New weight-for-age junior rugby league gala day set to be trialled on the Gold Coast

Innovative weight-for-age rugby league gala days are set to be trialled for teams from central Queensland down to northern NSW. Discover how it affects your club and its expansion plans here.

Restricted weight gala days and competitions are on the cards in Queensland and New South Wales. Picture Lachie Millard

An innovative new format of junior rugby league is set to be trialled on the Gold Coast for the first time in the region next month.

A trial restricted weight gala day for boys born in 2011 and 2012 will be played at King’s Christian College in Pimpama on September 15.

“There’s no emphasis on winning, it’s all about coming down and trialling something different in regards to being able to play in different positions” said NRL program manager Peter Reeves.

He noted that a “huge majority” of parents who registered their kids said it was so they could play against kids their own size.

The weight for the trial gala day has been capped at 52 kilograms, however kids as small as 32kg will be competing.

“On the weekends (in regular competition) there could be another 10-15 kilogram difference on top of that,” Reeves said.

“It’s an opportunity to see if there’s an appetite and clearly there is, now the next thing is to let them play, do some research, get some data, analyse how much time the ball spent in play and get some feedback from the players and parents and spectators in regards to what they found enjoyable, would they do it again? Would they recommend it to someone else?”

Registrations had to be closed after two weeks, with 11 teams and a further 55 individuals nominating to take part.

In total, 40 different junior rugby league clubs will be represented from as far north as central Queensland down to Kingscliff in northern New South Wales.

“It will be a great day to see the kids out there playing in a different format and not having to worry about kids who may be twice the size or twice the weight of what they’re playing,” Reeves said.

“You could have a kid who plays centre or wing because they’re smaller but on the gala day they’ve got the opportunity to play front row or second row or hooker because there’s no fear of someone being 30 or 40 kilos heavier and running over the top of them.”

The initial Gold Coast “pilot”, is only for boys, but girls iterations will be on the cards as demand increases.

Reeves emphasised that the trial was merely a “pilot”, and the possibility of expanding in years to come was well on the horizon.

The gala day is being run collaboratively by the NRL, QRL, and Rugby League Gold Coast.

“This is a one-off pilot of fact-finding and gathering data before moving to multiple age groups for both male and female,” Reeves explained

“We looked at where to start – we’d love to do boys and girls but we wouldn’t have the uptake in the female side of things yet.

“It’s very hard to do in rural and remote areas because they just don’t have the player numbers, definitely in areas like southeast Queensland and maybe western Sydney and Sydney metro, there’s opportunity to trial more of these weight-for-age gala days or competitions.

“Moving forward it could be a five, six or eight week competition … the opportunities are endless really with what we do with the new format.

“You could have three gala days every second weekend and that’s the equivalent to playing six or eight weeks of football, people are time poor these days and sometimes giving up every weekend doesn’t work.

“This could open it up to a whole new market of families.”

Originally published as New weight-for-age junior rugby league gala day set to be trialled on the Gold Coast