The Rugby Football Union has launched a radical plan to save school rugby, introducing three forms of the game, including ‘reduced contact’, after an independent report predicted it will become a ‘declining minority sport’ without significant changes.
The report made no bones in its assessment of rugby’s declining position in the school sport ‘marketplace’, stating: “This is an urgent issue that is approaching a crisis point.”
The report, entitled ‘Changing the Game: the Future of Schools Rugby in England’, was commissioned by the RFU and has led to the governing body committing to implementing its recommendations, including launching a contactless form of rugby in which scrums still occur. lineouts and the outage, called T1, over the next four years.
The report also recommends that the RFU should formally codify three forms of the game, including non-contact and reduced contact, to remove some of the perceived barriers to participation in rugby and address parents’ concerns about injury risk.
What the report, led by Sir Jon Coles, the director of national schools group United Learning, makes clear is that without urgent action rugby union would be heading towards irrelevance.
Less rugby in schools will weaken the professional game
“In the school marketplace, rugby is not winning,” the report said. “It loses out to other sports. Rugby in England cannot rely on having the central cultural place in national life that it has in Wales or New Zealand. Changing attitudes and values, coupled with greater risk aversion in the part of society that once saw rugby as central to school life, means that rugby can no longer rely on that either.
“This is hugely important for rugby in England because without rugby in schools there will be far less community rugby, a much weakened professional and national game and a smaller audience. This is an urgent problem that is approaching crisis point.
“RFU could follow a strategy of a very small number of elite schools that populate the professional and national game; in addition to a ‘clubs’ strategy. They didn’t have to worry about getting people to play at school, but rather relied on the clubs to introduce the game. The research group believes this would be a major strategic and elitist mistake as only children and young people from certain backgrounds would be allowed into rugby union, leading to a shrinking game at all levels.
“To do both of these things well, you have to walk a fine line. But both must be done courageously and with energy. Without (a), the game will rapidly shrink in schools and, as a result, in the community and beyond. Without (b), the game will be an increasingly minority sport, seen as upper class and elitist. You always have to change a losing game, and right now rugby in schools is playing a losing game.”
Other recommendations include creating a rugby director of schools position at the RFU and rolling out a ‘rugby flatpack’ that would allow a PE teacher with no rugby experience to coach a semester of T1 rugby from scratch.
Concerns about head injuries
A key factor behind declining participation, even among established rugby schools, is concern about head injuries. Therefore, the report recommends offering alternatives to full contact that can still be played within a ‘rugby window’.
However, the report also identifies a decline in rugby values at the top of the game, as well as the perception that it is a sport for ‘posh white boys’ among other compounding factors.
“Rugby’s once undisputed place as the sport that promotes the best sporting values is increasingly being challenged – partly because schools at the highest levels of the game are seeing behavior they once wouldn’t see, and partly because they’re seeing [for example from the England women’s football team] that other sports with excellent and admirable values can be practiced.
“Finally, the game still has an image problem with some, who may see it as a game for the ‘posh’ or for ‘posh guys’ or for ‘posh white guys.’ Rugby is a game that has inspired and excited people of both sexes, all colours, all social and economic backgrounds and all shapes and sizes – but that is not the perception across England.”
Some heads of established rugby schools have also raised concerns about the ‘macho culture’ within male rugby and the report calls on Premiership academies to better promote rugby values within their communities.
The report expresses hope that rugby can reverse the decline if the recommendations are implemented. “We believe that urgent action is necessary. However, we believe that the situation is winnable and the issues can be addressed.”
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