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Rugby Union's grass-roots crisis: ‘We fear many players simply won’t come back’

Participation levels could drop off when grassroots rugby is allowed to return - Dimitris Legakis
Participation levels could drop off when grassroots rugby is allowed to return - Dimitris Legakis

It is around this time of year, when the air develops a wicked bite, that grass-roots clubs normally experience a sharp drop-off in attendance at midweek training sessions. Like migratory birds, those absentees tend to return in the spring, lured by the sunshine and the prospect of the end-of-season social.

This year, clubs up and down the country are cautiously waiting to see how many of their flock will be back. With this latest national lockdown potentially lasting until April, the vast majority of men’s and women’s club teams will not have played a competitive match for more than 12 months. No sooner had the Rugby Football Union given the green light for competitive fixtures to be played, under an adapted form of the game featuring no scrums or mauls, last month, than much of the country was placed in Tier 3 or 4 lockdown.

When clubs were given approval to start training again last summer, a lot reported healthy numbers as players embraced their new-found liberty. Now, there is far more uncertainty.

At Newcastle Gosforth, the amateur cousin of the Falcons, chairman Neil Jamieson is not worried about the first XV or youth sections, but around those thirty-somethings who make up their second XV. “Generally, they have their arm twisted to come back year after year,” Jamieson said. “Now I can see a lot of them hanging up their boots.

“Once you break the habit of playing every week, it is hard to start it again. In our day, rugby was your life and you played no matter what, but it is not like that now. It would be tremendously sad if we could not get a second XV next season. I hope we will, but you just don’t know.”

Jamieson is particularly concerned for the front-five forwards whose jobs have been made somewhat redundant in the RFU’s adapted game. “Front-rowers are looking at this adapted game and thinking, ‘Where is our role?’ ” Jamieson said. “For forwards who enjoy scrums and mauls, they are fearful that is the trend towards a rugby league-style game.”

It is a similar story at Northampton Old Scouts, the boyhood club of England second row Courtney Lawes. They run a first XV, second XV and an occasionals side, as well as hosting a thriving junior section.

“Maybe I am being pessimistic, but I think we may lose a senior side by the time we return,” Bob Letty, the chairman, said. “A lot of people will take this as an opportunity to retire. Those guys who have got families will think, ‘Do I really want to go out and do that on Saturday?’ It will be the ones who are dropping down from first team to third team. Can we keep them? I don’t know.”

It may not seem dramatic if every club lose a handful of second-XV players, but often these are the characters who give the club their soul.

Outside of elite rugby, the non-first-XV players are just as much a part of the fabric of a club, providing volunteers, humour and a substantial part of the bar takings. Yet if that is a worrying portent, there are plenty of positive signs.

Letty reports that Old Scouts have been inundated with volunteers. “The enthusiasm is still there,” he said. “Probably because people have more time to sit back and think, ‘I want to put something back into the game’.”

At Gosforth and Old Scouts, as well as Farnham and Battersea Ironsides in the south, they have reported increased interest in their junior and minis programmes. With Farnham, the boyhood club of Jonny Wilkinson, and Ironsides, even their waiting lists are oversubscribed.

“We have been inundated since we came out of lockdown,” said Zoe Goodwin, the secretary for the Ironsides minis, who run from under-five to under-11.

“Even with all the added restrictions, there seems to have been an increase in demand. We have 850 mini rugby players, so you can imagine how many players have been charging around Wandsworth on a Sunday.”

Similarly, Farnham have reported a pent-up demand to get kids involved. “Within all of our minis and juniors section, boys and girls, we saw no tail-off in numbers,” Geoff Robins, the chairman, said. “Kids are just massively keen to get out there and do it.”

The problem is that a rugby club are not sustainable without a thriving senior section to counterbalance their juniors and minis, not least for their finances. As Letty pointedly said: “Kids don’t drink at the bar.”