YOU know you’re getting over sport when finding a story about pouring beer at the World Cup and what the Silver Ferns eat for breakfast in the Sunday papers throws you over the edge.
In reality, it had been a long weekend – with kids’ rugby starting at 8.30am on Saturday (urrrggh), then going straight for the Wee Nipper’s game to club rugby, then speeches….there’s not much change out of 12 hours on a Saturday at the moment. Then there was another early start on Sunday to get the Big Nipper to a rep trial – a 200km round trip which didn’t end well as his team got a bit of a tickle up.
When the days are cold and the nights are long, it takes a bit to get the interest levels of middle-aged parents (OK, maybe it’s only me) going. Once you’re at the game, galloping along the sideline yelling, you’re fine. But as I have found every year since I gave up playing rugby, early to mid-July brings a malaise where I can’t wait for the season (not matter how successful it might be) to end.
This year I put it down to mind-numbingly stupid bureaucracy, a lack of hands-on assistance making it all a bit of a grind, and some other things I didn’t really need. But then, again, you either see your 22 senior players sitting around laughing after giving some poor team a 50-point drubbing, or the face of a 10-year-old number 8 who has just won player of the day, and there’s some light at the end of the tunnel.
However, as with every action, there is a reaction. The light quickly went out as I read the note from the rugby union administering the rep trials which stated that if players were lucky enough to make the rep team, they would have to pay for their own travel and accommodation to and from two representative tournaments, and stump up $250 for representative kit. The note talked about “commitment to the team”.  There’s no doubt every single one of these kids has commitment to making a rep team. But commitment should not come at a price. What happened to the days of everyone chipping in $10 for the bus, being billeted with opposing team families, and getting a ratty old hand-me-down tracksuit top that had to be handed back at the end of the season? The travel and accommodation alone is going to be enough to put off most of the kids in my son’s team, let alone finding $250 for kit.
This sad state of affairs has come about because the union concerned has found it has no money. Why does it have no money? Well, in part because it wrote contracts for ITM Cup players who got paid without playing. In some cases, they didn’t even train and got a paycheque.
The upshot of it all is that the union has moved to full user-pays for kids’ teams. Some of these kids are very gifted but their families don’t have the wherewithal to find money for travelling, accommodation, and kit, so they will miss out. Sure, you might say, it’s only under-12s. They’ll get another go. But will they?  User-pays won’t go away. For some of these kids their sport is one of the few highlights in their lives. Taking away their right to participate while ITM Cup players get paid for doing very little seems a tad askew to me.