he had the school ranked as New Zealand\u2019s best First XV and captain Stanley as the best schoolboy player<\/a>.<\/p>\nFruean said he would be more understanding of a ban on covering Grammar\u2019s rugby exploits if it came from parents or players.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf parents said it, it would be a different story. But I don\u2019t think any rugby parent has ever come out and said, \u2018we want to be locked down\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he [O\u2019Connor] should have a conversation with his parents, offer them a vote on whether they want coverage for their players or not.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause as a parent, I would actually be offended if a headmaster said my top-performing child couldn\u2019t be seen on a wider stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a big overstep. This is a new age where kids want opportunities. Our most talented kids actually want to be seen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Player management sources said having an archive of match footage was a critical part of landing a post-school rugby contract.<\/p>\n
And Fruean said the feedback he gets tends to more often consist of complaints he isn\u2019t watching some teams and players regularly enough.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are you [O\u2019Connor] protecting them from? Because their mum told me, \u2018hey, are you going to come watch my son?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
He also struggled with the disconnect when compared with the attitude of schools outside of Auckland.<\/p>\n
\u201cDoes he [O\u2019Connor] really think all the other principals and headmasters in New Zealand, who have no problem with rugby coverage, are fools? How is it that everyone else outside of Auckland is out of step with him? Does that not strike you as odd?\u201d<\/p>\n
Fruean also said solely banning him would have minimal overall impact.<\/p>\n
\u201cA viral video online can come from anyone. You\u2019re not stopping anything, bro. You\u2019re not going to stop it unless you completely stop social media from coming to school.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf this is being done for the kids\u2019 protection, tell them no social media at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
On his Monday Morning Meeting podcast, Fruean addressed his ban.<\/p>\n
Sharing the letter from O\u2019Connor online was not to \u201cout them\u201d, but to explain to players, parents and supporters why he would be absent from future Grammar games.<\/p>\n
\u201cParents and players from Auckland Grammar have asked me to watch their games,\u201d Fruean claimed.<\/p>\n
By publishing the email, he said: \u201cThey will understand I\u2019m not the reason I\u2019m not coming to the games.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf he [O\u2019Connor] thinks that it\u2019s beneficial to his students [not to be filmed], then that\u2019s up to him; that\u2019s fine. The only thing I have a problem with really is that people want me at their games, which tells me they don\u2019t care about being filmed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fruean started the High School Top 200 in 2013, a school term after O\u2019Connor became the headmaster of Grammar in 2012.<\/p>\n
This year he has watched Auckland Grammar play New Plymouth Boys\u2019 High School and Palmerston North Boys\u2019 High School at Mountain Rd and Hamilton Boys\u2019 High School and St Kentigern College away.<\/p>\n
Fruean said he undertook his First XV coverage to fill a gap he felt was not otherwise being addressed.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no denying his platform is popular if not polarising. His passion was even noted in O\u2019Connor\u2019s email, where Fruean was described as a \u201ckeen supporter\u201d.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Auckland Grammar possibly enjoy the most storied sporting history of any boys\u2019 school in New Zealand.<\/p>\n
In rugby alone, they have won three times as many 1A titles as their next rival, three National Top Four crowns, and produced more All Blacks than anyone else in the country.<\/p>\n
A Google search of Grammar sports legends immediately spits out All Blacks Grant Fox, Sir Wilson Whineray and Doug Howlett; Olympic gold medallists Hamish Carter and Sam Webster. The school also produced cricket icon Martin Crowe, whose idea it was to first televise First XV rugby matches on Sky TV in 2010.<\/p>\n
\u2013 On Saturday, at 2.30pm, Auckland Grammar host Sacred Heart in First XV rugby. In 2023, despite a 1A media ban, Sacred Heart old boys commissioned a documentary about their championship-winning team that featured match footage from throughout the season and later featured on Sky Sport.<\/p>\n
What others are saying<\/p>\n
A broad range of responses to Fruean\u2019s ban were expressed in online forums.<\/p>\n
For the ban<\/p>\n
Catherine Bygate: \u201cThey\u2019re children playing a game and being filmed without their parental consent. Then that film is being published on a website for anyone to view and use the footage for whatever they like. Absolutely appropriate to put this ban in place.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aroha Spreckley: \u201cWell if you\u2019re going to high school kids\u2019 games and filming them when they\u2019re not related to you in any way, you\u2019re pretty creepy. Especially if their guardians and school ask you not to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Keri Hokai: \u201cMaybe because he ranks school kids and sells the information for a subscription \u2013 kids under enough pressure already \u2013 a few videos don\u2019t hurt but being ranked individually every week and profiting off it might be the tipping point. Mr O\u2019Connor has kids\u2019 best interest at heart always.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clare Farrell: \u201cSo parents can livestream\/video\/photo and put it online so anyone can see.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alana Harvey: \u201cAs a teen mum, I\u2019d be super p***ed if my daughter\u2019s sport was being filmed without the school\u2019s knowledge. This might be heavy-handed but I can absolutely understand where they\u2019re coming from. At the end of the day, these are kids.\u201d<\/p>\n
Against the ban<\/p>\n
Harbour Rugby: \u201cThis isn\u2019t how we run things here at Harbour. If you\u2019re a local creator, we want you to capture your club or school\u2019s memories!\u201d<\/p>\n
James Bailey: \u201cInteresting to see the different opinions in NZ. Here in South Africa we have Supersport Schools TV which anyone can access. They livestream as many schoolboy games across the country as possible from U14 to 1stXV and include the lower teams in each age group. So even young Kobus playing in the U15D team has a chance of being on the telly and the kids and parents love it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rangi Hawkins: \u201cSome of the players would want the extra free exposure, to enhance himself. Some schools rely on social media exposure to allow themselves opportunities to push various agendas… Damned if you do, damned if you don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mark Weenink: \u201cIt\u2019s always open to appeal in 40 years\u2019 time.\u201d (Mark is lampooning some members of the 1988 Auckland Grammar School rowing team who have recently lodged a legal appeal about their second place finish at the 1988 Maadi Cup regatta<\/a>.)<\/p>\nNcs Alpha: \u201cTrust me, someone will find a way to film them. Next they\u2019ll ban cellphones.\u201d<\/p>\n
Middle ground<\/p>\n
Scott MacLean (long-time Wellington rugby referee, administrator, writer and enthusiast): \u201cI\u2019ve dealt with Herschel plenty of times over the years. We don\u2019t always agree about what it is that he does, but he\u2019s straight up about it. Equally though, if AGS (or any other school) believe they need to exercise their duty to protect their students then they should. And school grounds are not public spaces, they can restrict access if they so choose.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jason Palmer: \u201cThere\u2019s not a clear answer here. Protection vs exposure. On one hand you have a school trying to protect kids from being turned into content machines at 16-17, on the other hand, everyone has phones. It\u2019s inconsistent when some filming is allowed but other filming gets shut down.\u201d<\/p>\n
Disagree with anything here? We welcome alternative viewpoints. Email us at nzschoolboyrugby@gmail.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Auckland Grammar players gather after a recent game against St Kentigern College. Photo \/ Photosport. For instance, at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504569,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[23602,7674,51,26977,50356,77437,142977,1601,99278,1888,71,78926,13085,21524,111,139,69,1642,29691,45788,83887,6327,312,18429,213,165,165300,6923,1533,27982],"class_list":["post-504568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-amounts","tag-analyst","tag-auckland","tag-banned","tag-bans","tag-clips","tag-essentially","tag-expert","tag-filming","tag-first","tag-from","tag-grammar","tag-matches","tag-mountain","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-online","tag-order","tag-posting","tag-respect","tag-rugby","tag-says","tag-schoolboy","tag-sports","tag-their","tag-trespass","tag-what","tag-will","tag-xv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}