All rugby coaches have their own ritual. Mine for these past 18 years, when coaching at Maidenhead RFC and at Desborough College, has been a prayer — not one shared with the boys, and not to ask for a win, just that all players on both sides come through without significant injury.
It is offered not because I fear that they will be hurt but because the bond with them makes you care profoundly. I have always thought that the first key to coaching is not to teach them, but to know them. However, I have followed enough ambulances to emergency departments, ambulances bearing my own sons and other players, and so like all bar the real idiot coaches, make welfare the absolute priority.
Many of the visits have been precautionary. We once took dear Jimmy, our prop, to hospital but he was so laid-back we could never work out if he was concussed or not, so we took him anyway. Looking back on the 18 years, I am profoundly relieved to say that all those lads who fell down eventually got back up on their feet, physically and figuratively. Most became better men for playing. I can swear to it.
Rugby was once far too smug with its rituals, too macho — the concussion test was to hold up some fingers in front of a stricken player, and if he guessed how many fingers, roughly, he was fine. Now, the sport is mobilising as fast as it can. Nobody truly knows how many people have problems caused by the old ignorance, but there must be some, and you feel dreadful for them.
So why, on Thursday, did rugby not seize hungrily on a report on the sport’s safety? It came from a body called the Sport Collision Injury Collective — nothing pompous for them — and called for the banning of tackling in schools rugby in Britain and Ireland. Oddly, nearly half the signatories to the report were from North American Universities, who may not have seen a single second of schools rugby in Britain and Ireland. One conclusion was that most injuries occur in contact phases. Really?
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But most people, including a number of major medical bodies dealing with safety in sport, plus World Rugby — with a masterly rejection of the new report based on the finest medical advice — immediately saw the dangers. At present, young girls and boys are taught how to tackle in easy and soft stages before they need to use the skill. In the collective’s plan, sizeable18-year-olds who had never tackled before would suddenly be crunching together. Madness.
One of the signatories to this report was Dr Allyson Pollock. A previous report on safety involving her — torn to shreds by some experts — was denounced by Dr Andrew Nicol, the head of the very body who made it, who said that “the results have been inaccurately used as a springboard to launch an unwarranted attack on rugby”. Also telling was a survey on Thursday by BBC’s Newsround. More than 90% of their young respondents, of both sexes, voted that tackling should be retained.
And what a shame that the report was a distraction from the real issues, especially relating to concussion. We now have in rugby all kinds of research and monitoring, plus the head injury assessment which top players undergo before they can return to the field, and the return–to-play protocols, before they can return to playing if they were concussed. No more fingers. In youth rugby, if in any doubt, get them off.
“What a shame that the report was a distraction from the real issues
But part of the learning process has been pure agony. The death in Ulster of Ben Robinson, in the words of his parents an “awesome, loving and vibrant” young man, saw to it that the game learnt of the concept of second impact syndrome — if you take a heavy hit and are allowed to carry on playing, then even a lesser, non-concussive hit, can be horribly dangerous.
Ben’s father, Peter, celebrates Ben’s memory by monitoring the whole debate. He tweeted that he does not believe tackling should be removed for youngsters, but he does believe that changes and vigilance are always needed. One of the biggest medical surveys undertaken is going through collision sports to see if even the return-to-play protocols are enough to ward off problems in later life for those who have taken heavy knocks.
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The game must further de-power itself. The number of replacements should be cut so that the power of the contact falls away later on. The jackal, the first man on the scene after tackle, should be prevented from handling the ball to take away those bad moments when people are slamming head first into each other to move him.
Yet in the end, rugby teams are communities, and close ones at that. The idea that anyone in the community would not do their absolute utmost for the safety of the others is insulting, and the patronising implications of the occasional arrival in the debate of a Dr God can be infuriating. I know this. If anybody was badly injured because of something I did or did not do or say to them to keep them safe, I’d never go near a rugby pitch again, for work or leisure.
Last week, another report emerged claiming that a campaign to get youngsters off their backsides and into activities could save up to a million lives. Rugby has a huge part to play in saving those children, as well as doubling and re-doubling its medical knowledge and caution. We should preserve the tackle, and erect around it a safety barrier too enormous to be crossed.
