We're All Doomed, Ah Tell Ye - Or Are We?

I KNOW NOT How much attention Sir Bill Beaumont, TCD, John Jeffrey, Bill Sweeney and the other movers and shakers at the head of our various national unions pay to The Breakdown, The Guardian's weekly rugby blog. But, if they haven't paid it much heed before, they certainly ought to after yesterday's offering, penned by Robert Kitson.

The bold Kitson doesn't lay it on with a shovel, but, he makes it very clear, our game is in mortal danger and if the guys in the corporate suits in Rugby House in Dublin don't act soon – well in a few years they might not have a global game to fund their extravagant corporate life styles.

The dear old Guardian of course, views the game through red rose-tinted glasses; they're not that bothered about Scottish Rugby, we 'Sweaties' are a strange, alien race, what speaks funny and whom they cannot quite figture out, apart from being deeply concerted that we repeatedly refuse to do what the English master race tells us.

But, even the stoutest English rugger yeoman must be concerned at one figure Kitson quotes in his piece:

• “One recent survey suggested a fall from 259,600 active adult players in England in 2016 to only 95,100 at the end of last season.”

In stark figures, that means, nearly two-thirds of the adult players five years ago have hung-up their boots. If that doesn't waken up Will Carling's Old Farts at the top of the RFU food chain, nothing will.

Elsewhere in his article, Kitson writes:

• “Inside the past week, two of England’s more knowledgeable club officials, independently of each other, have shared the same opinion with me: that rugby union, participation-wise, will have morphed into something akin to American football within a decade. If you are any good you will play professionally, semi-professionally or at a good level at university or college. Otherwise recreational men’s rugby will largely be limited to touch, tag and sevens.”

I have been saying, for some time, the day is coming – and I admit, I don't know how far away this day of reckoning is – when “seamless” rugby, a single identifiable form of the game, from the lowest club's lowest XV through to the British and Irish Lions, will cease to exist.

There will be the professional game, semi-professional through to the game's mega-stars, where the hits are huge, the crowds attend and the players are paid to take the risks they do with their future health and well-being. But, I sincerely hope, there will also be a recreational game, where most of the injury risks are removed, but, the unpaid players still get a huge kick out of running with the ball and passing; but where the big, fat, slow lads can still enjoy the full-on challenge of the scrum.

But, the big question is:

• What form will 'Recreational Rugby' take?

I would like to think, if I am ever released, say in 100 years' time, from that overflowing press room in Hades to which I will be consigned on my passing, I will still be able to witness 15-a-side club rugby: where whether or not to train is an individual decision, there is still a post-game beer levy and you can still enjoy boat races, bawdy singing and the other joys of the game such as buying your immediate opponent a pint.

However, I noticed, in the BTL comments on The Breakdown, a growing support for a switch to Rugby Tens, as the way ahead for the recreational game.

Since, a few years ago now, I wrote his father's obituary, I have been in regular email contact with Ian MacEwen, son of former Scotland hooker of the 1950s, Bob MacEwen.

Ian retired from King's School, Canterbury at the end of the 2021 Academic Year; one of his former charges there is a certain Huw Jones. Ian is also concerned at the game's future, he has seen for himself the growing number of players who give-up the game on leaving school and is worried.

Ian is a great believer in Tens as the future of the game, I would like to see the Rugby Development Department at BT Murrayfield looking into this. If it will keep players playing – let's go for it.

The consensus BTL in the Guardian was that Sevens is simply too-demanding as an alternative to the full game, while Touch just doesn't offer the contact element which is such a big part of the game.

Most of the various unions' activity of late has been around the top end of the game – trying to make professional rugby viable and meaningful. It appears, while the high heid yins and their elves in Cardiff, Dublin, Edinburgh and London have been concentrating on the form of the game which pays their wages, the grass-roots, from whence it all springs, has been neglected.

If this failing is not addressed soon, we might not have a game for them to administer in a few years. You know, maybe James Frazer's parents, on his way to Warmington-on-Sea, sent him off Barra to be educated at Glasgow Academy. He maybe had some foresight as to where rugby was headed.

AS EVER, I added several books to my collection over the Christmas period, and am now working my way through my new additions. Aside from Billy Connolly's autobiography: “Windswept and Interesting”, which has, as you might expect, a laugh-out-loud moment on every page, two I particularly enjoyed have been Willie Anderson's autobiography 'Crossing The Line' and Sonny Bill Williams' offering 'You Can't Stop The Sun From Shining.'

Different books, but both well-worth reading. Anderson gets rid of his short and ill-starred time as Scotland's forwards coach, under Matt Williams, in one chapter – let's just say, he and Jim Telfer do not exchange Christmas cards.

Anderson did allude to conflict between the SRU Board and the SRU Council. This was in 2004, plus ca change and all that. The Scottish part is just one chapter in a rugby life well-lived, it's a most-enjoyable read.