Secondary Sport

Secondary Sport

redlands Rhino – Weekly Fixtures

Please note: Redlands Rhino has the most up-to-date weekly fixtures. This is uploaded every Tuesday afternoon at 4.00pm. Please ensure you check this with regards to game times, venues and oppositions.

Weekly Results

Head of Secondary Sport

Why we should generalise not specialise.

Over the holiday period I read an interesting book by David Epstein titled Range: Why generalists triumph in a specialised world. David Epstein is a Sport Scientist who originally worked for Sports Illustrated in fact checking and research. His first book The Sports Gene was popular for debunking the concept of the 10,000 hour rule within sport. The premise of this book was the sooner people achieve 10,000 hours of deliberate practice in an activity the sooner they have the chance of reaching expertise – a concept largely disputed in many fields.

In Epstein’s latest book he argues that having a breadth of experience is vital to success in sport and that generalists are better equipped to excel in the world today.

One of the major examples he sites for this reasoning is looking at two extreme outliers in the forms of Tiger Woods and Roger Federer. Both exceptional in their sports, however, from very different development paths. Tiger played and deliberately practiced golf from the age of 2, vigorously. Meanwhile, Roger competed in a range of sports including skiing, basketball, football and badminton up to his late teens, focusing on tennis much later than some of his competitors. One of the influential reasons for their success, despite different development paths of specialisation (Tiger) and generalisation (Roger), is the type of learning environments the two sports expressed.

Golf is described as a closed, specific skill, where the environment is relatively stable and repetition is beneficial. This is termed a ‘kind’ learning environment and suits specialisation. Compared to tennis which requires a variety of movement patterns in response to varying stimulus, where problems need to be solved at a higher speed. A learning environment described as ‘wicked’.

It is the exposure to these wicked learning environments that Epstein highlights as highly beneficial for physical development. If young people are exposed to a high levels of movement diversity and physical problem solving they will have a higher chance of developing the skills required for success and a reduce the chance of injury.

Epstein extends this concept well beyond sport and argues for this sort of exposure across a range of experiences in all parts of life. The desired 21st century characteristics of entrepreneurship and creativity are connected to a breadth of understanding of a variety of experiences. Novel ideas are often generated from extra ordinary realms of knowledge.

In today’s hyper-specialised world, sporting clubs and associations push pathways, academies or development programs down the throats of teenagers (or even younger children), spreading the message that if they are not “in”, they are “out”. This is a very narrow view of development and we need to be more sceptical when reviewing these opportunities. The youth sport environment within Sydney has been inundated with these sorts of programs, explicitly or implicitly forcing young people to specialise in sports and ultimately restricted movement patterns. Epstein’s book paints a more diverse approach to the successful development of talent and the ability for young people to find their sweet spot in a more experiential process – a process where a variety of skills are picked up in a variety of ways. This approach aligns with the Redlands school culture and aims of making students life-ready. 

We should actively promote a variety of these ‘wicked’ learning environments for our students. We can then challenge their minds, bodies and spirits in diverse ways. The result will be students flourishing in in the pursuit of whatever passion they choose now and in the future.

References

Basketball

In Round 7, only 12 out of the 27 Basketball teams were able to play due to the extreme weather. Our A Boys had wins in four out of the five games. The 13A Boys started the day off strong with a 60-19 win over St Gregory’s College. The 14A and 15A Boys continued the winning streak with score lines of 38-25 and 52-9 respectively. The 17A Boys lost 25-26. The 1st Boys were up 46-27 at half time. They continued to play hard and, with some great team defence, finished the game with a 78-57 win.

The Girls games had some tough matchups. Our 2nds lost but should be very proud of their efforts, their never give up attitude was great to see. Our Junior Bs finished with a 25-9 win. The 1sts Girls played against St Pauls Grammar School resulting in a great 82-50 win. Our Inter B and Inter C Girls games proved to be very tough, however, our girls showed some great passages of play. The 17D and 4ths teams played tough games against St Pius.  

Best of luck to all teams this Saturday in Round 8, a reminder to all players and parents to check the Redlands Rhino each week for any changes to the fixtures.

To view your current standings, please visit the ISA website. The Semi Finals will be held at Penrith on Saturday 29 February and the Finals on Saturday 7 March.

The skills sessions have all recommenced this week. Please check the training schedule on Redlands Pulse for further details.

Please save the date for the End of Season Basketball Presentation. The presentation will be held on Saturday 21st March. More information on the event will be provided shortly, please view the invitation on Redlands Pulse.

Rowing

Last weekend the Rowing program was scheduled to attend the Lake Macquarie Regatta in Berry Park, however the weather forecast of 45 degrees saw us withdraw our participation and to train instead at Mosman Rowing Club. Not long after we made that decision both Hunter Valley School and Newcastle Grammar School also followed suit.

Unfortunately this is the second regatta that we have had to cancel this season due to environmental concerns, with the smoke conditions at the Small Boat Regatta at the end of Term 4 being the other occasion. For our students, especially our Juniors, that’s somewhere between 4-7 missed opportunities where they could have raced, reflected, refined skills and then improved upon for the next racing opportunity. The experience missed cannot easily be replaced in training, which is one reason why this weekends regattas for our Senior students are vital.

The Senior and Yr 9 students will head to the NSW State Championships where they will take on crews from around Australia while the Yr 8 boys will go to the Sydney Boys High School Regatta at Hen and Chicken to race against the GPS schools. Our Yr 8 girls will race the following weekend at the Sydney Girls High Regatta.

Looking ahead, next week our Seniors and Yr 9 students will start the process of crew selections once again while the Yr 8 students will be the following week. 

Touch Football

Our 1sts kicked off with a bang defeating Kinross 3-1 in some hot conditions, but were unable to get a win over Scots All Saints team losing 1-3. The 2nds beat CCGS 1sts 8-3 to set themselves up well for a finals charge. Our 3rds had a great win against Kinross 3-0, then a hard fought 1-1 draw against Scots All Saints. Our Senior 4ths unfortunately went down to CCGS 2 3-5.

Unfortunately our Junior As had two close losses, going down 0-3 to Kinross and  0-1 to Scots All Saints. The Junior B team had two great matches beating Kinross 4-0 and then taking down Scots All Saints 2-0. Our Junior C team had a strong 10-8 win over CCGS 3. Our Junior Ds unfortunately lost to CCGS 4 0-10.

This weekend will see all teams playing at Macquaire University in the Sydney Gala Day. All games times and fields can be found on the Redland Rhino.

The Touch Football Presentation afternoon will be held on Thursday 5 March at Gore Hill Oval (this will take place during school Sport time). Students will be charged $15 for the event (pizza and drinks will be provided). If any students have food allergies, please email Mr Ellis cellis@redlands.nsw.edu.au)

Snowsports

Congratulations to Sienna Wessels (Yr 9) who won three Gold Medals over three days at the Rocky Mountain Snowboard Cross Series held at Mt Cooper, Colorado this past weekend. Sienna had been training for the majority of the holidays prior to this competition. She has now qualified to compete in the USASA Nationals in April.

Swimming

The Secondary School Swimming Carnival will be held on Thursday 20 February at Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre. More information regarding the Carnival will be posted on Redlands Pulse – Swimming .

IMPORTANT REMINDER – in light of the forthcoming Swimming Carnival, please note that ALL students with Medical Alerts in the Secondary School including, but not limited to, those with Anaphylaxis, Asthma and Diabetes are required, without exception, to bring with them their necessary emergency medications on all external school events and excursions.  

There will be Swimming sessions held on Friday afternoons from 3.30-5.00pm at the North Sydney Olympic Pool, starting Friday 7 February. If you are interested in attending these sessions please email Mr Ellis.

Tennis

This week sees the start of the Term 1 NSTA Summer Tennis competition. The team lists along with the draw are available on Redlands Pulse. Please double check the venue your team is playing at. Just a reminder to please observe the following to ensure the morning runs smoothly:

  • Start times are 8.00am and 10.00am; two hours match time; please be at the venue at least 10-15mins prior to your match; matches should start promptly on time; five minutes warm up.
  • Check in with the venue convener on arrival.
  • 3 point Deuce – when the score reaches deuce (40-40) the players will play the next point to advantage (either server or receiver depending on who won the point). If the team that had the advantage does not win the point the score goes back to deuce. The next point wins. There are no further advantage points played after the 1st advantage.
  • Tiebreak – played at 5-5 games. First to 7 points. If the score gets to 6-6 in tiebreak team must win by 2 points i.e. 8-6.
  • Shake hands at the end of the match.
  • Call the score each point.
  • Stay and support your team till the whole match is complete

“Your talent determines what you can do. Your motivation determines how much you are willing to do. Your attitude determines how well you do it.” 
Lou Holtz

Mr Tom Kindred
Head of Secondary School Sport
sports@redlands.nsw.edu.au

All Sports contacts can be found on Redlands Pulse.​