North Harbour GM David Gibson believes putting the focus on the experience of rugby, more than competition is one way of keeping younger players involved in rugby.
This led to their decision to remove their junior representative teams, which they announced over the weekend.
The move means Harbour won't field any representative teams in the Under 14 grade or below, including the 94-year-old Roller Mills tournament that have been the breeding ground of many an All Black over the years.
Gibson, however, is confident that the absence of the youth teams will not only lead to more players staying in the game longer but also an improved quality in those players.
"We are going to replace it with a development experience that will be available to not only the 30 players that year on year we assemble but available to that whole segment of under 13 and under 14 participants," he says.
North Harbour Rugby have spent the past 14 months investigating where junior sport is heading, Gibson says what they found points to a trend spanning multiple codes, "There is some research out there that says once these performance programmes mobilise, the ones that don't make it - there is research that says they do drop out," the former professional halfback says.
The former Māori All Black is hopeful that the young Māori players on the North Shore will also be the recipients of the revamped junior programme, "[Through] the participation trends they hold their own. We'd like to think that this shift will make it more available again when we introduce it at Under sixteen level," he says, "so if that keeps them in the game, that's cool and when they get to the right age and stage hopefully they're ready to go."
New Zealand Rugby released a report in 2018 which showed male playing numbers have dropped by 14% since 2010, Gibson says trying something is better than doing nothing, "If we don't make a few shifts now, I do worry about what the next 10 years will look like," he says.
