Brent’s ‘Small Blacks’ blooming

YOU wouldn’t know it judging by the events of the last fortnight but rugby in New Zealand is under threat.

Two quite outstanding performances against the British & Irish Lions from a young All Blacks side already nearing legendary status in their homeland would not have many people pushing the panic button as to the future of rugby in the Land of the Long White Cloud. Yet a former Garryowen lock is hard at work to ensure that future generations of Kiwis will be on tap to fill the boots of Dan Carter, Tana Umaga and Richie McCaw.

The former Light Blue is Brent Anderson, the Kiwi lock who followed John Marshall to Limerick and went one better than his predecessor by helping the Dooradoyle club to its first All-Ireland League title in 1992. It was a time he called one of the highlights of his rugby career, which is high praise from a man capped three times by the All Blacks and who was a member of the Waikato side which beat the 1993 Lions.

More of that later. Anderson's current guise is as the New Zealand Rugby Union's manager of community rugby and with the role comes the responsibility of encouraging his country's children into the oval ball game, despite the increasing charms of the dreaded menace of soccer.

Anderson, a former teacher, came up with the "Small Blacks" a marketing campaign and junior development programme aimed at U13s to get boys and girls involved and to provide them with proper coaching in schools and rugby clubs.

In operation for just two years, it has already halted a prolonged period of stagnation and seen a sharp increase in participants within the target age group, up eight percent from 53,981 in 2003 to 58,225 in 2004.

So successful has it been that a weekly television programme, called Small Blacks TV, has been launched, both to meet demand and attract even more kids to the sport. Featuring regular appearances from the current All Blacks side and offering the chance to join training sessions with Graham Henry's team, Small Blacks TV is now at the spearhead of Anderson's missionary work.

"It's grown out of our community rugby programme and part of that was to identify that we've got to have a strong base for the game," Anderson said at NZRU headquarters in Wellington last week. "We're under lots of threats, changing home life, soccer, the changing demographic among teachers in primary schools the average profile is of a 45-year-old woman now who doesn't know a lot about lineouts and scrums, mauls and tackles and things.

"So out of that, if we're going to grow the base of the game and keep it strong and keep kids' interest in it, that it is the game for New Zealanders, what do we need to do? And out of that, one of the things that came up was the Small Blacks.

"It's a brand name that encompasses a lot of things and we felt that if we could have our own TV show for kids, rather than just bombarding them with Super 12 play, the analysis and media shows, but making rugby as relevant and 'cool' as possible to them.

"It's not in isolation at all. We have education kits delivered to every primary school in the country, providing them with an English language unit, a maths unit and a health and physical well-being kit. We use a central character, Rugger, who is a cartoon-type character and all of the learning is pitched around rugby themes. So a question in the maths unit might be 'these are the number of seats in a row, there are x number of rows in y number of blocks, how many seats in the stand?'. An English one might be around a photograph of a game and the kids have to write a story about what the player did next. There are word puzzles all with rugby names and terms. Every school now has a Lions one as well, as part of its social studies unit, looking at differences between the four home countries, mapping out an itinerary for a Lions supporter, all sorts of things like that.

"It's been embraced by the education system in this country, funded by us and developed by one of my staff, Peter Harold, a very talented individual, and we give one kit to every primary school in New Zealand free of charge and ask that they be used in educational programmes.

There are many more strategies too, explained Anderson.

"We've developed all new coaching courses for that level; there's tag rugby as you would know it we call it 'Rippa Rugby' because of the ripping sound it makes and we give a free kit to every primary school. These are all strategies we are using to try and make sure that goalposts have those bits going up from the top of the crossbar instead of just going straight across and that kids just want to keep playing rugby."

Anderson insisted his sport is under threat of losing numbers to other sports.

"Oh, definitely," he shouted. "The numbers were dropping and if they weren't they were definitely stagnating. If you looked at the rugby draws for kids sports in the paper this week and picked the corresponding week 20 years ago, there'd be a much different amount of space devoted to rugby.

"There's much more soccer filling that space now and it's getting closer together, if not overtaking. According to information from SPARC, New Zealand sport and recreation funding agency, more kids under 15 are officially playing soccer than rugby.

"So while our numbers are rising again, we're looking for similar growth this year and again the Small Blacks TV show is a part of that and we've got a marketing campaign going as well."

Aside from the style offensive, the Small Blacks initiative is matching it in substance in terms of improving coaching standards.

"We've made it compulsory for every coach in the programme to go on a course where previously it hasn't been. Often at this level most of the coaches are mums and dads and we're really trying to support them with very good coaching resources and defining three levels within those age groups as part of the development model, introducing different skills as the kids get older, introducing kids to scrums and lineouts at a certain point, the tackle, rucks and mauls; the size of fields is all part of it.

"We're trying to look at a whole package of things, we don't believe in working in isolation and everything is working well."

Going back into schools also counteracts the fall in the number of male teachers and their tendency to give up time to spread the word about their passion for rugby.

"I don't know if there was a danger that coaching would stop," Anderson said.

"It would have always carried on in the club environment. But before it was very much both there and in schools and it was getting to the stage where teachers were worried about dealing with a more litigious society around injury and that's where Rippa Rugby's been great, taking the contact out of it. Plus teachers are more oriented towards the curriculum and they just haven't got the time or the energy or the inclination to be involved in rugby.

"We still think it's a good environment to introduce the kids to rugby and we're taking steps to support it."

Another crucial component of the success has been the willingness of All Blacks and Super 12 players to participate.

"The players have been great, I think they see it as a nice wee way of doing their bit and the feedback from kids has been great. One of the things we also try and do is get the All Blacks to very much be relating what we do in terms of good skills and demonstrating that skill so that kids pick it up. They see it on TV and they think, 'that's what the All Blacks do and that's the same as my coach is telling us to do at training'. It's a big help."

A Lions tour has always had the same galvanising effect on New Zealand's youth and Anderson, now 45, still fondly recollects seeing Waikato play the legendary 1971 Lions as an 11-year-old.

He would later have even better memories as a player, packing down with the likes of Warren Gatland, John Mitchell and Richard Loe as the 1993 Lions were put to the sword, 38-10, in Hamilton on the Tuesday before the third and deciding Test in Auckland.

A year previously, Anderson was a team-mate of Keith Wood as Garryowen took the AIL at the end of the 1991-92 season at Cork Con.

"I have hugely fond memories of my time in Limerick. I've been back once and hopefully I'll be back again later this year to catch up with some of the guys I played with and some of the people at Garryowen who were very good to me.

"John Mitchell and I were together at Waitako and he went over first and decided not to return so he asked if I wanted to go as a replacement. I jumped at it and though we missed out on professional rugby, that was one of the highlights of my career.

"That season was Keith's first year and on the day of the first game of the season we lost to Mary's and I'd like to state for the record that I did not play. But Woody played for the B team that day and came up into the As for the next game against Ballymena and that was my first game too. We went through unbeaten from that point on."