Rubbishing of rugby dangers hinders debate

BURN the heretics! Burn them all! The above pretty much sums up last week’s measured response to a scientific study suggesting that, by banning scrummaging and tackling from schools rugby, the number of serious injuries suffered by children might be reduced. It’s an unworkable idea, of course. But a worthy and important debate is demeaned by so many of the great and good in rugby union responding to any criticism by falling back on an almost religious fervour as their only defence. Ye, though the children of the earth shall be crippled and maimed, thou shalt not remove thunderous hits from the sport of gentlemen. Something like that. In direct response to last week’s publication, the usual crew of rugby legends lined up to argue that the next step in the march of elf ‘n’ safety would be to ban running in the playground, arm the children with only rubber pens in case they poked their eyes out, play hockey without balls and sticks… you can probably guess the rest. A few have spoken up with better ideas than merely denying that there is a problem, arguing for weight classes ahead of age groups and other sensible measures. They are in a minority. If you want to understand the depth of root-and-branch intransigence in sport in general, just open your eyes and ears. Your columnist once had cause to interrupt a truly excellent SFA youth coaching course when the instructors moved on to heading drills. Raising scientific concerns, even confessing that our local club neither teaches nor encourages heading the ball until a certain age, was accepted as a valid point of view by the guys coaching the coaches. But the vast majority of attendees on the course, the blokes doing the grassroots coaching, reacted with utter disbelief. Not one of them had read the scientific research raising concerns about repeated heading of the ball. That didn’t stop them from dismissing the most inconvenient findings as fake news — and throwing up all kinds of ludicrous comparisons in support of their worldview. Sound familiar? Spend any time with a neuroscientist and they will tell you that rugby carries risks ranging from the minor to the major. To pretend otherwise is to duck the head-on challenge facing a game loved by so many of us. Of course, at our school all those decades before the research was carried out, a lot of us swot types instinctively knew that tackling was horribly dangerous. We called ourselves the backs.