Gregor Paul: Why parents are relieved when their kids don't choose rugby

Across New Zealand these past few weeks, there will have been parents secretly relieved that their child has decided not to play rugby this year. Photo / Photosport.co.nz

OPINION:

Across New Zealand these past few weeks, there will have been parents secretly relieved that their child has decided not to play rugby this year.

We are at that time of year when schools and clubs are out mustering, hoping to retain familiar faces and lure new recruits.

For the institutions it's a process that comes with equal parts excitement, optimism and nervousness.

They are a little like commercial fishing boats in that they never quite know what they will find in their net.

But for parents, it's a period which has increasingly lost the excitement and optimism and now just carries a deep sense of dread because rugby no longer appeals as a sport to shape young people but one that will more likely break them.

Deep rooted rugby families – those who have known generations to play - will not be upset if their youngest members say no to a sport that has become savage and barbaric to such an extent that some of the greatest players in New Zealand's history are campaigning for radical change.

When men as tough and as resilient as former All Blacks captain Ian Kirkpatrick say they don't recognise the game anymore and worry that it's lost all semblance of control at the breakdown, then it's undeniable the problem is real.

It is ridiculous that anyone even tries to pretend the breakdown is anything other than human pinball where everyone involved endangers their health by being anywhere near it.

But for the sake of appearances referees pretend they have a tight grip on what is going on in these mass collisions – and when someone such as Ofa Tuungafasi turns himself into a 130kg torpedo as he did at Eden Park at the weekend to shift Scott Barrett, they can brandish a card and make it look like rogue elements can be sifted out and disciplined.

It's utter nonsense, though and Tuungafasi shouldn't be singled out as the bad guy – or accused of having suffered a brain explosion.

His job is primarily about shifting bodies at the tackled ball area. His contract is dependent on him being able to fly into other bodies and hammer them out the way. He does it thousands of times each season and inevitably there will be occasions when he misjudges things as happened against the Crusaders.

Blues prop Ofa Tuungafasi is yellow carded during the Super Rugby Aotearoa rugby match between the Blues and the Crusaders. Photo / Brett Phibbs.

What should be apparent after seeing four red cards in this year's Six Nations is that rugby's problem is not that there a few psychos running around ruining it for everyone else, but that the nature of the game is now fundamentally flawed and inherently dangerous.

In the last decade or so, the rules at the tackled ball have been haphazardly amended and the athletes have become bigger, faster and more powerful and a sort of Frankenstein's monster has been created.

At the heart of rugby's danger problem is that most games are prone to being held hostage by frequent passages where teams try to build momentum by endlessly sending one-off runners into collisions, with a couple of team-mates flying in behind to 'clean out' the opposition so the whole business can be repeated until eventually the attacking team starts going forward.

It's relatively low-skilled technical work, but it's also invaluable. Rugby teams can't succeed these days without an army of oversized players willing to sacrifice their own physical well-being for the cause and pound into breakdown after breakdown and be willing to 'take out' opponents who have found a way to slow things down.

It's the sort of rugby Field Marshall General Douglas Haig would have loved – so much carnage to be endured for so little territorial gain.

The irony in this being that the rule makers decided some time ago to outlaw rucking for fear it would act as a participation deterrent – that the optics were not great for recruitment.

But who wouldn't want to see a return to those good old days now as rucking is by far the lesser evil compared with the so-called 'clean-out'?

There was order when teams could ruck as both teams understood the consequences of being on the wrong side of the ball.

More importantly, it took the pressure off referees as there was a far greater emphasis on self-policing.

It might be hard for a few people to get their heads around, but rugby was safer when teams could use their feet to move people out of the way.

What we have now is a sport that isn't so much for the brave and resilient as the reckless.

It is categorically not a sport for all shapes and sizes and it's no wonder parents will secretly smile at one another when their kids come home from school and say they are playing basketball this year.