JASTER’S JABBERINGS — Rugby Canada’s new development program will benefit locals

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/10/2017 (2917 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Rugby Canada made a big change to its way of evaluating players this year and it made the right decision to do so.

In the past, the organization would scout players at national championships and invite them to centralized camps for further evaluation. Now, the high-end coaches are coming to the players.

On the weekend, Ken Goodland, Rugby Canada’s co-ordinator of national player development and talent identification, was in Brandon to work with previously identified under-17 boys from Manitoba and Saskatchewan. High-end coach Jonathan Long of Alberta came along to help out with the two days of sessions.

The change is asking a lot more of Goodland as he now has to host multiple camps all over the country, but from a player-development perspective, it’s the right move. It puts less of an onus on players to come up with money for flights and accommodations for all these camps. There are fewer athletes at each camp so Goodland can see and spend more time with each player, which will only help them get better and create more depth when it comes to rugby players across Canada.

As strange as it sounds, the extra benefit of this system is Goodland gets to work with local coaches as well.

“That’s a gap that we noticed at the national level is kids come to the national tournaments and what have you over the summer,” Goodland said. “We see deficiencies in their games, but we realize some of the coaches that are coaching them don’t know what they don’t know. It’s not a slight on the coaches, it’s more of a jab at us. We recognized that we need to get out there more to help those coaches, to coach the coaches, and get them to understand what it’s like at the next level and what it takes for these kids to next year put their hand up for that U18 national team.

“We want to support the kids now and the coaches now so the coaches get another full year with these kids having some of the learnings from this camp going into the eight, nine, 10 months and next summer. It’s not just the kids getting better, but the coaches are getting better. Coach development is a huge, huge part to the player development.”

Local coaches who benefited this weekend were Brian Yon, who is Rugby Manitoba’s director of high performance, as well as Shawn Sarkonak and Sean Erickson. All three were impressed with what they learned and raved about being challenged to help players figure out problems themselves instead of telling them how to solve them.

The players were also impressed with how much they learned.

By connecting with the coaches, it allows Rugby Canada to follow the progression of each athlete a lot closer. Now the local coaches know what to look for from each athlete and can report back to the national organization whenever they’re asked to do so.

It will keep people like Goodland more informed during the course of the year instead of getting to watch players once or twice a year. He also plans to hold these camps in the spring and fall to ensure he sees the athletes multiple times every year.

All this is to help produce strong players in every part of the country, and not just in Ontario and B.C., which are home to the most national-team players.

“There’s a lot of talent outside of B.C. and Ontario. Rugby Canada needs to do a better job at going and finding it and being patient with it. They (players from the Prairies) are a bit behind because they don’t play as much,” Goodland said.

“When you get into the senior ranks, a lot of the Prairie guys tend to be later developers. Rather than hitting their stride at 21 or 22 like a lot of B.C. guys do because they’ve played a lot of rugby, it might not be until 24 or 25. But they are out there. The talent is out there and doing things like this is going to help us down the road.”

One challenge facing Rugby Canada with male players that it doesn’t face with women is the lack of university programs. Women’s rugby is an official U Sports sport — it’s national championship runs from Nov. 2 to 5 in Lethbridge, Alta., and will feature Souris’ Emily Tuttosi as well as Breanne Morgan and Hailey Rapsky of Minnedosa, all of whom play for the University of Calgary Dinos, as well as Dauphin’s Monique Coffey and the Acadia Axewomen — but it’s one of two sports that does not have a male counterpart. Field hockey is the other.

Football is the lone male-only sport in U Sports.

That leaves rugby players who make the under-20 national team trying to find clubs in B.C. or Ontario to play with if they want to maintain their quality on the field. However, since players peak in the mid-20s, they don’t always make the squads and their play deteriorates a bit before they make a club team or push for a spot on the senior national squad. Or they stop playing rugby.

However, Rugby Canada is trying to change that system as well. It is putting on the inaugural men’s university rugby championship this fall in Guelph — six schools with club teams are competing — and will do so every year after. It’s working with U Sports to try to bring men’s rugby into its fold as well.

“With university, the men’s side has to embrace the university aspect of the development because we’ve missed out,” Goodland said. “By bringing in the university side and university championship this year, and it will be ongoing, that gives us another ability to track these guys.

“… For the men’s game, it’s going to change. The depth and ID pieces is going to change a ton in a very positive way.”

Let’s hope so. Rugby’s popularity is growing in Westman and there was a lot of pride here to see former Brandonite Amanda Thornborough play for Canada at the Women’s World Cup earlier this year.

It would be great to see someone from the area crack the senior men’s team and go to the Men’s World Cup — or an Olympics with a sevens squad.

It sounds like Rugby Canada’s new plan may help that dream become a reality.

Just a few other thoughts:

• Dylan Neufeld of Neepawa is a win away from playing in the Canadian Bowl. Neufeld, a defensive lineman with the Vancouver Island Raiders, and his team beat Neelin grad Noah Bursey and the Westshore Rebels 21-7 in the British Columbia Football Conference final on Saturday.

They’ll meet the Saskatoon Hilltops in the Canadian Junior Football League semifinals. The Hilltops knocked off Victor St. Pierre-Laviolette, Brayden Moroz (both Crocus Plains alumni) and the Regina Thunder 36-24 in the Prairie conference final.

• Keeping with football, the Crocus Plainsmen will host the Miles Macdonell Buckeyes in their Winnipeg high school league Tier 3 quarter-final on Friday at 3 p.m. Neelin and Vincent Massey are in Winnipeg that day for their Tier 2 quarter-finals.

• Congratulations to Brandonite Daemon Hunt on being named an all-star at the WHL Cup on the weekend. Hunt is a Moose Jaw Warriors prospect.

• A shoutout to Kevin Neufeld for earning his first win as a U Sports head coach with the Brandon University Bobcats women’s volleyball team on Saturday. Hopefully it’s the first of many for BU’s interim bench boss. He has done so much for volleyball in this community for so many years and it’s great to see him have success coaching at this level too.

• And a tip of the cap to Brayden Payette’s curling team for locking up a berth at junior men’s provincials on the weekend. Hopefully their strong play this season can continue there.