England send their young stars to see harsher side of life
The country’s most promising players spend time with charity helping the homeless
Around 14 hours after coming off the bench in Worcester’s 52-7 win over Bristol – and 10 days before he will be named as Eddie Jones’s latest apprentice for the autumn Test schedule – Ted Hill, the Worcester flanker, addresses 18 of his peers in an unusual setting.
Some of England’s most promising rugby players are sitting around a table at the Passage, a charity in Westminster providing services that prevent and end homelessness.
It is 7am on the second morning of an innovative personal development camp run by the Rugby Football Union, designed to whip these talented youngsters away from their comfort zones. This programme has been in existence for two years, previous meetings comprising Metropolitan Police riot training and a Big Brother house challenge. The RFU does not publish a list of the attendees, most of whom will remain anonymous, but
Telegraph Sport has been granted exclusive access to this instalment.
With an hour until clients from all walks of life begin to arrive at the largest resource centre for homeless people in the United Kingdom, Hill provides some calm advice. “I’m sure we’ll hear a few stories today,” says the athletic 19-year-old back-rower, touted as a future British and Irish Lion by former team-mate Donncha O’callaghan last season. “We’ll have to listen.”
Cameron Redpath, the Sale playmaker, chips in with a simple suggestion of how to open a conversation: “Don’t be afraid to embarrass yourself. That makes anyone feel better.”
The 19-man group, all of them aged between 16 and 20, travelled from around the country to meet in London on Sunday evening. They were given virtual reality headsets that offered insight into life on the streets, particularly desolate as the weather turns cold, and then heard local police officers outline the problems caused by homelessness. On Monday they are split up and rotated between jobs at the Passage. They sort spare clothes, serve breakfast and prepare lunch in the cafeteria – Saracens flanker Ben Earl looks cheery dishing out baked beans while Tom Willis, of Wasps, chops up butternut squash – and head out with community intervention worker Mabel Aganga-williams to meet potential clients.
“Remember that you’re going into someone’s bedroom,” urges Lorraine Richardson, the Passage’s resource centre manager.
Hill, grouped with two of the youngest players in attendance, is the first to address a woman in a sleeping bag. He has a brief chat and hands her a token she can exchange for a meal. Staff are also able to provide housing advice and support.
In the afternoon, three former clients of the Passage stand up and relate harrowing personal stories of hardship, humiliation, drug and alcohol abuse and, eventually, escape from homelessness. They are not easy to listen to.
Underpinning everything is the fact that the players have been informed they are to spend Tuesday filming a television documentary, including a Question Time-style segment in front of a panel, on homelessness. To perform this nerve-racking task successfully, they have to immerse themselves in the activity and form an opinion concerning a complex current issue that will be picked apart. As well as honing selfawareness and communication skills, this camp aims to enhance an ability to influence people.
The catch is this. After these two “broadcasts”, they will be told that the film will never see the light of day. The “panel members” will be actors.
Dean Ryan, the RFU’S head of international player development, summarises his intentions. “This group is told when to be at work, what it’s got to eat, what it’s got to wear,” he explains. “It’s amazing what you lose after years of being in that environment. I remember the first time I travelled with Sky Sports after 20 years of being with teams. We went to Toulouse and I missed the plane on the way back because I was stood at the wrong gate chatting to Dave Pearson, the referee. Then I found out that he was going to Gatwick and I was going to Heathrow and the Heathrow plane had left.
“You realise that you’ve become immersed in teams and conditioned. ‘If everyone else gets up, I’ll get up’. If an 18-year-old is going to be like that, it’s amazing what they’ll miss out on.”
All the more interesting is that the RFU is running these projects
They were offered insight into life on streets, especially when it turns cold
in the context of England’s head coach recently admitting, following the 25-13 loss to Scotland in the Six Nations, that there has been a leadership deficiency in his senior team. Ryan contests that the demands of professionalism and homogenous trends of rugby society have contributed to this.
“Developing people now is different to developing people 20 years ago,” he adds. “If you look at the environments that our best players go through, irrespective of where they start in life, from 16 a huge amount of them come through our private school system.
“That’s because they’re good at rugby and good rugby programmes have become a big driver of profiles in private schools. Very few players now wouldn’t go through a private school from 16, even if they haven’t been in one for a large part of their life before that. It gives them lots of positives, but it’s about finding a balance.”
Ultimately, the camp is about gathering evidence of how these individuals operate so the RFU’S network of coaches and support staff can understand them more fully. For all the social benefits, the underlying goal is to make them better, more assertive players. As Ryan points out, teenagers are flying through the ranks now.
“They’re in a transition at their clubs and having an opinion can be difficult. Moving into senior sides, they tend to stay quiet at first to fit in. But the best players will have to influence quickly. They can’t hang around fitting in for long.”
A year ago, as part of another camp, Hill delivered an assembly at a school in Northampton. He looks like a successful case study for the programme. And he wants to take advantage of the transferable skills he has developed.
“There are going to be situations where you have a valid point that needs to be heard,” he finishes.
“You have to be brave enough to stand up and tell people.”