Casebrook leading rugby school

Press, 30 August 1989, Page 34

Casebrook leading rugby school

Since the resurrection of the Christchurch intermediate schools’ rugby competition three years ago, the pennant awarded to the winner has not left Casebrook Intermediate School.

The competition, which began with eight teams in 1987, has since increased to 14 and was played in two sections for the first time this season. Matches are played at South Hagley Park on Tuesday afternoons, the Canterbury Rugby Union meeting the costs of bus transport to and from the park.

As well as receiving 10 points for a win, teams

are marked out of 10 for both attire and attitude. Casebrook has been hard to fault on any count. The man behind Casebrook’s three-year reign has been Russell Bain, whose rugby background includes a stint coaching the North Canterbury senior B team.

His preparation for the competition starts in the first term when he assesses pupils competing in their summer activities of athletics and swimming. “I look for players who seem like they might make footballers even if they haven’t played the sport before.”

Mr Bain considers

teacher involvement an important factor in the moulding of a team but he lists organisation and motivation as equally essential elements.

Presenting the team well attired is part of the motivation. “The P.T.A. supplies jerseys and socks and we have the team turning out looking like a team. As well we religiously hold a lunch-time practice once a week and the results are posted outside for everyone to see — it’s all part of the motivation and the fostering of team spirit.”

Mr Bain said that while it might be giving away trade secrets, one of Case-

brook’s strengths was in the forwards working the wheeling maul. “At this age level it is hard to counter the turning maul, but we try hard to do the fundamentals well and be disciplined.” Casebrook played seven matches in the top section and won all, scoring 215 points and conceding only 22. Two of the team’s kingpins were the No. 8, Nathan Kennett, who directed play outstandingly well from the back of the scrum, and the centre, Glenn Howard, who topped the try-scor-ing stakes with 10. The school also won the open intermediate seven-a-side

tournament.

Four Casebrook boys attained representative honours in age-group teams. Mr Bain derived considerable satisfaction from monitoring the progress of newcomers to the team and he had three new boys to the game this season. “Watching them develop rugby awareness and seeing them mould into the team is reward itself,” he said. Next season will be a real test of Mr Bain’s coaching skills. Virtually all of this season’s team will be lost to secondary schools at the end of the year.