School Kids must be signed up

Over the last ten years the practise of signing up Rugby playing school Kids by other codes, and Provinces has become much more common place, it has now got to the point where at the end of the Secondary school season, players disband and head off in many different directions.

Should there be another alternative to just signing up school kids? and perhaps the time has now come for professional rugby to address a form of transfer system to reward the cost of junior development, and other costs associated with holding these young players in the game of Rugby?


http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11316804

As a Newcastle falcon fan...a small club who has suffered from having a strong academy but players moving as soon as they've had a season in the first team then yes i would love to see us rewarded for all the effort we have put in to players.

Players like David Wilson, Geoff Parling, Phil Dowson, Matthew Tait, Toby Flood, Tim Visser etc etc all came through our academy.

I like the idea but look at how some academies sign up players.

Sarries are the worst. They give scholarships to a shed load of kids post school and rather than try and develop them they simply see which ones develop on their own... and the rest are unable to play for anyone else and literally get ZERO rugby for the duration of the degree. Those who don't get any game time lose up to 3 years practice.... that's it there career is over such is its importance. This isn't their actual academy, rather scholarships to psuedo-colleges and then they cherry pick the best players from the numerous colleges they look after.

A buddy of mine from school was signed up and because he wasn't first team he didn't play a game for 3 years. He was shopped by other clubs, some premiership academies too, but because Sarries paid his fees he could not join them.

Had he known what would have happened it would have been better for him to have paid his own fees, joined an actual rugby academy and played regular rugby... he would have been a far better player than he ended up too.

There was/is no science involved in that form of recruitment.

In SA your province you represent has little to do with your development, its your school which does all the work. You must represent the province of your school, play for a school in the Western Cape, you play WP age grade. Can the schools claim the transfer fees as they will do 10 times more work and investment on the kid then an umbrella union.
We actually lose a lot of kids to the bulls and the sharks especially. WP is the hotbed of rugby in SA yet loses a lot who simply shop the best kids aged 18 who they can't afford to keep.
Lets say you have Schalk Burger and Juan Smith and only can afford 1 junior contract... its not simply that you are disregarding the potential of the one who misses out... its that space is very fierce and funding is limited. Although only post 18 do privincial teams make a big difference is a players development as I mentioned before.