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Current and former age-grade staff - Mike Kwedar, Coilin Jones, Jason Payne, Paule Barford, Bill Stevens, Damian Dowling, Sean O’Leary, Michael Engelbrecht and Salty Thompson - are tasked as age-grade selectors and will attend these upcoming events:
May 10-11 Pacific Coast Invitational, Stanford University
May 10-11 Midwest HS Championships, Elkhart, Indiana
May 16-17 Hawaii All-Star Camp
May 30-31 USA Rugby’s National Guard High School and U-19 Championships, Pittsburgh, Pa.
June 7- 8 South All-Star Challenge, Charlotte, N.C.
June 14-15 Denver LAU Tournament, Aurora, Colo.
June 14-15 Midwest LAU Invitational, Elkhart, Indiana
June 21-22 Potomac LAU All-Star Challenge Cup Tournament, Pittsburgh, Pa.
June 26-29 Ohio State University Camp, Columbus, Ohio
July 10 Oregon vs. Washington, Portland, Ore.
July 20-26 National Age-Grade Camps, Elkhart, Indiana
The major LAU age-grade events create the highest competition in the country along with USA Rugby’s National Guard High School and Under-19 Championships and a few top level competitions such as the Pacific Coast Invitational.
Denver, Elkhart and Pittsburgh are joined by the South this year to comprehensively cover the country. These events will allow representation from over 30 states at the Under-20 and Under-18 levels, allowing national team coaches and selectors to pick from an extensive array of young players.
The focus is on identifying the best prospects at the following birth years and programs for the 2008-2009 season. The Under-20s teams will look for players born in 1989 and 1990. The Under-18s will draw from 1991 birthdates, while the Under-17s will predominantly focus on 1992-born players and exceptional 1993s.
"Our objective is identifying the cream of the crop, this summer,” said Under-20s head coach Salty Thompson.
“With camp limits set at 30 players per age group there will be intense competition for camp invites In the past, we've cast a very large net in the summer, but now that net has narrowed to accelerate learning and skill acquisition in both players and coaches; to stretch the limits and see how far we can go to close the gap on tier one nations.
“This puts a huge onus on player identification and our selectors and National Age Grade Coaches are reliant on local, and LAU coaches to help point us towards their best performers.”
According to Thompson, regional age-grade competition is thriving in the US, with more states producing age-grade select sides than ever before.
In the last three years, Louisiana, Florida, Utah, Indiana and Southern California have emerged to challenge the traditional age-grade powers of Texas, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Sacramento Valley.
