The Bay of Plenty Rugby Union is launching a new initiative to encourage more teenage rugby players, both boys and girls into a youth development programme that excites them and grows them as people. In 2019, when the Northern Region Rugby Council ended under 13 weight restricted representative rugby, the first opportunity for teenagers to be talent identified shifted to the under 16 age group. With rugby being a late development sport due to the differing rates at which boys and girls physically and mentally develop, shifting the starting point for when performance pathways start identifying potential talent from 13 to 16 made perfect sense. 

In this new initiative, the Bay of Plenty Rugby Union is looking to run a Sub Union Youth Development Programme, which will culminate in 12 teams (Under 16 and Under 18 boys and girls) representing our three sub unions Eastern Bay, Central Bay and Western Bay, coming together to play in a series of games during the term two school holidays on Thursday and Friday 22nd and 23rd July.  Our neighbouring heartland unions (Ngati Porou East Coast, Poverty Bay, Thames Valley and King Country) have also been invited to participate in any or all of the age groups and boys/girls sections. 

Bay of Plenty Rugby’s Pathways and Experiences Manager Ati Aaifou-Olive explains, “This new initiative becomes the new way of developing our rangatahi and tamariki, it broadens the talent pool and it aligns perfectly with where we are heading with the new educational pathway trust and recruitment agency that the union has just established.  Historically, we’ve selected a pinnacle Under 16’s boys and girls teams to compete in a Northern Region’s led representative campaign during either the term 2 or term 3 school holidays.  That model restricted the number of participants to squads of 25 (50 in total) limiting the number of athletes that could be developed.  This new model, grows the number of athletes being developed from 50 (1 boys and 1 girls team) to 300 (3 boys and 3 girls teams) per age group.” 

The programme will launch in three stages: 

Stage 1:  Local Leaders Recruitment Campaign - commencing Monday 12th April 2021

We will be seeking applications for coaches, managers, physiotherapists & strength and conditioning coaches. We are looking for local Leaders to fill these roles. The Bay of Plenty Rugby Union, through Coach Development Manager Dan Goodwin and Womens Rugby Development Manager Kendra Reynolds will lead this process, along with coach development support from newly appointed Steamers Assistant Coach Richard Watt and Performance Development Coach James Porter. 

Leadership roles expressions of interest are now open online here.

Aaifou-Olive continues, “Obviously, the key to ensuring the teenagers are excited, engaged and developed is the quality of the coaching and once these key local leaders are in place, we will be looking to wrap a whole new level of coach development support around them to maximise the chances of the kids getting the best possible experience.” While the Bay Union will provide the framework around apparel provisions, campaign length and maximum time commitments that can be laid on top of the player’s playing schedules with the schools, we will be empowering the local leaders to own their own campaigns ensuring they tailor them to best suit the local needs of their players. Aaifou-Olive continues “Our three sub unions are different, and we want to maximise the local flavours into the teams as best as we can.” 

Stage 2:  Call For Players Campaign - commencing Monday 26th April 2021 Once the campaign for seeking local leaders has commenced, the next stage is to call for our players to sign up for the muster day being held in each of the sub unions 

Muster Day: Sunday 20th June 2021

There will be a media and social media campaign to get as many players to sign up as we can.  Teachers In Charge, school team coaches, parents and players can all nominate to attend these muster dates.  Aaifou-Olive continues, “Another reason for the shift to a sub union based team is travel.  Our region is geographically challenged.  Historically, we’ve asked representative players to travel to Paengaroa for team trainings.  Everyone is busy in the 21st century and by making these teams sub union based, the stress and strain on parents to get their teenagers to trainings is dramatically reduced.  There’s something in the water in our rural towns.  Towns like Ruatoki and Ohope produce world class athletes (Stacey Fluler, Lisa Carrington as examples) and we just have to be able to ensure that anyone can receive opportunities.” 

Aaifou-Olive continues, “Once the musters have been completed and each team management group has selected their squad of twenty-five, there will be a five-week window for teams to assemble, train locally and prepare for the two-day tournament.  To minimise the risk of overloading the athletes and to ensure we don’t place too much undue stress and pressure on our local leaders, a maximum of six 1.5-hour training sessions will be imposed on all teams. 

Stage 3: Promote the Sub Union Youth Development Two Day Tournament – Commencing Monday 14th June 2021 

Aaifou-Olive continues, “Once the teams have assembled and start their preparation, the Bay of Plenty Rugby Union will start promoting the two-day tournament. We want to ensure we make the event one that the players can look back on with fond memories. A former Steamers player still takes great joy in telling me how excited he was to represent Eastern Bay and we want to bring this passion for our sub union jersey back.”  

The Chiefs Rugby Club is currently in talks with all the Chief’s Provincial Unions (Bay of Plenty, Waikato, Thames Valley, Taranaki, Counties Manukau and King Country) and New Zealand Rugby with the view of running a two-day Chiefs Region Provincial Unions U16’s Tournament during the term 3 school holidays for both boys and girls. If this was to go ahead, the Bay of Plenty Rugby Union would potentially send two under 16 boys teams to this event instead of one team so long as it aligned with our values around broadening the depth of the potential talent pool and provided more development opportunities. 

For the under 16 girls, the Bay of Plenty Rugby Union has yet to decide how and in what form we participated in this development opportunity, it would depend on the success of our own Sub Union Rugby Youth Development programme.  

Article added: Tuesday 13 April 2021