Part Two of The Development Question (a ten part series)
Before we can fix the country pathway, the game needs clarity about what NSW Country Rugby is actually expected to deliver.
By Choice Driven Athletic Development & Career Mentoring
In Part One of this series, we identified a fundamental problem facing young rugby players in country New South Wales: there is no shortage of talent, commitment or ambition, but there is considerable uncertainty around who is actually responsible for developing that talent.
We raised questions about geography, coaching, representative selection, development officers, talent identification and the growing pressure on ambitious country players to eventually move towards Sydney.
Before any of those issues can properly be addressed, however, one question needs answering.
What, exactly, is NSW Country Rugby supposed to do?
Is NSW Country Rugby primarily a representative organisation, charged with bringing together the best players from regional NSW to compete under the Country banner?
Is it also responsible for developing those players?
Or does responsibility for development sit predominantly with NSW Rugby, regional zones and local clubs?
For the young player and their family trying to navigate the pathway, those distinctions matter.
Representative Opportunity vs. Player Development
Country rugby has a proud representative history. The opportunity to represent a region and ultimately wear the sunburnt orange Country jersey carries enormous significance.
That should remain an important part of the game.
The problem arises when representative opportunity and player development are treated as though they are the same thing.
They are not.
Selecting a player identifies where that player is considered to sit at a particular point in time.
Developing a player is a longer process designed to change where that player may sit in six months, 12 months or several years.
A representative team has an understandable short-term objective.
Coaches select the players they believe provide the strongest combination for a tournament or campaign. They have limited preparation time and need to build combinations, establish a game plan and prepare the side to perform.
A development program must take a different view.
It should be capable of looking at a 15-year-old prop who is physically immature and asking what that player could become at 19.
It should identify a talented fly-half whose decision-making requires work, a lock who needs specialist lineout coaching or a halfback whose passing technique needs refinement.
Those players may not currently be the best in their positions.
Development is concerned with whether they could become so.
That provides the first answer to one of the questions raised in Part One.
Representative rugby and development rugby should be recognised as two different functions operating within the same pathway.
Representative rugby should select the best players available today.
Development should help create better players for tomorrow.
The Choice Driven Approach to Development
At Choice Driven, we have begun attempting to apply that principle on a small scale.
Our developing model is based on identifying promising young athletes from approximately 15 or 16 years of age.
Identification does not mean declaring them elite.
It does not mean promising representative selection.
It certainly does not mean telling a teenager they are going to become a professional rugby player.
It simply means recognising that there may be something worth developing.
From there, the question changes.
Instead of asking only, “How good is this player now?”, we begin asking, “What could this player become over the next three or four years?”
That requires assessment.
What are their technical strengths?
What needs improvement?
What physical development is required?
How well do they understand their position?
What is their conditioning like?
What does their local coaching environment provide?
What additional support might be required?
Then an individual development plan can begin.
Importantly, that development should not stop at rugby.
The player is also becoming an adult.
Education, employment, apprenticeships, university, communication, accountability and independence all eventually become part of the conversation.
That is particularly important for country players who may eventually have to leave home to pursue the next stage of their rugby.
The objective is not simply to produce a better footballer.
It is to produce a young person better prepared for whatever opportunity comes next.
What Happens to Non-Selected Players?
That model also provides an answer to another important question.
What happens to promising players who are not selected?
In a purely representative system, they return to their club or school and try again.
In a development system, non-selection should not necessarily end the conversation.
A player considered close to selection should receive meaningful feedback.
Their deficiencies should be identified.
Where possible, their local coach should understand what needs improvement.
The player should know what work is required and how progress will be assessed.
Then they should have an opportunity to become visible again.
Teenage development is not linear.
Some players mature earlier physically.
Some have access to sophisticated school rugby programs.
Others may arrive at representative trials having received little specialist coaching beyond the enormous efforts of volunteers at their local club.
A trial can tell selectors who is better prepared today.
It cannot always tell us who will become the better player.
Defining Responsibilities Across the Pathway
This is why responsibility needs to be clearly defined.
If NSW Country Rugby exists primarily to provide representative rugby, then say so and judge it accordingly.
If player development is principally the responsibility of NSW Rugby, then the statewide development structure needs to be clearly visible to regional participants.
And if responsibility is shared, then families need to understand who provides which part.
Country rugby does not necessarily need more jerseys.
It may need more development between them.
Representative rugby and development rugby can coexist.
In fact, they should strengthen one another.
The representative program identifies the strongest players available today.
The development system expands and improves the group from which tomorrow’s representative teams will eventually be selected.
That is the distinction the pathway needs to establish.
And it provides the foundation for the next issue raised in Part One.
Because once a player has been selected – or not selected – another question immediately follows.
What happens after the carnival?
