Schools Rugby Website Changes
Tomorrow, we will publish the first in what will be a short series of articles telling the story and documenting the history of the Australian Schools Rugby Union, the Australian Schoolboys and now also the Australian Schoolgirls.
Tomorrow’s piece is on the 1969 Schoolboy Tour to South Africa, the first ever Australian Schoolboys team and the first ever Australian Schoolboys tour. It will be accompanied by a brief piece by Greg Cornelson, who was a 16-year-old attending the Armidale School at the time and was selected for the team.
They are a fascinating read.
Over time, we will also include the inside story of a few other key tours, such as the 1973/74 Tour To England, Scotland and Wales, as well as the Australian Championships; Pacific Fiji, Japan, Samoa, Tonga; and the creation of the Australian Schoolgirl Sevens.
In the near future, we will also redesign aspects of the website to include, among other things, a ‘History’ tab, where this and future historical articles, including all official team photos, will live.
We started a video interview process about 18 months ago (which is where the short clip last month with Wally Lewis came from) with a number of our early ASRU teachers and administrators, such as Brother Bob Wallace, Jim Lucey and John Howard, and coaches including the great Geoff Mould. The focus will, of course, be on many of the early players, starting with Ken Wright and the entire 1977 team (only a few more to go), with many more to follow. These interviews will progressively be posted on a new Schools RugbyTV YouTube channel, joining the flash interviews from the Australian Championships.
We are also looking to get some of the old VHS tapes of early matches digitised – at a reasonable price – so we can share them.
These articles and videos are not meant to be Pulitzer or Academy Award winners; they were written and produced by those who were there to capture, preserve, and share our history.
From time to time, we will also be reaching out for photos and memories from you, our readers, who may be able to assist with certain photos or memorabilia, just as Greg Cornelson did with this article, supplying personal commentary and the news clipping of the day.
As I am sure most of you know, the ASRU, including this website, Facebook, Instagram, TicTok, X, and the PhotoShelter photo archives, is staffed by volunteers only. Not one person at the ASRU is paid, so 100 per cent of funds raised go directly to the Australian Championships, Australian Schoolboys, and Australian Schoolgirl Teams.
This also means we can always use help.
Web Master <[email protected]>
