Rugby Australia’s Adrian Thompson said selectors will be keeping a close eye on the representative schoolboy fixtures set to be played in Sydney and Brisbane over the coming weeks. 

A few years back, the Australian Schoolboys system shifted, with a wider Australian U18s Academy selected earlier in the year via state based academies, rather than an Australian Schoolboys team picked at the end of a National Carnival. 

Despite that, Thompson said players from both public and private schools had every opportunity to play their way into the Australia U18s Academy through strong performances at representative school matches in the coming weeks. 

“The ID process for the Academy is still heavily based around schoolboy rugby and the various representative carnivals,” Thompson told Rugby News. 

“I know the Queensland Talent ID staff will be out at the QLD carnival over the next few days and any player that standouts in those games will be quickly added to the existing academy. 

“The same is happening in NSW with the various associations like CHS, CCC, AICES playing games over the next few weeks.”

The Queensland Schools Carnival kicks off at Sunnybank in Brisbane today and will be played over the weekend, while in Sydney, GPS, CAS, ISA, CHS, CCC and AICES representative teams will play matches throughout June. 

NSW and QLD will then pick two teams each to play fixtures in late June and September with the Australian U18s team selected after that. 

At this stage, there are tentative plans to play fixtures against New Zealand U18s later in the year. 

For players that miss out in their finals year at school, Thompson said the new U19s National Championship was a great opportunity for players to play their way back into Junior Wallabies and Super Rugby contention. 

“For different reasons, some guys develop a little later than others and boys will get to play a full year of colts or grade rugby to try and play their way into those squads,” he said. 

“From a development perspective, I don’t think we’ve ever undervalued club rugby. It’s great for our academy boys to train with us over summer, but we want them to be playing competitive rugby at their clubs during the season. 

“By adding the U19s Championship, guys get to play a full season to try to earn selection and if the do so, then they’re in the mix for Junior Wallabies selection a year later.”