Rugby in schools

I wonder how many have considered that perhaps some of the reason for rugby’s diminishing presence in schools is that among our increasingly immigrant population, rugby plays no role at all, nor has any appeal and where success isn’t measured on the sports field but in the classroom.

There is also the spectre of permanent physical and mental damage occasioned by playing contact sports which must be having some effect on numbers.

The prospect of being the First XV’s captain and all the kudos that title holds must be weighed against the unpleasant reality for some that the harder they play the game, as they are encouraged to do, the more likely they will develop early onset dementia in their forties and fifties.

The “elite” schools would be better served by concentrating on scholastic rather than sporting prowess and achievement in their pupils. That is after all what they were founded for, isn’t it?

Jeremy Coleman, Hillpark.