Dannevirke Ross Shield rugby team's head coach Gerard McKay has accused tournament winners Napier of starving players to meet the 56kg weight limit.
"This isn't sour grapes because we couldn't beat Napier. I'm concerned about the safety of players," McKay said as he reflected on the 114th edition of the Heinz-Wattie's sponsored event, the showpiece Hawke's Bay Primary Schools rugby, which was played in Dannevirke last week.
The Napier camp has denied the allegations.
McKay claimed two Napier players vomited regularly on the first night they were billeted in Dannevirke after dinner because it was their first decent meal for a fortnight, after starving to meet the limit.
McKay said he didn't hear of such cases this year but, last year he heard players from some city teams had to be hooked up to drips in hospital to recover after drastic weight loss for the tournament.
"We had 60 players to choose from for our team. I understand the Napier coaches have 23 schools in their area. Surely out of that number they can pick players closer to the weight limit so they don't have to starve players so much," McKay stressed.
"We had a couple of players who had to lose 200 grams and were happy to do the work. We also had a player who was quite happy to miss out because he didn't want to do the work. From what I hear it wasn't uncommon for players from the Napier side and other city teams to drop up to 6kg."
Napier assistant coach Paul Teddy said none of the players in his team had to drop more than 2kg during the final month before tournament weigh in.
"We could have picked a couple of players, one who was 64kg and another who was 62kg, but we didn't want to go down that track. It's not worth it and those who did have to lose weight were all signed off by a doctor ... a proper process was followed."
EmoticonEmoticon