Leagues have caused the loss of playing numbers

COLIN Boag’s article last week struck a number of chords that many have argued about the unavoidable future for the game and sadly I think he may be correct.

The difference between the professional game and the lower leagues is growing exponentially as the professional clubs continue to plough their own farrow and damn the rest as the RFU seemingly is unable or unwilling to reign them in.

One thing Colin got wrong was the reason for the massive reduction in the numbers of senior adult male players, where a recent survey reported it as a loss of close to 65 per cent of participants.

Colin said it was was due to the pandemic with many clubs no long able to field their ‘usual’ half a dozen teams now only managing one or two.

Yes, the pandemic has added pressure but this has been the case for at least the last 20 years with many clubs filling the financial gap of fewer senior male teams with mini and junior rugby and, more recently, women’s senior rugby.

The reality is that it was the advent of leagues in 1987 that led to the collapse in social rugby numbers as clubs sought to gain from moving up through the ‘seamless game’.

The RFU promises of ‘no glass ceiling’ and incremental funding had encouraged many clubs to ‘freeze’ their lower sides so that more resources could be used to help their first XV gain promotion, and therefore money, which would have enabled clubs to restart their lower teams at a later date.

However, as Colin wrote, with time on their hands many of the ‘resting players’ found other things to do and have not returned to the game.

This has had a knock-on effect with those clubs that had succeeded in running more teams now finding themselves unable to find enough fixtures locally for those teams and has eventually led to their loss too.

Long term, this has left a number of holes in the game over the years as the volunteers who ran 90 per cent of the game have retired or moved on with many clubs really struggling to replace them.

The administration of a rugby club is akin to running a small business with a profit and loss that is heavily reliant on numbers, particularly in an amateur club where most of the work is voluntary.

The RFU prides itself that so far no club has gone to the wall because of the pandemic but if they fail to help improve the purpose of those playing the game in the lower leagues by re-establishing a proper pathway for all, it could be the end of many of those clubs.