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Not completely disagreeing, just modifying.
The system needs to be changed, no question, but to ignore schoolboys and promote only club players is only going to perpetuate the same problem in a couple of years, we will then see club rugby teams containing some great players and some mediocre players and Schoolboys teams containing some great players and some mediocre players, as long as there's a divide between the two we will have teams getting raped by the kiwis. We need to find a way of getting schoolboys and clubs to coexist and share their elite players in some way....we aren't big enough to do it any other way!
I'm not saying I have the answer, as you know I have seen some of the issues with the club/school thing first hand and I sure can't think of a way to make the schools change, similarly I can't think of a way to make clubs play rugby on a Wednesday (which is probably about where it would need to go to fit logically into what schools currently do) but the limited elite player pools NEED to be combined.
Oh, and back to topic, John Mitchell sounds like a bit of a twat with that comment, making ALL his issues at the force the fault of Australian rugby. No wonder the players didn't respect him much....that doesn't necessarily translate to a countrywide disrespect for Authority, just a disrespect for autonomous dictatorship