School Boy Rugby Festival set to acquire serious image

Organisers of the Dubai International School Boy Rugby Festival are pressing ahead with plans to change the format of the event to a tournament.

This year, as in the previous four years, teams simply played a set number of matches with nothing at stake except pride, and two - Rotorua Boys' High and Boland Agricultural - left for home with 100 per cent records without facing each other.

Pete Lindsay, the chairman of the festival's organising committee, has confirmed that a knockout format will be introduced in 2002 as the festival expands to accommodate a proposed total of 12 teams.

"It's come from the teams and the sponsors," said Lindsay. "The players want to go home and say where they finished, and you can't do that with a festival."

Discussions are also underway with the International Rugby Board for the event to receive official accreditation as a world schools' championship.

Lindsay is confident that the change to a tournament will not dramatically change the dynamics or character of an event which has gone from strength to strength in its five-year history.

"Teams will still be giving blood to win whether it's a tournament or a festival," he said. "The matches this year between Colston's and Boland and Llandovery and Rotorua were extremely competitive; calling it a tournament won't change anything."

Lindsay also believes that a knockout format, with three tiers of competition, will lead to meaningful matches right through the week.

"This year we had three walk-overs on the last evening," he said. "Next year I think the tension will build up during the week and that we will have three competitive finals and everyone playing for something."

Colston's Collegiate, arguably the leading rugby school in England, have already accepted an invitation to return next year, as have Auckland Grammar, a school that has produced more All Blacks than any of their New Zealand rivals.

"Colston's are used to beating teams by 30 points at home," said Lindsay. "They came here and lost two of their three matches and got a bit of a shock, but they want to come back and win it next year. That's the kind of competition we want."

The committee is aiming to invite eight 'powerhouse' schools to next year's event as well as teams from four developing rugby nations, such as Sri Lanka, Samoa and the United States, who be of similar strength to the Arabian Gulf side.

Darryl Weir, the Development Officer for the Arabian Gulf Rugby Football Union (AGRFU), welcomed the proposals. "It will be good for the Gulf but only if the games we are involved in are competitive and not one-sided," he said.

Although the Gulf again failed to win a match, the home outfit gave a good account of themselves thanks, said Weir, to their involvement and subsequent success in the pre-Christmas Asian Plate competition in Sri Lanka.

"That, without a shadow of doubt, was the reason we did so much better in Dubai this year," he said. "We had a lot of time together and worked very hard at a game plan, and the results were clear to see. But our matches in Sri Lanka were very close and could have gone either way. In that respect they were excellent for this side.

"Without that preparation, the chances are we would not have done so well. In the past we have lost matches in Dubai by 50, 60 or even 70 points.

"We are becoming more competitive, but we also have to be realistic when we compare ourselves to schools like Colston's and Auckland Grammar. We cannot compete with them, it's just not going to happen."

The AGRFU is currently putting together a proposal to host, in Bahrain, the six-team 2002 Asian Plate finals. Weir believes it would be perfect preparation for the Dubai event. "But at this stage it's only a proposal," he added.

Lindsay and his committee, meanwhile, will soon start to grapple with the logistics of organising a 12-team tournament.

A unique feature of the Dubai event is the fact that all the players are billeted in Dubai with families of the same nationality. If schools from countries such as France, the United States and Samoa should accept invitations then the hunt will soon start for prospective hosts.

"I really don't think it's going to be a problem," said Lindsay. "There are big American and French communities in Dubai, and you would be surprised at the number of Samoans here too."
Changing the format from a festival to a tournament will not, he added, change the cultural experience the players enjoy.

"The boys see a lot while they are here," said Lindsay. "It widens their eyes to the Middle East and the culture, and they also get a taste of the expat lifestyle.

"Some of the South Africans here this year had never even caught a taxi before. Coming here was a big experience for them."