The player-weight debate at the historic Ross Shield: ‘Well-monitored’, but is it still a worry?

Hawke's Bay primary schools rugby chairman Mark Gifkins at the Ross Shield tournament in Napier. Photo / Doug Laing

Organisers of Hawke’s Bay’s 121-years-old Ross Shield primary schools rugby tournament are keen to put the player-weight debate behind them as another chapter ends at Park Island’s Tremain Field in Napier.

But the domination by defending champions Napier, who in the first three days recorded wins of 71-0 against Central Hawke’s Bay, 59-0 against Dannevirke, and 61-0 against usual tough rival Hastings East, means it’s likely to be broached again in some form in coming years.

It was an outstanding effort from the pick of the host sub-union’s Under 13 years and under 56kg rugby players, but it was not the sort of domination that anyone wants in a tournament that dates back to the shield’s first presentation in 1902.

Primary schools rugby chairman Mark Gifkins says “everyone wants a level playing field”, and trying to maintain it, and keep the country teams from Wairoa, Central Hawke’s Bay and Dannevirke afloat in times of dwindling school rolls and lesser player numbers, is something that is discussed every year.

The tournament has survived, although some similar tournaments haven’t.

Gone are the Roller Mills primary schools provincial unions tournament with teams from King Country to Northland, amid concerns that some parents were being more competitive than the children and applying unhealthy pressure, and a quadrangular tournament for the same age-group in the lower North Island.

Some may say it's a steal: "Up the Mighty Napier." But Napier did win the tournament, with some big winning margins. Photo / Doug Laing

The Ross Shield has historically had its issues, with players desperate to make the team over the years reported to be taking drastic steps to get their weights within the constraints.

It led to the weight-limit being raised to 56kg, with dispensation for Wairoa, CHB and Dannevirke to have two players each up to 58kg, because of increasing difficulties getting the numbers and remaining competitive.

The sub-unions have agreed any player over 62kg at trials time is ruled out, and weights, verified by by medical practitioners at six weeks, three weeks and start date, including monitoring weight-loss programmes.

When the tournament started on Tuesday, the average weight across the 132 players (22 in each squad) was 49kg, over the weight by population in the age group.

There was also one player that did not meet the weight restriction and missed out, but if he had qualified it would have been a rarely-achieved third tournament for the young man, who remained with his Central squad and led its haka.

Players who’ve missed out because of weight and age have since 2004 been catered for in the Wakely Shield, for which the age limit is 14 years.

Gifkins, who was hands-on the sideline this week monitoring the transition of players during replacements in the three games each day this week, says “everyone believes we’ve got it about right now”, and the notion of having an “open” weight is not practical, because there are much heavier children, which he says presents both risks for smaller and even further lop-sided results.

One mum, who’s been involved in children’s rugby in Hawke’s Bay says she would have loved to have seen her son play Ross Shield rugby, but he was several kilograms too heavy and “just got over it”, but he did keep playing through the age groups as he got older.

Mike and Liz Randell at the Ross Shield tournament, watching a grandson. More than 30 years ago the idol was son and eventual All Blacks captain Taine. Photo / Doug Laing

Among those on the sidelines this week were Mike and Liz Randell, who’ve had a multi-generation acquaintance with the tournament, dating back to the 1980s and watching son Taine, who went on to captain the All Blacks.

With another grandson on the field this week, Liz Randell conceded there had been moments getting “five big boys” ready for the tournament, but “it’s all about the tradition and it’s a prestige tournament.”

Gifkins says it is, too, about group-association and team-bonding which he says are crucial in the life of a growing young person.

“And they make friends for life,” he says.

The issue of weights was raised with Hawke’s Bay Today as the tournament was about to start, in an email from a Havelock North mum.

The mum, who did not have a player in the tournament, said she had witnessed school pupils taking “drastic measures to lose weight rapidly” to meet the target weight.

“I am horrified that this is allowed to happen,” she said, calling for further change.

Children were eating less food and talking about wearing extra layers of clothes to sweat-off weight, using other methods and saying they would “starve themselves for 24 hours before weigh-in”, she said.

She said she’d hate to have the children developing an eating disorder because pressure had been put on them to be a specific weight.

Hastings District councillor and former Frimley School principal Malcolm Dixon, who helps organise the tournament every five years when it is hosted in Hastings and has a tournament history dating back to refereeing in the 1970s, believes the changes over the years have “moderated” the problems, and added: “I think it’s pretty-well monitored.”

Doug Laing is a senior reporter based in Napier with Hawke’s Bay Today, and has 50 years of journalism experience in news gathering, including breaking news, sports, local events, issues, and personalities.