Beast Mode...Sign him up..

Unfortunately it's what has been shown in the Nswrl research to be turning a lot of kids and parents away from League. It's one of the top three reasons
And the driving force behind the creation of a weight for age competition in Junior league in NSW, and hopefully in Qld as well,
Qld aren't as far advanced with it yet, but there is a series of carnivals being run To gauge the acceptance of the concept, in NSW. And there has already been some trials of the weigh/age system

Penrith are very much involved, and other Clubs are looking at getting their juniors to go the same way with the aim of making it throughout NSW
We have the same problem on the Gold Coast .
At times , kids sometimes have to play against others who may be up to two to three times their weight.
Kids in the younger ages are dropping out of the game because of it.
And it has to be addressed, if we want to keep those kids.
It's not the only reason, but it's one of the biggest ones.
Seeing small kids getting swatted like that is not a good look for Junior league
Especially when there is , at times , some conjecture over accurate Dates of Birth. In some cases.
Fortunately some clubs are looking at ways to consider Weights as well as age.

Nathan Cleary's experience , highlighted the problem when he said that , had it not been for that system being used where he lived in NZ , He would've given up the game when he was a young kid, because of the size of players, ( like a lot of kids)
The game can't afford to keep losing young kids.

The dangers to the smaller kids, from kids such as in the Video, have to be considered in the younger ages games.
Some of the bigger kids are more the " gentle giants"
But some of the stuff in that video, while at first glimpse seemed funny to a couple of the parents at the game , is just dangerous to the smaller kids, and should not be a part of under 8,s games.
 
At that age wouldn't it be better if they were only playing touch footie? I thought exactly the same as GCT - why would those little guys ever want to play again. Plus their parents can't be thrilled about it. A 28 y.o. player with 2 children died at Murwillumbah after a tackle.
http://www.news.com.au/sport/nrl/grant-cook-28-dies-after-rugby-league-tackle/news-story/bc004a8500bd3ee8dc7488db8462d6cd
 
what was it when I was a kid back in the dark ages..5stone 7's 6 stone 7's and 7 stone 7's. Before every game you jumped on the scales.

Than playing Rugby in the central west as a kid they had a scale of age weight and height up to u16's and that also seemed to work, although I was a small kid so I got to play against younger kids so it was a bit of shock when I hit u16s
 
@jirskyr said:
Just wait til he turns 16 and kids figure out how to tackle properly…

Exactly , when my young blokes team comes up against opposition players like that , we will have one player go in for the ankles , the other goes in with a sneaky swinging arm at the kegs .
They soon drop :laughing:

…plus the majority of the time you'll find that these obese kids are only good for 2 hit ups per game !
 
Sign him up :laughing: He will meet his match and then will see how effective he is.
He is on the road to nowhere if he doesn't change his eating habits.
 
@jirskyr said:
Just wait til he turns 16 and kids figure out how to tackle properly…

That's where most of these kids get a shock, as they've been able to have a free crack at the smaller kids ever since they started, then when they get sat on their backsides, a lot don't like it.

The other side of the problem is that they mostly haven't learnt much over their early days in the game , as their height and weight have got them through, and when that advantage is lessened or gone, they can be pretty innefective.
But in the meantime some of the smaller kids have been " bullied" out of the game.
 
@Byron Bay Fan said:
At that age wouldn't it be better if they were only playing touch footie? I thought exactly the same as GCT - why would those little guys ever want to play again. Plus their parents can't be thrilled about it. A 28 y.o. player with 2 children died at Murwillumbah after a tackle.
http://www.news.com.au/sport/nrl/grant-cook-28-dies-after-rugby-league-tackle/news-story/bc004a8500bd3ee8dc7488db8462d6cd

B.B.F, I haven't seen much of a problem with playing Tackle as they have already taken steps to make it safer. , but no ones been willing to state the obvious . That playing against massive kids like this one is dangerous to the smaller kids.
The new system will help in that way, and apart from that, it's a pretty safe game and though I've seen a lot of bruises and scratches, I've never seen a serious injury in the Mini andMod games, over a lot of years (I'm not saying it hasn't happened, but I've never seen it).
But with the increase over the years of size of some of the players,
It needs more attention from the League
It amazes me how many little kids stay in the game and keep trying against some of these bigger kids, but it's time that they make some of these kids have to play against kids more their own size
 
@goldcoast tiger said:
@Byron Bay Fan said:
At that age wouldn't it be better if they were only playing touch footie? I thought exactly the same as GCT - why would those little guys ever want to play again. Plus their parents can't be thrilled about it. A 28 y.o. player with 2 children died at Murwillumbah after a tackle.
http://www.news.com.au/sport/nrl/grant-cook-28-dies-after-rugby-league-tackle/news-story/bc004a8500bd3ee8dc7488db8462d6cd

B.B.F, I haven't seen much of a problem with playing Tackle as they have already taken steps to make it safer. , but no ones been willing to state the obvious . That playing against massive kids like this one is dangerous to the smaller kids.
The new system will help in that way, and apart from that, it's a pretty safe game and though I've seen a lot of bruises and scratches, I've never seen a serious injury in the Mini andMod games, over a lot of years (I'm not saying it hasn't happened, but I've never seen it).
But with the increase over the years with the increase of size of some of the players,
It needs more attention from the League
It amazes me how many little kids stay in the game and keep trying against some of these bigger kids, but it's time that they make some of these kids have to play against kids more their own size

Are they teaching effective defensive techniques though? I was always taught to grass them because I had no chance taking on most kids my age any higher than the knees.
 
@goldcoast tiger said:
@jirskyr said:
Just wait til he turns 16 and kids figure out how to tackle properly…

That's where most of these kids get a shock, as they've been able to have a free crack at the smaller kids ever since they started, then when they get sat on their backsides, a lot don't like it.

The other side of the problem is that they mostly haven't learnt much over their early days in the game , as their height and weight have got them through, and when that advantage is lessened or gone, they can be pretty innefective.
But in the meantime some of the smaller kids have been " bullied" out of the game.

But in all fairness those smaller kids aren't going to make it anyway.

The thing about footy is you have to learn to get hammered, esp if you are smaller. If you are really small, it's only going to get worse the further along you get.

Whereas other kids have their growth spurt and really pick up the game properly in their mid-teens.

I stopped playing when I was 14 because I was tall and skinny and getting smashed… I was fast enough, but there were kids as fast as me who were 3x as big and some even could grow beards. Even if you could catch them you could hardly bring them down without loads of support.

Fast-forward 20 years and I'm still on the skinny side, I was never going to be tackling big monsters for a career.

And most of those big kids, well many who kept playing caught up in size.

I played against this kid Luke Barrell when I was about 10, I think that was his name, played for St Pats Dundas and was big, fast, good pass. He played NSWCCC as a 15 year-old, got selected in some Australian merit side. He was THE player in our age group in Balmain, got selected in rep sides.

But I remember seeing him play a little later and he hadn't gotten any bigger - and all the other kids had. Never heard about him after that.
 
Not sold on the weight divisions. I have coached 1st division and there are smaller kids that would absolutely smash other kids their size. There are also big kids playing 3rd or 4th division who would get hammered playing against kids the same size. Not matter how you slice it there are going to be some kids that are better than others, that's the way it goes.

What would it do for a smaller kids development when they get to 15 years of age never having player against anyone bigger than them?
 
Back
Top