Seventy professionals from the medical and academic fields are asking schools to take tackling out of rugby. The trouble is, they are missing the point. After all, this is a contact sport. Contact in various forms is vital for the proper enjoyment and management of the game.
Let’s get this clear. At adult professional level it is certainly a “high impact collision” game, as the professionals state, but that is absolutely not the case at mini, junior, youth and schools rugby. At those levels, the game is strictly controlled, with the minimum of contact taking place until the children are old enough, or skilled enough, to understand how, when and where a contact should be made.
When young players reach eight years old, they are gradually introduced to it and over a number of years are coached to make the various forms of contact needed to play the game in the safest way.
Children learning a sport that is well structured and well taught in this way actually benefit from the physical rough-and-tumble . As a 16-year-old I joined Old Albanians where I played against old men of about 30. During the next four years they taught me more about the art of propping than I learnt before or since and it was this experience that helped to get me my England caps.
The health professionals are wrong in another way too. By reducing collisions until children reach the adult game (aged 18), you are actively increasing the risks of injury. There are naturally risks with any sport but children have to learn how to protect themselves. With rugby, protection comes with the experience of playing the full contact game and perfecting the techniques of tackling and other contact by playing matches over time.
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As Dr Mike Loosemore, the lead sports physician for the English Institute of Sport, Exercise and Health, says: “Sport is a way of putting danger into lives in a controlled way. If you get in a certain position it hurts. You don’t want children to get hurt, of course, but there is less chance of it happening if they play sport in the real world.”
As a healthy activity for children, rugby is no more dangerous than cycling, horse riding, hockey or football and in fact has fewer injuries than most. In the end players have to learn through experience, so that there is the minimum risk of injury for all concerned.