaching, the explosiveness measured by the issue being aired up front in television news bulletins.
It doesn’t only pertain to rugby; there’s hockey and football too.
The poaching plague has been aired in this column ad nauseum to such an extent it seemed noone cared that schools of modest means were being pillaged. Finally, it took school principals to rebel and condemn St Kentigern College’s industrial level of recruitment via its bottomless war chest.
Only the schools themselves can address it, because New Zealand Rugby cannot poke its nose in.
The latest development is that St Kentigern is now firing an accusatory finger at some Auckland schools engaged in the threatened boycott, suggesting they too have been recruiters, and the Presbyterians have a point.
I have seen a letter that states reforms are under way at St Kentigern after heat from their Old Collegians, to review their policy towards first XV scholarships and to consult their community so they are not publicly embarrassed again.
When another Auckland first XV came to Palmerston North for a fixture last year, they drew more family members than to home games, because so many of the visiting players were from the lower North Island.
It has always been my contention that schools such as Palmerston North Boys’ High School should ostracise the invitation XVS; they haven’t played Feilding High School’s first XV on Manawatu¯ soil since 2011. At least three of the Super 8 schools are far from cleanskins, as are three more in the lesser Central North Island competition; by my count about 17 throughout New Zealand.
For importing schools to suggest star rugby players are attracted to them primarily for educational purposes is a gross terminological inexactitude, as in pull the other one.
In Boys’ High’s 392-page magazine The Palmerstonian, words jump out of the first XV’S page 289 describing how the schoolboys rugby landscape is a far cry from past years’ and has become many schools’ shop window.
‘‘Decisions are made by various schools around recruitment and enticements that make for an uneven playing field. We place a huge emphasis on the development of players who come though our gates from year 9 . . .
‘‘Players who wear the white jersey have aspired to do so from year 9 and have worked hard to do so knowing they will be rewarded and not usurped by some johnny-come-lately.’’
Precisely. The perestroika needs to spread to Waikato, Wellington and the South Island.
Some kids have played for three first XVS in their schools’ career – in pursuit of better marks in English and Algebra, no doubt.
SUPERMODEL
Winx the super horse is still racing and yet already she has had two mammoth books written about her.
Since publication, Winx has won her fourth Cox Plate, A Win with X factor, get it?
One book is surprisingly titled Winx, written by Australian journalist Andrew Rule and subtitled The Authorised Biography. That means it was penned in association with Winx’s trainer, Chris Waller.
When Waller’s vet inspected her as a yearling, he noted how her hindquarters were much broader than her front.
After 27 straight wins, Rule writes that at some point in her life, a horse wants to be a horse more than to be a racehorse. He quotes racing aficionadowriter, Les Carlyon, who has noticed Winz never pulls or even leans on the bit.
‘‘She jumps and straight away relaxes . . . saves everything for one long run from the back of the field. Very few racehorses can relax like this.
‘‘Winx could win at 2 miles [Melbourne Cup miles], simply because she settles so easily and saves everything for the last three furlongs.’’
Rule suggests Winx’s one flaw that could get her beaten by a lesser animal is her barrier manners, so often slow out of the gates.
The other book is by Sydney journalist Trevor Marshallsea and wait for it, is named Winx, Biography of a Champion.
The first hint that Winx might have been special came when she was born. Most foals take half an hour to get to their feet; Winx was up ready to go in 10 minutes.
As Marshallsea writes, she was a supermodel type, 90 per cent legs with a decent frame to grow into.
The only downside to these books, there’s room for more chapters. If only she could have an exhibition gallop at Awapuni.
Some kids have played for three first XVS in their schools’ career – in pursuit of better marks in English and Algebra, no doubt.