It's the question every ardent rugby fan wants to see the answer to: Who would win if the best club team in the North faced the best in the South? Robbie, otherwise known as Squidge Rugby, digs deeper with another brilliant analysis and some classic film references.
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credit: rugbypass/squidgerugby/robbieowen
Growing up and playing rugby in NZ in the 90s there were definitely weight restricted leagues amongst schools and clubs and I believe is still the case now. Skills and fitness were a huge part of training. I remember at high school, touch rugby during lunchtime was hugely popular year-round - during winter when the fields were muddy, there would be multiple games of touch rugby playing out on the tennis courts.Is there no weight restricted grade rugby in UK schools/clubs?
That's another very good point. I had a significant weight advantage towards my latter years as a junior player, this actually meant that in some respects my efforts decreased in certain areas of the game, I didn't NEED to tap into that deeper spirit in some areas... (I'm sure that says more about my lazy efforts than anything else)... When I hit seniors however, I'm sure it was that first tackle I made/sort of made, that really woke me up...'shit, these are men'... Even the little men fought tooth and nail for every inch and me resting on my laurels of junior rugby got awoken quite abruptly to the fact that I was going to be useless unless I changed my attitude sharp!
Now flags back to some NZ kid, he's running around as a 'big lad' and no one else is smaller than him particularly, I bet he gets woken up from a very early age that skills matter.
Obviously there is some advantages to not putting them in weight classes, it means that the majority of kids at some point in their childhood will realise what it's like to tackle a big guy..
We used to play some sort of rugby league style thing in the school fields in our lunch breaks, but with guys from two years above us, teams got mixed, but it was still hard.. that lasted about a week before we got hauled Infront of the headmaster and told of the dangers involved.... I guess times had moved on and the health and safety laws were at large (especially seeing as many many years before I was there my school used to have a teacher's Vs 1st team game)
...and as far as I have heard, at least in NZ supposedly the kids play in weight classes, which will further remove physical aspects and emphasise skills instead.
Haha, nice video!
I guess to quickly sum up the crusaders, they look like a group of guys who'd have the ability to blindly grab a numbered shirt out of a bag and just play whatever position it is they pick.. and play it well.
I know that I've had the discussion with 1010 before about the coaching style in the NH being very rigid: fat kid? Prop. Tall skinny kid: second row. Meanest kid: 8. Fastest kid: wing. Regardless of taking into consideration any of their other attributes and these kids are then moulded to be that one position. SH rugby strikes me as almost playing some form of touch/league/7's for the first few years where everyone has to learn how to run, catch and pass..