04/26/24
December 02, 2007
Crossing The Great Divide: The kids from blue collar Matraville High School thought they'd enter the elite State Rugby Union competition. Just for fun. See inside for what happened next.
After reading the article its a nice story but I'm less impressed. Matraville HS is a long way from a mug rugby school, they've produced some great Wallabies over the years with the Ella brothers and Russell Fairfax. Then you turn it into a selective sports high school and start collecting the cream of the junior RL crop from as far away as Auckland on scholarships from NRL teams. They turn into the dominant high school RL team with the core of their team being Kiwis and islanders, playing mostly rugby as kids. I'd be shocked if they weren't in the top 4 rugby schools just on athleticism alone.
posted by deflated at 01:13 PM on December 03, 2007
Agreed, deflated, but Union is a different game to League (as the boys acknowledge when they describe how they played in the Union finals). The resources that the top private schools put into Union compared with Matraville also makes this a good story. There's probably lessons here for the IRB and the ARU, both on how to play the game and how to spot and nurture talent.
posted by owlhouse at 03:21 PM on December 03, 2007
Look, I know the kids are already great League players, but to beat the GPS (the top private) schools at Union is a fantastic effort.