jirskyr
Well-known member
Rather than being overly nostalgic, the reality is that junior participation rates in many sports are dropping, esp. in full-contact sports.
NRL and other codes need to find ways to encourage juniors and new sporting parents to play their game, and gradually get introduced to more and more concepts of the elite level.
You can say all you want about 1970s Australia, but I posted in another article, that almost 45% of Sydney-siders were born overseas, so we still have a massive immigrant population. You can't expect newer arrivals from India, Hong Kong or Africa to be totally on-board with sending their kids out every weekend to tackle each other on a football field.
They need to change the pathways for modern young kids. They need to compete with more at-home entertainment options, Playstations, Switches, HD TVs etc.
If they leave it the way it was, then the junior participation rates will continue to slide.
Personally, I played league from 8 to 14 years old. I loved Wayne Pearce. I stopped playing footy because at 14 I was skinny and I couldn't reliably tackle blokes who were already 6 ft tall and growing beards. At that point these mini-men aren't just bigger than you, they are faster too. It's a complete mismatch. It wasn't fun for the super-sized kids to bulldoze small teams, and all the pep-talking in the world can't help small kids trying to tackle behemoths. There was one kid in a grade below us, I would not have even been able to wrap my arms around him.
I was 14, I didn't want to get smashed every week and lose 60-6 against the massive sides. So I was lost to playing League, despite my ongoing passions. I very much doubt I would ever have featured in any remarkable playing capacity when I finally got bigger, but that discrepancy between big and small was enough. It's an ongoing problem they can't just ignore. I started playing touch footy, and smartly enough, NRL has been innovative enough to bring that under their umbrella.
NRL and other codes need to find ways to encourage juniors and new sporting parents to play their game, and gradually get introduced to more and more concepts of the elite level.
You can say all you want about 1970s Australia, but I posted in another article, that almost 45% of Sydney-siders were born overseas, so we still have a massive immigrant population. You can't expect newer arrivals from India, Hong Kong or Africa to be totally on-board with sending their kids out every weekend to tackle each other on a football field.
They need to change the pathways for modern young kids. They need to compete with more at-home entertainment options, Playstations, Switches, HD TVs etc.
If they leave it the way it was, then the junior participation rates will continue to slide.
Personally, I played league from 8 to 14 years old. I loved Wayne Pearce. I stopped playing footy because at 14 I was skinny and I couldn't reliably tackle blokes who were already 6 ft tall and growing beards. At that point these mini-men aren't just bigger than you, they are faster too. It's a complete mismatch. It wasn't fun for the super-sized kids to bulldoze small teams, and all the pep-talking in the world can't help small kids trying to tackle behemoths. There was one kid in a grade below us, I would not have even been able to wrap my arms around him.
I was 14, I didn't want to get smashed every week and lose 60-6 against the massive sides. So I was lost to playing League, despite my ongoing passions. I very much doubt I would ever have featured in any remarkable playing capacity when I finally got bigger, but that discrepancy between big and small was enough. It's an ongoing problem they can't just ignore. I started playing touch footy, and smartly enough, NRL has been innovative enough to bring that under their umbrella.
