St Edmund's College has produced 89 Australian schoolboys representatives and six Wallabies stars, but the Canberra school will celebrate it 60th anniversary this month by representing the country in a world youth rugby union tournament in Japan.
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St Eddies has been invited as the only Australian school to compete in the Sanix world youth tournament, regarded as an international best-of-the-best schoolboys tournament.
The college last contested the tournament in 2008, finishing third, when the squad contained now Super Rugby stars Robbie Coleman and Colby Fainga'a.
It will take a squad of 29 players - given the demand of six games in 11 days - and will wear a one-off jersey designed to encapsulate the tradition of the school's senior and junior strips.
St Edmund's has produced some of the biggest names in Australia's rugby codes, including Wallabies George Gregan and Matt Giteau and Australian rugby league representatives Ricky Stuart and David Furner.
Only two schools have produced more Australian schoolboys representatives than St Edmunds - St Joseph's College in Hunters Hill, Sydney, and St Joseph's College in Nudgee, Brisbane.
St Edmund's master of rugby David Mead said the school had won an application process to play in Japan, but would welcome a play-off system in the future to determine Australia's spot in the 16-team tournament.
There will be eight teams from Japan and one each from New Zealand, England, France, South Africa, Canada, South Korea and Uruguay.
"If we could go down those lines of having a competition [among Australian schools], it would be good," Mead said. "It would give a good representation of Australian schools rugby. St Eddies has a proud rugby tradition and I'd dare say we could be in the top 10 schools in Australia.
"I'd like to think we can make the semi-finals but it's a bit unknown. Japanese rugby has improved heaps, we've got two Japanese teams in our pool and a team from Canada.
"Hopefully we can win our pool and we'll progress and we'll have a showdown with the New Zealand team, Hamilton Boys' High School, in the semi-finals if we get that far."
St Edmunds will return to celebrate its 60th anniversary with an open day on May 10, which will coincide with the rugby team's first home game of the ACT Schools Rugby competition.
