Honest opinion piece
By ‘Sir Giles Gilbert Scott’ in response to a question about who the top rugby schools in the Home Nations (and France) are.
You question has really got me thinking and the answer is not that easy to answer as one would expect. The reason for the difficulty for providing a definitive table is that that is no single criteria can adopted because of the different competitions and the strength of their fixture list, additionally some schools with Warwick as a good example do not offer any form of sports scholarship and have demanding academic entry requirements to boot.
I have to restrict my ‘top 10’ to the UK (the French and Italians have been omitted and therefore are unavailable for selection) as this is my domain and I have not purely based this on the first XV as a number of schools bring in a number of rugby scholars for the sixth form.
A number of the traditional rugby playing Schools do not meet the entry criteria for the some of the competitions to field their strongest teams and therefore elect not to play.
So in summary I have selected my top top 10 UK and Ireland rugby playing schools based on the following factors.
– Progression within Cup Competitions over the last 2 years.
– Results not just at First Team Level.
– Strength of opposition / fixture list.
My Top 10 are:
Bromsgrove School – They have been simply the best at first team level for the last two seasons and a good all round team that have been together for a number of years. Can their success be repeated next season ….probably not.
Kirkham Grammar School – great 2015/2016 season especially the result against local rivals Sedburgh.
Queens Elizabeth’s Grammar School (QEGS) Wakefield – rugby flows through the veins of QEGS and especially when competing with Rugby League within their hinterland. Achievements at both on a U15 and U18 over a number of seasons.
Wellington College – Good all round performance during the year throughout all age groups.
Bedford School – winners of the Champion Trophy, they would have been higher if they elected to play in other cup competitions, at the National Schools sevens they elected to compete in the of the trier 2 plate.
Sedbergh School – It is their win of the the U15 NatWest Cup that confirms their place in my top 10.
Warwick School – Consistent performers in the NatWest Cup over that last number of seasons at both U15 and U18. Additionally their U13s have made their equivalent final over the last two seasons and winning the cup in 2015. So Warwick joins the top 10 based on the ‘whole’ school performance. Warwick will be touring SA in 2016.
Blackrock College – I have added them as they won their domestic cup competition and every time I see them they are strong …. that goes for all age levels.
Whitgift – The team made the U18 NatWest semi final this season.
Millfield School – Should they be here? Probably not
Notable absentees are:
Harrow – poor season before last.
Hampton – just one good team in recent seasons.
Dulwich – no strength in depth, this is proved by this seasons first team results.
Llandovery College – poor last season.
Any Scottish School – they are just not strong enough.
Any Northern Irish School – their Schools Cup competition may be the oldest of it’s type in the World but in my opinion the strength of the fixture list is not strong enough.
RGS High Wycombe – so nearly on the list but a poor start to the season meant that they missed out.
@Grasshopper: More importantly than quotas, I think that:
1. the coaching at school level is better;
2. the school teams are far slicker as the players know each other better and have played together longer, etc; and
3. there is always politics (not just quotas) when picking a national team – e.g. coaches are pressured to pick certain players which a school coach wouldn’t pick, like a flank that scores the odd flashy try over a grafter that wins many turnover balls per game, etc
@Vleis: Spot on and with quotas the National team is not a fair reflection of actual strength. At schools level selection is based on merit, most of the time…
@Big Mac: You’ve misunderstood many of my points.
1. I’m equating the passion/etc for school rugby in SA to the passion for college football in the US. I’m obviously not equating the educational value of said institutions. I’m surprised that you drew that conclusion?
2. I understand that US themed sports are not universal. I’m merely showing that the passion for sport at a level less than the pinnacle (which is test matches for rugby and NFL for football) is very normal occurance.
3. The fact that most of the the teams do not meet each other is irrelevant re generating national (or international) rankings. Indeed, this very fact generates even more debate around said rankings. Trust me, you only have to see the bun fights that are generated when our national school rankings are released in SA….or the College football rankings are released in the US.
4. Finally, you are incorrect that there are no national high school rankings for football in the US. The High School Football National Championship is a national championship honor awarded to the best high school football team(s) in the US based on rankings from USA Today and the National Prep Poll.
P.S. While there is interest in the u19 national matches, many are more interested in the school matches…and many would argue that some of the school teams would beat the national team.
@Vleis: I do see your point, to a large extent, and thank you for seeing my dilemma at the individual (international) school level.
I will add that for US themed sports, there is no real International equivalent, because the US sports codes are not as universal as rugby, cricket etc.
To wit, the pinnacle of the traditional SA school boy sports competition is perhaps manifested in the U-19/20 Rugby/Cricket World Cup competitions (possibly Sannix as well, but that is more a festival by singular invitation only)
In the US, there are at most, at the school level, regional competitions for the
respective sports – certainly no universally accepted national champion or national ranking matrix.
Too many teams that will never meet each other, too many pundit opinions as a result.
I get your point of college ranking in the US as the equivalent of schools in SA, but then what of the colleges/universities in SA?
After all, any college is surely an amalgam of high school students who chose/were enticed to attend said college?
Perhaps you are implying that schools in SA are effectively now the equivalent of colleges in the US?
Please tell me it aint so!
I leave with this: school are schools; colleges are colleges.
Comparing country schools to each other seems meaningless to me , for what my opinion is worth.
The next level of comparison is the U-19/20 International or full blown Tests.
@Big Mac: Agree with old Vleissie. Also, quite a few of these Pom teams tour here and we like to get a gauge for where they sit within their own countries ‘leagues’. We had a Kiwi team tour a few years back who got smashed by teams out of our Top 20, so they actually had to change their game vs Grey Bloem to another to avoid embarrassing them. Also, SA teams who go to the SANIX ‘world cup’ in Japan usually win it. This tourno is supposed to be each of the countries stronger schools. So what its showing is at school level SA is really strong. After that it all goes pear-shaped it seems. Maybe some boys see the glory of playing school 1st team the pinnacle of the sport and once that hype and passion has gone they give up. I don’t blame some of the boys though, Super Rugby is boring to watch, defences are too organised. I would certainly watch a schoolboy game ahead of a Super Rugby game, any day.
@Big Mac: Perhaps it is indeed a pointless exercise – judging from the limited response to this article, it appears that others might agree with you.
That said, as a US resident, you’ll appreciate the intense interest in College football. There are many who are far more interested in College football than in the NFL. School rugby in SA is similar to College football in the US, while international rugby is similar to the NFL (i.e. the pinnacle of the sport). Ask yourself this, if there happened to be a competitive College football league on another continent, wouldn’t some of the Alabama Crimson Tide fans argue that their team was better than the champ of said league?
@Grasshopper:I am only choosing you to respond because there is no Beet in this post yet.
What does it matter to compare country high schools when there are proper test match Internationals for a real comparison?
I have lived in the US for a long time, so, obviously, I categorically have no dog in this hunt, but I am really confused about the validity of any country comparison at a school boy level.
It seems pointless to me beyond mere conjecture.
Maybe I miss the point, eh?
@Rugger fan: does anyone know what happened to Staples, where is he?
A very good friend of mine is in the Sedbergh 1st XV this year. I coached him in Abu Dhabi in the junior levels. Glad to see them up there
@Grasshopper:
Had lunch with a client who lives in Ireland yesterday…I can see why they wouldn’t based on what she told me regarding the differences between the English and the Irish
@Playa: hahah, I’m OCD myself so completely understand. Having lived in Ireland and having Irish roots, I just know Blackrock would not want to be lumped together with the UK and their English counterparts.
@Grasshopper: I can be pedantic at times
Well, I know Sir Giles. He went Kwaggasrand school in Pretoria, if Im not mistaken.
@Playa: I didn’t read that, I looked at the title of the article, skim reading. Good spot..
@Grasshopper: The author wrote that the top 10 is made up of UK and Ireland schools.
“So in summary I have selected my top top 10 UK and Ireland rugby playing schools based on the following factors…”
Interesting, it’s changed slightly in the almost 4 years since I have been back in SA. Wellington and Whitgift are always up there. Kirkham came on a tour of SA and found it very tough against teams probably outside of the top 20. Blackrock is in Dublin so not sure how they got in. Republic of Ireland is not the UK.