The junior footy weight/age debate is back

[M2D2]

I remember when i was a kid playing under 6's- Under 8's.
Three clubs had a Super Mutant Behemoth in their team.
They would always chalk up 40-60 points against us.
f**king hated it, by under 9's the gap lessened and i finally got to play finals footy.
Still never won shit and heaps of kids gave it up when they realised they were never going to win shit.
This was 20 years ago. Probably worse now.

 

[Munted]

tbf that old style tackling technique is also much more likely to lead to concussions so maybe its a good thing?

Agree.
How many blokes go in low to wrap up the legs and cop a knee to the head.
Going low safely works when tackling from behind and wrapping up legs, not confronting some Poly thighs head first.

"the bigger they are the harder they fall"
"they can't run without legs"

Every jnr coach and parental motivation gee up for the lil kids.

STFU haha.

 

[Perth Red]

Mate you assume that that slimy turd in charge has anything but his own self interests at heart.

The FIRST thing any CEO of the NRL should be looking at is juniors and grass roots.

Its such a cluster f*ck ATM that any changes will take some time to have an effect, so need addressing ASAP.

This Auskick stuff did not spring up overnight. It was a long concerted effort.

Sadly, we have a useless turd in charge who seems more intent on lip service and swanky lunches than doing anything to actually ensure the future of the game.

Rant over.

Makes you wonder if the grassroots would be better separate from the NRL? Still under the commission but maybe with its own ceo etc. Disband NSWRL,QRL&CRL etc as stand alone entities and bring them all in together under one CEO and management system, save a shed load of administration money that can go back to the grassroots. Let Greenberg focus on making the NRL the best professional elite comp it can be and let someone else focus on grassroots.

 

[mave]

Kids in the Under 13 Roosters developmental squad are literally being taught to have two boys tackle the upper body and wrap the ball, third boy tackles the legs, roll attacker onto their back, wait for the held call, count to three, and release.

 

[Munted]

I remember when i was a kid playing under 6's- Under 8's.
Three clubs had a Super Mutant Behemoth in their team.
They would always chalk up 40-60 points against us.
f**king hated it, by under 9's the gap lessened and i finally got to play finals footy.
Still never won shit and heaps of kids gave it up when they realised they were never going to win shit.
This was 20 years ago. Probably worse now.

Hah same here.
I grew up in the Western suburbs of Sydney, so plenty of diverse nationalities yet the Islanders were always 2x the size of white punks like me.
Got to under 16s and realised i wasnt growing like they were and ended up getting belted week in week out, the fun died fast.

 

[Munted]

Kids in the Under 13 Roosters developmental squad are literally being taught to have two boys tackle the upper body and wrap the ball, third boy tackles the legs, roll attacker onto their back, wait for the held call, count to three, and release.

Joy.
Can't wait to watch some of that action.

 

[POPEYE]

Sad part is the big kid will more than likely never get to play senior RL, his hopes will fade faster than his weight

 

[magpie4ever]

Assuming people saw the video of the giant 7 year old in the Bulldogs junior league.

http://www.news.com.au/sport/sports...lSF&utm_source=News.com.au&utm_medium=Twitter

That this debate is still going without action after years and years is frustrating. It's not that complicated.

The problem is the way it is framed as Age VS Weight - implying that kids should be divided by one or the other, leading to fears of giant 7 year olds forced to play with teenagers, and then nothing being done.

The answer is Age AND Weight. Can anyone spot a flaw in this system?

example (dont read too much into the exact weights I don't know what's appropriate)
Under 8s
Division 1: Open weight
Division 2: 30kg
Division 3: 25kg

Rules:
-If a child exceeds the weight limit in his/her age group they must play 1 year higher, or in a higher division.

-Weight limit applies only to a child who is at the age limit, ie. a child eligible for under 7s playing in under 8s is exempt from weight limit and can not be forced to move up yet another grade.

-If a district age group only has 1 division, that division will be weight restricted. Where there is more than 1 division the highest will be open weight.

-If a child is required to move up a division/age group and such an opportunity does not exist at their current club the League must assist with a transfer to the nearest appropriate club.

Moving up 1 year is not a big jump. Countless kids play up every week, school classes are conducted with 2 year age differences between kids.
The good of the game, potentially hundreds of smaller kids who's drop out or parents push them away, needs to come before the maybe hurt feelings of 1 giant kid (more likely his parents hurt feelings) here and there.

Not bad, but you must ensure that the normal size (height) fat kids are not disadvantaged.

So my add-ons would be, take the median weight & height for say a normal X year old - have upper & lower measurements for both within the age group - if a children is above both measurements (height & weight) he must play a year up, if it is only one - he remains in his age group, if he is below in both - he (or parents) can chose to play down one age group (not mandatory)

 

[Nice Beaver]

Kids in the Under 13 Roosters developmental squad are literally being taught to have two boys tackle the upper body and wrap the ball, third boy tackles the legs, roll attacker onto their back, wait for the held call, count to three, and release.

I believe its called "Bellamy Ball".

 

[Nice Beaver]

Makes you wonder if the grassroots would be better separate from the NRL? Still under the commission but maybe with its own ceo etc. Disband NSWRL,QRL&CRL etc as stand alone entities and bring them all in together under one CEO and management system, save a shed load of administration money that can go back to the grassroots. Let Greenberg focus on making the NRL the best professional elite comp it can be and let someone else focus on grassroots.

Theoretically, yes.

But there are so many pigs with their snouts in the trough that getting some of these factions to give up their little rackets is easier said than done.

It was one of the agendas of the Commission, was it not? To centralise administration somewhat and create efficiencies?

The more things change, the more they stay the same....

 

[WaznTheGreat]

The giant kid had 20 players on top of his back who combined would weigh more than him,not the giants fault that 20 kids can't work together to bring him down.

Useless kids can't even win a 20 vs 1 scenario

 

[Lemon Squash]

I have never understood why this is so hard.

There shouldn't be 'weight divisions' implemented as such, but just a set weight rule based on a ratio for specific larger children. Have this in place up until under 12s/13s when it just becomes open again usually due to the larger kids coming back to the pack a bit.

For example if the average weight in under 8's is 30kgs any child over say 65% more than the average weight has to move up a year, so in this instance the 49/50kg mark. I'm just throwing out random numbers here but something based on the above would work.

Its just not a good look when there are kids running around completely dwarfing others. Tackling bigger opponents is part of the game but at that age group kids are so vulnerable mentally that if they can't compete it can completely put them off the sport... I've seen it happen.

Obviously the flip side is a lot of the large kids are the Poly kids and quite often from my experience they are quieter and quite mentally vulnerable themselves, so in order to not take these kids away from playing with their mates or make them feel like 'freaks'you need to implement it from their first seasons in footy.

People worry about the mental effects but there are thousands of kids every year being made to repeat years at School, that has got to be a lot more detrimental mentally than putting a child up a grade.

There would be exceptions of course, I've seen big kids who barely get involved in the play and are scared to run the ball even if they are twice the size of the others. Start them a year up and if they are completely overwhelmed you could bring them back a group.

Its just something that needs to be governed through the Junior districts.

 

[skeepe]

The weight vs age thing is massively overhyped. It's simply not a problem in the majority of the country.

 

[adamkungl]

Your post does have merit, the problem I see with this issue and you solution is that putting the bigger kids up one age range isn't going to make a significant difference. A lot of the bigger kids are bigger than kids 3 or 4 years older than them. The smaller kids are still going to be trying to tackle kids much bigger than them, the only difference will be that the big kids are a year younger. If you start playing the bigger kids 2 or 3 years up in grades than you are really disadvantaging them. It really is a difficult situation.

There's a point where we have to accept that - Rugby League is fundamentally a game where big blokes run at smaller blokes. My suggestion isn't about making a game where everyone is the same size.
But it looks to me like we can mitigate that difference to an extent in lower levels of the game where having a good time is more important than being a superstar.

A year of practice and fitness and maturity can make a difference. If it takes 4 players to bring him down, each of those 4 players might have an extra 3kg on them by the next year.
I certainly don't want to see 7 year olds forced to play against 12 year olds but that kid in the above video probably just trampled half of the opposition out of ever playing footy again.

I loathe the Mums argument but that video does more damage to junior footy than any boozed up misbehaving NRL thugs could do in a decade.

 

[adamkungl]

The people saying this isn't a problem are probably in another thread sooking that the NRL does nothing about declining participation rates at junior level.

However
1) it shouldn't necessarily be the NRLs job. The junior leagues are not run directly by the NRL.
The NRL could suggest solutions and assist in implementing them however.

2) If this isn't an issue in the majority of the country @skeepe , then don't implement it in those areas. We don't need a 1 size fits all.
But particularly in multicultural areas of Sydney it could be an effective way to keep children of all backgrounds in the game.

 

[WaznTheGreat]

The people saying this isn't a problem are probably in another thread sooking that the NRL does nothing about declining participation rates at junior level

It's not a problem,my nephew tackles giants like that every weekend,me and my mates tackled giants like that when we were kids

Those dud kids should go play soccer

 

[adamkungl]

It's not a problem,my nephew tackles giants like that every weekend,me and my mates tackled giants like that when we were kids

Those dud kids should go play soccer

I expect they will... which is entirely the point

 

[POPEYE]

I believe its called "Bellamy Ball".

Good name for it, not that hard to understand but hard to accomplish without getting penalized, not many teams can do it. I'm not fond of it, since everyone waits for his next move I'd like to see Bellamy come up with something new

 

[butchmcdick]

It's not a problem,my nephew tackles giants like that every weekend,me and my mates tackled giants like that when we were kids

Those dud kids should go play soccer

A true hero

 

[WaznTheGreat]

I expect they will... which is entirely the point

Dud kids stop playing Rugby League to go and be duds at Soccer and other sports,sounds good to me.