Radio Sport Breakfast

North Harbour Rugby has the support of New Zealand Rugby. The Auckland rugby club has axed its junior reps team, in a bid to focus more on participation and less on performance.It's the first provincial union to make such a move, but it might not be the last.Steve Lancaster, Head of Participation and Development for NZ Rugby, told Radio Sport Breakfast that the policy could work for other clubs."We're talking at a national level, with all of our unions, and others are certainly asking the same questions presently about the right time for players to go into representative programmes and how that impacts on participation." Lancaster does not want to speculate on the future of the Roller Mills tournament, but thinks that there could be changes."[North Harbour] aren't saying the competition itself is problematic, but some of the behaviours around it need some work."He said participation drop off is a huge concern to them and they have their own ideas, to be released soon, as how to arrest the slide.See omnystudio