COUNTRY Rugby League chief executive officer Terry Quinn says he will be a keen observer of the New South Wales Rugby League’s decision to introduce a weight-for-age competition later this year.
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The NSWRL’s W8s pilot program is a format set to reduce the amount of size difference between players, with registration completely free.
A four-week, eight-a-side tournament played in Sydney’s west from September 1, the competition will run for under-10s under 36 kilograms and under-12s under 47kgs. In another modification, teams play across the field, over two halves of 10 minutes.
Quinn said the implementation makes sense in places like Parramatta, but wouldn’t rule out a similar concept into country areas, though, with the issue set to top the agenda during a regional managers meeting in Sydney on Thursday.
“We’re going to be looking at it very closely,” Quinn said.
“Our (participation) numbers a bit better than NSW’s at the moment, and our concern would be spreading age groups out too much.
At present, Group 11 and the rest of the Western Rams region doesn’t run any weight-for-age competitions.
“It’s often something that’s spoken about more where there’s a higher level of islander players,” Quinn added.
“Our competitions don’t have the same sort of numbers as NSW there, but areas like Griffith do. It’s the easy option to say the small kids will eventually just catch up to the bigger kids, but we don’t want to be losing those small kids to other games.”
