Thursday, February 2, 2017

Elite Pathways PART II: Representative Teams

Yesterday, I spoke about flipping the pyramid of rugby participation. We are already seeing rapid expansion of high school rugby teams in this country. How do we identify and develop all these talented rugby athletes in this country? What are our existing system? How have they grown? How can they scale with the broadening base of our participation pyramid?

Representative Teams, Historically
Teams made up of disparate players from clubs within a single union are known as representative teams. They represent that union or geographic areas. An American translation might be "all-star team." These can represent anywhere from a city or region to country. From the 1970s to early 2000s USA Rugby ran a Inter-Territorial Tournament (ITT) for fifteens and sevens composed of teams from the various Territorial Unions; East, Midwest, South, Pacific as well as a US Armed Services team. These teams would practice for a few weeks after national club championships and then play a weekend tournament. Talking to old boys in the Bay Area, it was quite an honor to pull on a Pacific Grizzlies jersey. It was also a stepping stone to Eagles selection.





In addition to the ITT, USA Rugby has selected a Collegiate All-American team for at least forty years. Historically, this team drew from the college ranks and sent promising players on tours to the Southern Hemisphere in June or July after the college nationals. Players were selected on performance in the sixteen team Divisions One or Two playoffs or on the recommendations of coaches.
Courtesy erugbynews

In 1992 Tony Smeeth founded the USA Rugby u-19 program. The program recruited American high school players as well as America-qualified students from abroad to tour, play invitationals and eventually compete in the International Rugby Board's age-grade tournament. Coaches identified players at the High School Nationals in addition to a high school all-star tournament in Colorado. Recruits were invited to a summer camp to compete for selection to a World Championship qualifier or the tournament itself.

Representative Teams, Today

As discussed above, the ITT bit the dust in the early 2000s. But the Collegiate All-Americans have continued to travel and perform, including a recent tour to Queensland. The team holds camps in the winter to select its traveling summer team. It has also expanded to include players not playing for college teams. Without the All-American shield on its jumper, you could credibly call it an u-23 team.

Courtesy Bob Benson
As the high school participation segment has grown, so have our representative teams. World Rugby standardized it's premier age-grade bracket as u-20 in 2008. Thus, the u-19 team bumped up an age grade to compete. There are now two tournaments: the u-20 World Championship and and u-20 World Trophy. The former is the premier competition with twelve teams and the likes of New Zealand, England and South Africa as recent winners.

The u-20 World Trophy is where the US u-20 team has competed. It contains eight teams from countries you would associate as Tier Two. The US won the tournament in 2012. A look at the roster reveals quite a few Eagles and high-level club players: Titi Lamositele, Ben Tarr, Ben Cima, Michael Reid and Hanco Germishuys etc & et. al.

Now, where these players are identified is much more complex question than it was in 1998 or even 2005. With more players and without a high school national championship or single All-Star tournament, selectors have an increasingly more difficult job. Players are identified at invitational tournaments or playoffs, at national tracking camps and regional all-star tournaments.

Another pipeline for recruitment to the u-20 team is a new age-grade team, the High School All-Americans. We could colloquially refer to this as an u-18 team. This team of high school students is recruited from the aforementioned channels, albeit at a younger age. We are now seeing all-star tournaments with age-brackets like u-16. The High School Boys All-Americans assemble in the winter and summer to select teams for tours. In 2016, the team was split into an Eastern and Western squad, which toured Ontario and British Columbia respectively.

At the sub-national high school level, what once was a single all-star tournament has split into seven regional competitions with different age-grades known as the Regional Cup Tournament. The geographic boundaries of these all-star teams are shrinking too. Northern California has traditionally put together an all-star side known as the Pelicans. In 2016, separate Sacramento and Bay Area u-18 and u-16 teams squared off at the Pacific Northwest RCT in Oregon, in addition to their traditional derby. In addition, we are seeing academies like the Eagle Impact Rugby Academy enter different teams into these tournaments. The proliferation of youth representative rugby continues unabated.

As you can see above, our youth national and sub-national representative teams continue to grow in terms of assemblies, numbers and age-grade brackets. But what about adults? Since the demise of the ITT, the opportunities for players to shine on the representative stage has atrophied. Some unions have continued to run consistent programs, such as USA Rugby South, which plays matches and tours on a regular basis. On the more regional level, there are representative one-offs for traditional rivals. In California, the Southern California Rugby Football Union Griffins and Northern California Rugby Football Union Pelicans have renewed a rival with alternating matches each December. In the Mid-Atlantic, the Capital Selects play the all-star squad the Stars each winter. It's clear that with the expansion of high school rugby, USA Rugby and voluntary associations are expanding the number of youth representative teams. The same is not true for senior rugby.

Senior Representative Competitions

Is the above sufficient for senior club players? One-offs and tours? Is it worthwhile to organize and hold a representative tournament for adults?

What are the benefits of such a tournament? It exposes players to higher levels of competition and more intense game minutes. This is critical for the development of players. Games with 50 point differentials between teams don't challenge any players. At least for men's rugby, the top West and East coast teams do not meet any longer in playoffs. A tournament exposes them to different style of play, be it the speed and width of West Coast rugby or coalface mauls of Northeast teams.  It can also unearth more hidden gems or late bloomers. Some talented players still pick up the game after majority or develop physically later in their careers. But is this enough to justify the expense and time?

We can look to the North to see how the Canadians have organized an all-star competition. The Canadian Rugby Championships pits four regions against one another. It has formed the basis for domestic selection in Canada. But it can succeed in part because of the tight population distribution of that country. Most of British Columbia's rugby playing population can get to Vancouver or Victoria for practice twice a week. The same could not be said for a West Coast team based in San Francisco, or even a California team based in Los Angeles.



Moreover, how does senior men's representative rugby fit in with semi-professional or professional rugby. Will a tournament with the goals of developing senior players be necessary if there are stable professional rugby competitions in ten years? Would it be worthwhile to run as a parallel system? Or is it simply the stopgap or place-holder for Super Rugby or Pro 12 teams?

Due to PRO's exclusivity clause, unless there is a forthcoming buyout, there will continue to be a void in the development of top level men's players for the next three to four years. Will waiting it out be sufficient or do we need a resilient representative competition that can outlive the ups and downs of the market? If we do not embrace representative rugby for 18-25 year olds... where can we get these athletes high-quality minutes before they're ready for premiership or professional rugby?

1 comment:

  1. Look up the NRC. That's a solid model for the US to emulate. Five East and 5 West. Ho,e and away for 8 games plus a two week finals series featuring the top 2 from each conference.

    Solid competitive structure. Choose the top 5 most competitive regions and use cities within them. Say Utah, NorCal and Socal, Colorado and Texas in the West and New York, Boston, Washington/Philadelphia, Ohio and Chicago.

    This structure could actually in time transition to professionalism if PRO Rugby collapses.

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