Iceberg looms for schools
Professional game will suffer unless schoolboy rugby is overhauled
If the sinking of the Titanic proved one thing, it’s that icebergs are deceptively hard to detect when moving fast in territory they are not expected to be. This is something for everyone invested in rugby to consider as they come out of an enforced hibernation and scan a vastly changed and unfamiliar landscape.
It should be relatively simple to clock that straight ahead lies a metaphoric giant iceberg with the potential to ruin the game financially. That much is beyond obvious, and already the national union, Super Rugby and provincial teams have frantically cut costs to ensure they drift past without terminal damage being inflicted.
But the real danger facing the game is not the prospect of immediate financial carnage.
There’s something bigger lurking beneath the water, as it were — a much harder to detect problem that will take longer to show itself, but when it does, it could be catastrophic.
Rugby’s biggest issue is that it has spawned a generation of angst-ridden, mentally fragile and emotionally volatile teens who live day-to-day struggling under the weight of an expectation they never feel convinced they can fulfil.
Somehow and at some point in the last decade, school sport, and in particular rugby, was hijacked by the unscrupulous and fiercely ambitious.
A mantra of win at all costs was allowed to pervade, and in a worryingly short space of time, there were corporate logos slapped on jerseys where there should, really, only ever be a school crest.
There were unlicensed agents on the sidelines offering false hopes and TV cameras making instant superstars in some cases but neurotic messes in others.
A generation that just wanted to play with their peers under nothing more than parental scrutiny was thrust into a spotlight they mostly didn’t seek.
And many were denied the chance to ever play for fun, being told almost as they walked through the school gates in Year 9 that they were now on a pathway and expected to give up all other sports to honour the supposed enormous privilege bestowed upon them.
It was a little like the collapse of the Soviet Union, in that there was no rule of law, no certainty who was in charge, and in the vacuum, those hell-bent on winning could asset grab without fear of recrimination.
A generation that just wanted to play with their peers under nothing more than parental scrutiny was thrust into a spotlight they mostly didn’t seek.
This process of commercialisation and professionalisation began a decade ago, but the impacts are going to be more acutely felt now in the wake of a global pandemic which has left those in their last years of school wondering whether Covid-19 has robbed them of the further study options they need, the jobs they want and the travel opportunities they have dreamt of.
It has taken almost everything from them and left them with an enormous debt pile that inevitably will further burden them with higher taxes in years to come.
Last week, Heath Mills, head of the New Zealand Cricket Players’ Association, warned that already he has seen young rugby players arrive in the professional game with mental health issues due to the stress induced by the so-called pathway.
It’s hardly a surprise. A system that asks teenagers, some as young as 15, to be constantly judged in environments that are placing sporting outcome ahead of academic achievement, is destined to destroy their confidence and self-esteem.
Mills is by no means a lone voice in declaring that the professionalisation of school sport is damaging the psychological well-being of an entire generation.
Plenty of others have made the same warnings that the development system is creating more victims than next-generation professionals.
That some Year 13s have admitted that because of the Covid-19 disruption, they will consider returning for a “Year 14” to enhance their rugby career prospects, is the red flag that should have everyone’s attention.
For professional rugby to survive, it needs to be underpinned by a strong and vibrant community game, with particular emphasis on a healthy schools programme.
For the latter to thrive, it doesn’t need to be streaming kids at 14, hiring coaches who are not teachers, creating divisive academies that foster nothing but a sense of entitlement or chasing sponsorship dollars.
Essentially, professional rugby needs athletes with mental resilience and strong self-esteem — qualities best built by a balanced education and a largely hands-off rugby development programme where everyone trusts that the best players will organically emerge as they always used to.
Without a massive overhaul in the development system and attitudes, schools rugby will hit that iceberg, but it will be the professional game that sinks as a consequence.