Junior rugby: Club backs well-liked coach

All over the country on Saturday mornings, youngsters turn out to play rugby. Photo / Northern Advocate

Jonathan Marshall, Silverdale Rugby Club chairman

I felt compelled to try to set the record straight on two fronts following Gary Robertson's article ('Child's Play No More', Herald on Sunday, August 9) - the inaccuracy as it related to coaches, management and officers at our club and the journalism.

Coaches of this age use terms like game plan and fitness tests but these actually describe things coaches do with teams. Talking to the parents of the boys, something Gary Robertson didn't do, there were no fitness tests before the normal season this year. Some boys did do some voluntary fitness testing in the summer touch days but this was something they wanted and asked to do.

The folders, with game plans and moves, give them something to take through their rugby years, and develop "team spirit". It has pictures of the correct means of catching, passing, going into contact, etc. All teams at this age group have moves. This team's are just drawn and printed for the boys, at the coach's time and expense. Not one parent has complained about these folders and most think they are excellent.

If Sunday afternoon family touch is considered "training", then, yes, the team did have summer training. This became a popular event that often had between 20-30 attendees, all voluntary.

I would think any parent, union and the NZRU would welcome a session at the beginning of the season on safe scrummaging, even if the boys don't push [during the games]. Every year it is hammered home by the NZRU that we should be doing safe scrummaging practices. This extra hour at a pre-season get-together was attended by a referee to ensure it was safe and all forwards knew how to form a scrum.

When we get the opportunity for All Blacks to attend our training sessions, we grab it. As I understand it, Troy Flavell happened to be at dinner with parents of a boy in the team and stopped by at his training, then offered to help with some basics.

Game time is also a perennial complaint, as parents get annoyed their sons sometimes don't get equal time on the field.

At the beginning of the season, all coaches would have communicated to the parents that some boys may get less game time in big and/or close games and then get more in others. This is a reality.

We want the boys to have fun and winning is a key ingredient to having fun, especially as the boys get to this age.

So, in some big games or close games, we may need to run some of the more experienced boys for longer periods and balance that with those who miss out on those games being given additional time in others.

All the parents I have talked to about this over the years buy into it at the beginning of the season and we try our best to ensure everyone plays.

However, sometimes they don't and I am sorry about that but we are not always going to provide every single boy with the perfect rugby experience.

Mr Robertson describes emails sent to the boys (along with a much-loved newsletter which even kids who have moved away still request) as the trainings (no longer than 60 to 90 minutes once a week) don't allow time for reviewing last week's games.

Mr Robertson then goes after our Rugby Development Officer (RDO). How he could take something that the entire union sees as a positive and turn it into a robot-creating, Super 14-imitating, win-at-all-costs negative is a journalistic leap of heroic proportions.

Our RDO was hired primarily to halt the loss of senior players in the game and that remains his focus. He is not answerable to his employers; he is answerable to the club members.

Our stated aim as a club is to provide young boys with a fun environment to play rugby, first-class facilities and the opportunity to develop in the game, and is not, as Mr Robertson implies, to win at all costs.

Come down on a Friday night or Saturday morning and watch rugby at Silverdale and you will see happy kids doing something they love - because they love it, not because their coaches tell them to.

I can't help asking why the Herald on Sunday would publish this as an article, not an opinion piece, and one man's opinion at that. To my knowledge, Mr Robertson did not at any time interview other parents in his son's team nor talk to club management.

Not one parent has complained to the club, in my memory. This article takes an uncommon experience in a lot of unions and calls it a modern trend, makes parents scared and turns it into the drama of the day affecting our kids, something it plainly isn't.

The sad thing is that Mr Robertson has been allowed to malign a coach universally liked and respected by his team and their parents; who was our junior coach of the year in 2008, who goes out of his way to take Mr Robertson's son to an All Black test and will undoubtedly start his son in the rep games this weekend, because our coach is a classy guy and has devoted his life to really caring about letting the kids play.

The response from the club and parents has been admirable, if misguided. We should make the following points:

* The main thrust of the story was over-enthusiastic coaching in New Zealand junior rugby. The writer personally contacted every rugby union in New Zealand on the subject.

* The subject was raised by the coaching of a team in which the writer had a son. He offered his opinion on this - never presented as anything else - and went in search of whether the same issue was arising elsewhere. Rugby unions in New Zealand clearly think it is.

* The focus was not coaching at the club concerned - nor even the coach used as an example. That is why his name was not used and why no enquiries were made of other parents. Other club coaches, also unnamed, were mentioned.

* This response and some letters have been edited for length (this response was 50 per cent longer than the original article) and where they strayed into personal attacks.

- Sports editor