Might There Be A Case For Recreational Rugby?

MY LATE father-in-law was one of the nicest people you could meet – a Scots-Canadian, born in Thunder Bay on the shores of Lake Superior, to a father from Fife and a mother from Glasgow. He “came home” to Scotland in the 1930s, at the start of ice hockey here and was one of the original Ayr Raiders.

He died, just shy of his 60th birthday and his daughter and I often wondered if some of the shots to the head he took from the puck – they didn't wear helmets back then – contributed to his early demise.

Ice hockey took a heavy toll on its players, but,not as heavy as that taken by American Football, where brain damage appears to be an increasing problem among retired players. This is a factor which is increasingly worrying doctors involve in rugby and in recent weeks we have seen the likes of former Springbok Pat Lambie retiring early following repeated head injuries.

Pat Lambie - too-many head knocks have forced his premature retirement

Might we some day be seeing rugby going down the road of ice hockey, and splitting into two games – the pure form, played by the professionals, and “recreational rugby,” played by the people who simply enjoy the challenge of the game, without the physical confrontations.

Recreational hockey sees its participants wearing the same necessary padding as in the full-fat form of the game. We cannot guarantee there will not be occasions when “a hockey match does not break out in the middle of a fight,” but, some of the other “fun” parts of what is basically shinty on ice are specifically outlawed.

Fans in Scotland's hockey towns: Ayr, Paisley, Edinburgh, Kirkcaldy and Dundee just love some of the coming-togethers; the blocks on the boards and the checking. These are either outlawed or curtailed in “Reccy Hockey,” the basics of stick-handling and passing the puck are still there. The pace might be lower, but, it is still recognisably hockey, albeit hockey-lite.

Reccy hockey, like coarse rugby, stays true to the ethos of the game as moulded in small town rinks across Ontario and greater Canada – you go out there, you play your heart out, then you retire to the bar to increase Labatt's output and profits.

The original Paisley Piranhas line-up

I became aware of the play-for-fun ethos of reccy hockey when working in Paisley. Then, I got to know the members of the Paisley Piranhas recreational ice hockey team. Off the ice, a collection of typical Paisley pensioners, nicer guys you could not meet. But on the ice – approach and handle with care. A former Paisley Pirates coach, a non-nonsense Canuck defence man in his playing days, once ventured onto a Piranhas' training session and decided – there would not be a second time. “These guys are mad,” he opined afterwards.

Any way, to the core of this post. Might we, perhaps sooner than we think, see rugby splitting like ice hockey. There will still be a professional game, a full-on physical challenge, with rucking (hopefully proper rucking – with the ball requiring to be played by the foot), driving mauls, scrums and lines-out.

But, there might also be a 15-a-side “recreational” game, where the laws on tackling and physical contact are that bit more severe, where perhaps, rucking has given way to the Rugby League-style play-the-ball protocols, a game which is “rugby-lite” a bit safer – and, resolutely amateur – in the purest sense of simply playing for love?

Not everyone is a fan of Sevens, or Touch Rugby – the low fat versions of the game. You are never going to get the fat boy props of legend to play either of these games, but, they would surely be attracted to a safer form of 15-man rugby than we currently see in the National Leagues and above. This is maybe something for rugby's bigger brains to mull over.

The mind-set required for ice hockey and rugby is similar, indeed, just about the best lock partner I ever played with was Jackson McBride, a British Ice Hockey Association Hall of Famer, former Scotland and Great Britain internationalist and an esteemed coach.

Jackson used to occasionally play rugby, simply for the run-about and in one game, the opposition, a Glasgow team, were making noises about having a fairly weel-kent light-heavyweight boxer in their ranks.

Well, the pugilist was intent on demonstrating his expertise in “the sweet science,” until that is, he annoyed Jackson, and was last seen departing the pitch on a stretcher.

THE as-yet unknown part of Super-6 is: when will the cross-border games take place, and in what form. Well, “Jones the Spy,” my contact in the valleys, was on the telephone last week, and he tells me, while the minutiae of the concept is still being worked-out between Edinburgh and Cardiff – it will happen.

The initially sceptical Welsh teams are now on-board, while the top clubs in the All-Ireland League are also starting to show an interest and asking: “Can we get involved too?”

As ever, of course, the minions inside BT Murrayfield and the Principality Stadium are not keen on saying too-much about what is happening, but, some contact has already been made at club level. Things are moving.

I was speaking to one of the Ayr guys, heavily-involved in getting their S6 team up and running and he said: “I watched a Welsh Premiership game on TV last week, we will need to get some big lumps signed to take them on. Playing the Welsh sides will be a step-up from the Premiership, but, while it will be a huge challenge, I am confident, facing them will lift standards in our game.”