School rugby harming young minds

What is to be done about the high number of injuries in school rugby? 

Coaching school rugby presents challenges with the responsibility of keeping all those involved safe. During the 2019-2020 season for under 13s, 15s, and 18s tackling was associated with 56% of all injuries in school rugby, recorded over 420 games. The Youth Rugby Injury Surveillance and Prevention Project collected data from 21 individual schools in association with The University of Bath, England Rugby and Rugby Safe.

The study focused on injuries picked up during a game. The overall rate of match injuries causing a player to miss 24 hours or more of game time during the season was 27.8 injuries per 1000 player match hours and the incidence of reported concussions was 8.7 injuries per 1000 player match hours.

From the collected data, contact within school rugby was directly correlated to injuries among children, but what is the solution to this problem? Calls for contact in school rugby to be removed in its entirety is an idea that has been recommended to government officials for a long time. Former professionals including England World Cup winner Steve Thompson now suffer from brain injuries as a result of their time playing rugby.

Dr Adam White, a Lecturer in Sport and Coaching Sciences at Oxford Brookes University said: "We need to make changes now, so we don't have another generation suffering from dementia. It's dangerous to have two 18-stone men running at each other but it's more dangerous to have a nine-stone schoolboy colliding with a six-stone boy."

Robbie Renwick, Physical Education teacher and former head of Shawlands Academy Rugby believes tackling in rugby to be crucial. He said: "I'm more on the side of keeping tackling in rugby at an early age so that you can get the experience of tackling and learning how to do it early, rather than introducing it later on when you are older and potentially tackling someone bigger and stronger at an age when you can get injured even greater."

Any answer, however, to this problem is still unknown. Mr. Renwick gave his thoughts on possible solutions and ideas he thinks could be a step in the right direction: "Potentially a tackle test to make sure young players are tackling effectively, you could go through different types of scrum tests as well to make sure they are also scrumming effectively.

“Having the SRU (Scottish Rugby Union) coming out, sending out coaches to different clubs and schools with specialists assessing, how different players tackle to make sure that everyone is doing it correctly. I also think that there are a lot of coaches in Scotland who do not have the correct qualifications, as there is a lack of coaches available, so, as a result they are potentially teaching poor technique and improper safety.

“So, making sure there is a better protocol and that every single coach and member of staff knows what they are doing to teach tackling and the scrum properly."