Reschedule of events for the new year

0

TOP of the agenda for 2010 will be the Sarawak Rugby Union’s annual general meeting today at 7.30pm at Kelab Golf Sarawak to elect new office bearers for the next two years.After the election, the new committee will implement the programmes for 2010-2.

The first tournament for the new year – the Kuching Division U-18 Inter-School from January 11 to 15 – and the U-18 Inter-Division, U-15 10’s and U-12 touch from February 2 to 5 have all been rescheduled.

The Kuching Division U-18 will now be held from April 19 to 23 and the Inter-Division from May 4 to 7.

According to the technical chairman for schools, Zulkaranainhisham Sarbini, there will be no national level tournaments as the National Schools Sports Council has dropped more than half of the sports from its roster for this year. Among the games chopped is rugby due to lack of funds or rather cut in funds.

Now that the National Championship has been scrapped, Zul has decided to postpone the Divisional Inter-School and Inter-Division to later in the year to give the schools more time to prepare.

So far, the news I have received is that the Kuching Division Inter-School has been postponed. I have no updates for the other divisions.  I presume that since there is no urgent need to have the Inter-School and Inter-Division to select state players for the National Championships for U-18’s, U-15’s and U-12’s, the rest of the divisions will also be postponing their tournaments.

Although there are schools playing the game in the other divisions like Betong, Sibu and Miri, some might not put up teams for the Inter-School and so there won’t be any tournaments to select the divisional players.

With this postponement, the next event will be the coaching course for teachers, conducted by Cobra together with Penguins RFC from England.

This is an annual exercise carried out by Cobra for schools in Malaysia and has been going on across the waters for a few years now. It will be held for the first time in Sarawak and Zul has scheduled the course for the end of January.

In fact, Cobra has been intending to come with this programme over the past two years, having been in contact with Zul, but due to unforeseen circumstances, the move did not materialise.   This is a Cobra programme to promote and develop the game for students and it has been a success, judging from the popularity of rugby among the schools across the waters.

Part of the realisation of this programme in the state is due to the efforts of Dick Bentham from Kuching Rugby Football Club who got in touch with CIMB two years ago for assistance.

Last year, CIMB got back to Dick and informed him of the Cobra programme that it funded. A delegation from CIMB and Cobra even came to Kuching last year and sat down with Dick and Zul to talk about the programme. From that initial meeting and discussion, a working committee was set up to get the ball rolling.

Hopefully, the teachers selected to attend the course will help impart their knowledge of the game to their charges. This will, in turn, see school tournaments becoming more balanced rather than being dominated by just one or two schools as in the past.

Since the school tournaments started during the early part of the last decade, one school has been dominating the game except for two years back.

This course, coupled with the one organised and conducted by the SRU and MRU in 2008, should better equip the teachers to develop the game in their schools.

Prior to the SRU course, most of these teachers only had a rudimentary knowledge of coaching which they picked up from their playing days or from the SRU affiliates.

For the schools in Sibu and Miri, the teachers had benefited from assistance of the players there while those from Betong and Bintulu are basically left to their own devices. And this disparity in standards between the schools without proper guidance and those in Kuching, Sibu and Miri is very glaring.

This coaching course is designed to prepare the teachers for imparting the basics of the game to their students in a systematic way. The programme does not just involve coaching but also mini school leagues in the various divisions during the year. The teachers will be monitored and mentored by Zul with assistance from the various SRU affiliates.

The programme is an annual event where new teachers will be coming in and the current batch going for a higher course. So it will be a continuous and evolving programme that will benefit the schools and ultimately the senior clubs.

Hopefully, in two or three years, we will be able to produce good school players to win trophies against their counterparts from across the waters.

SMKA Sheikh Haji Othman Abdul Wahab (Shoaw), Kolej DPAH Abdillah and SMK Asajaya have shown the rest that with proper planning, they can achieve this as indicated by their performances in tournaments across the waters last year, especially in Johor during the Makhkota 10’s.

Apart from these invitationals, the programme will also help the state come up with good teams for Sukma and win the gold medal in the future.

The present development programmes of the three afore-mentioned schools have seen three of our U-19 players, who competed in the recent National 7’s, called up to the National U-19 training squad for the ARFU U-19 Championship sometime this year.

The selection of these players shows that we are on the right track and also that without the benefit of a proper coaching course, we are still able to produce players good enough to make the national selectors stand up and take notice.

As such, just think of the future opportunities for the rest of the players groomed in a systematic way by teachers who have benefitted the coaching course.

By systematic, I don’t mean the teachers should follow the syllabus and modules of the coaching course to the letter.

The course is there to give them an idea of imparting the finer points. They must be able to apply what they have learnt. Just as there are various ways to skin a cat, so must they adopt and impart what they have learnt to their players in the most suitable way.

They have to make the coaching sessions interesting to pique the interest of their players and give them the enthusiasm to want to play at a higher level.

With the venerable Song Kheng Hai field still out of sorts after the refurbishment, I do not know whether there will be a game today or not. Those interested in a run-out can get down to the field behind the Everrise supermarket along Padungan Road and check it out at around 4pm.