AUSTRALIAN SCHOOLS RUGBY UNION
The following is a summary report on the recent and forthcoming activities of the ASRU.
The Australian Schools Rugby Union—ASRU—consists of teachers committed to rugby in schools. These teachers come from a range of Private and Government Schools The ASRU has as its members teachers from the State Schools Rugby Unions in all States and Territories. Being a teacher / school based organisation the skills and experience of teachers are added to their rugby skills for the benefits of the players.
Hence opportunities to introduce and ensure that the educational benefits for the schools players are provided.
- 2018 Australian Schools and Under 18 Team— toured to Ireland and Scotland and defeated the Under 19 teams from both countries quite decisively.
This team, as for all previous such teams, was coached and managed by teachers appointed by the ASRU.
3. 2019 The Australian Schools and Under 18 Team will tour NZ for 3 games in September this year
4. Ongoing flow of Representative players—
–the current Rugby Under 20s in the final of the Under 20 World Cup has 17 of the 28 in the squad who have come from recent Australian Schools Teams—including 7 from the 2018 team.
–in addition to those going to Junior or Senior Wallaby level there ae many more who play at the annual Australian Schools Rugby Championships who go on to Super Rugby and many more to senior club rugby.
5.This year—the Australian Schools Rugby Championships will be held in early July at Riverview College.
From these Championships the Australian Schools Barbarians (Australia A) will be selected to play Samoan Schools in early October. At these 184 of the best school players this year will represent their states and experience a week of rugby, personal and educational developments.
They are also one of the pathways for selection to the Australian Schools and Under 18 Team which will tour NZ in late September.
7. The ASRU will host Samoan Schools in September / October to visit and play regional teams in Nowra, Canberra and Bathurst, then the Australian Schools Barbarians in Sydney.
These regional visit will provide significant promotion for rugby—especially in schools—by displaying one of the unique features of rugby—its Internationali
8. Future Tours–such tours to regional areas from Tier Two rugby countries are being planned for future years. Some examples of these include Samoa, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Fiji, Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea, Japan.
9.The Pacific–The ASRU is in conversation with the Federal Government about working with the on their Pacific Assistance Programme.
10. Coaches–-a new scheme to assist rugby in schools is being planned that will enable the provision of qualified coaches to schools who otherwise finding difficulty in recruiting coaches. This is one of the major difficulties that schools experience.
