Could prove to be a popular view point 🤷🏼‍♂️

[Ossett News]

Could prove to be a popular view point 🤷🏼‍♂️


My response to RFU council member Ken Andrews, following his explanation of why he voted for laws that will change the game forever

Incase people don't know the RFU have made some very silly decisions around the laws if our game.

Here is my response to our Lancashire rep Ken Andrews following his explanation of the change

Dear Ken

Thank you for your time, it is very much appreciated, particularly considering the volume of enquires you must be fielding following the misguided Council vote.

I am also grateful to you for highlighting the rationale and summarising the evidence as presented by Simon Kemp.

Conspicuously absent from your summary, is any evidence that these changes have been required or requested by the community game.

The “Overwhelming Scientific evidence” as you put it, has no basis on my decision to play the game. Not a single player I have met plays based on scientific data. I suspect you were the same in your time as a player.

“The Science” as we like to refer to it, would be equally baffled by most aspects of rugby. Why do we drink so much? Why do we play in the first place? None of it makes much scientific sense.

If “The Science” made a compelling case to play rugby alongside the reasons why not, then it might be more credible. But "The Science" can’t do that, because rugby is inherently irrational, not a scientific pursuit.

There is no “data led” evidence why a game played by consenting adults for over 100 years needs to be altered fundamentally at amateur level.

It’s not even clear that there is even a “data led” argument to confirm amateur rugby has a problem with concussion - or at least a problem that players don’t accept as part of the risk of playing. Nor is there any acknowledgment that the game is in fact safer now than ever before.

No technical argument, no matter what “The Science” says can override the fact that we don’t want and have never asked for this change.

It might be a good reminder that the game is not owned by you, Simon Kemp, Bill Sweeny, The RFU or World Rugby. It is owned by the players who play it, and it's crucial to understand whether they want their game changed or made safer before you impose that on them.

I know you are a fan of dismissing arguments based on personal opinion. That is a wise approach when dealing with such a wide range of stakeholders. However when over 70,000 people have signed a petition asking the for this change to be rescinded I think it might be wise to consider as a little bit more than just individual opinion.

Staffordshire have sent their rep back to Council under the threat of removal, to table a motion to undo these laws.

I know members up and down the country will be demanding the same as Staffordshire. I also know that the community clubs will force an SGM on the RFU over this. Is certainly my intention to lobby Lancashire with every means at my disposal.

The technical arguments are of little interest to me compared to the principles at play, namely that no one wants this change. Nonetheless, I will spend a small amount of time addressing them.

As you explained you put very little value on individual opinion, so claiming that trail in France was “successful” is an interesting change of attitude because to say the French trial was “successful” is certainly a matter of opinion.

It is bewildering to me why details of exactly how successful the trial was have not been publicised more.

The headline is, that it reduced head on head contact to 63%. This would seem to be a huge success, however the RFU presentation conveniently left out the statistic for all head contacts.

The “success” of the French trial at reducing concussions was in fact far more modest: for every 1000 hours of rugby played there were ONLY 0.5 concussions less.

Put another way, over a league season the average concussions per team dropped from 19.7 to 16.3 (3.4 concussions per team per year). And of course, the RFU has not adopted all of the restrictions of the French trial (such as no double tackles). So we can reasonably expect concussions in England to drop by even less than they did in France.

Bearing in mind the seismic changes the French community game had to endure to get this modest outcome, was it really a success?

The French trial was with Federal 2 players, (broadly speaking our level 7/8). With the best will in the world to my friends playing at this level, they are not all the most committed tacklers.

So, what is likely to happen if more advanced and committed players are exposed to these laws?

I don’t know the answer but more importantly neither does Dr Kemp based on the French data.

We do however have data from the Championship Cup where a trial was conducted and then scrapped based on safety.

My view is that the amateur game is safe within risk tolerances that we accept.

This is my opinion based on observations of a sport that has been played for over 100 years by millions of people.

Your opinion however is based of two years of scratchy data provided by lower-level players and that has failed when applied to higher level players.

Like everything, there are no solutions, only trade-offs. It is not clear at all that the new measures would improve safety enough to warrant that trade off. Particularly given that the things you are trading - although highly valuable - are intangible.

Can Mr Kemp tell me the value of losing teammates who don’t want to play the new laws? Can he tell me the value I get out of the game on weekly basis in its current form?

You continue by pointing out that country X or Y has implemented changes. That is simply an observation - it's not an argument entitling the RFU to ride roughshod over the wishes of local clubs. The most concerning issues you have raised is the Council’s impotent attitude to the opinion of the rugby-playing public.

Rugby is risky, embedded in this risk are all the reasons rugby is special. To be a rugby player means something.

The Council should not be cowering to public opinion and constantly conceding ground. That it should choose to make existential changes to the game, rather than mounting a muscular public defence of the sport, is more contemptable than this vote itself.

Rugby is not a mandatory activity, it’s a voluntary association of likeminded people that want to play the game as it is. If the Council can’t win the public debate regarding why rugby is special to its members, they all need to be replaced.

It is totally unacceptable to be making changes to the game, even partly based on the opinions of outside, non-playing opinion-makers.

As for the private schools, they are welcome to do as they wish. The game's laws should serve the majority of the of people that play rather than the narrow requirements of a curriculum for the most privileged kids in the country. If private schools want to abandon the sports that has served them so well for generations, then I suggest they have lost their way and I wish them luck. I feel a similar way about the RFU Council as it happens.

The remainder of the evidence relates to the pro game. I am fully supportive of efforts to protect the pros, whose game is evolving all the time. But this “evidence” has precisely zero relevance to what my teammates and I do on a weekend.

Lastly, this is not simply a communication issue as you say. The fact that you think this is itself worrying.

You talk about future-proofing our sport for the next 100 years while neglecting to understand that your duty is to your current players and members, not a class of imaginary future rugby beneficiaries.

Maybe some self-reflection regarding your decision is required. I have no doubt that you have served the game brilliantly and you voted in good faith, but I think you should, on reflection, ask yourself the following:

If you have so badly misjudged the wishes of your current members, people who you know and have spent decades around, is it not a little hubristic for you to try to predict what next 100 year of rugby players require?

You can’t protect a game which you have destroyed.

I look forward to attending the meeting on the 8th of February to discuss this matter further.

View the full article