KIDS FIRST INITIATIVE GATHERS PACE
September 2016 sees a new landmark in Age Grade rugby in England, as the Kids First initiative comes fully into effect across the country. Changes have been agreed which will see for the first time a harmonised approach to how young players are developed whether it be in clubs, schools or in girls’ rugby.
I’m aware that this issue has caused some division as well as a certain amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth. Last year Rugby World magazine posted a ‘For and Against’ piece with the Pro camp represented by Walcot RFC U10 coach Dave Parsons, while for the Anti stance they deployed the rather bigger gun of former England centre Simon Halliday (no disrespect intended Dave). I’m not sure if this disparity was a deliberate attempt to influence people’s thinking, or if they simply chose Halliday because of his extremely vocal public opposition to Kids First expressed in his role on the committee at Esher RFC. View the RW piece here.
The argument advanced by Halliday and others, including the Daily Mail, was that the game was going soft or in some way ‘dumbing down’ in trying to remove all competitive and physical elements from Age Grade rugby. Even my esteemed co-author Spike – though I hasten to add his views were expressed as persuasively and in as reasoned a manner as always – shared the view that this initiative was a reform too far.
Even within my own club I’ve found opposition to Kids First or at best a kind of grudging acceptance, followed by a heads-in-the-sand ‘ignore-it-and-it’ll-go-away attitude’. Some of the older age groups – and more worryingly last season the chair of AG rugby and the Club Coaching Co-ordinator (CCC) – have displayed the same sort of illogical and uninformed, knee-jerk hostility epitomised by Halliday.
So, let me first nail my colours to the mast and say that I am well and truly in favour of Kids First for a number of reasons. At the coaching level, I like Kids First because it promotes coaching the game in the way I have already being doing it for about 6 years now – though I have to say it also goes above and beyond my approach and means I will have to raise my game a bit!
I also like it from a personal point of view, as it seeks to challenge and eliminate certain attitudes, values and behaviours that have been prevalent in the Age Grade game (this despite the prominence given to Core Values at every club in the land), and which damage both the child’s enjoyment of the game along with his/her potential to develop as a player.
Thirdly, from the perspective of a fan I simply LOVE what the Kids First approach, in tandem with the New Rules of Play, is doing to the skill levels and entertainment on display in Age Grade rugby. Most games at U11 that I see are full of kids trying to keep the ball alive and take risks in a ‘Barbarianesque’ style of play that is thrilling to watch.
So to conclude this introduction to my series on Kids First, I’ll simply observe that far from dumbing the game down, this initiative is producing players who play smarter: better tactical decision makers, able to read the game and identify opportunities, and with the skills to exploit what they see. Those who argue (as some do) that they want to see more youngsters boshing into each other and mauling, fail to see the irony in their accusation that the game is seeking to become less intelligent (I assume that’s what they mean by dumbing down?).
All the above notwithstanding, this is happening and is going live from September 2016. As the Cybermen might say, “Resistance is futile” – that being so, it surely behoves even the hardiest opponent of Kids First to grit his teeth and try and make the best of the many positives it offers.
Our sport has always thrived on change, and the need to evolve in Age Grade rugby has been clear for some time. The most pernicious phrase in the English language for anyone who wants to see progress is ‘This is the way we’ve always done it’. That is the attitude, I’m afraid, that would have seen William Webb Ellis given 6 of the best and 1000 lines, and this game that we all love so much would never have come into being.
To be continued….
Footnote: DB9 coaches an U11 mixed team and U13/U15 girls in West Yorkshire; in his professional guise he also coaches at a private prep school in North Yorkshire, and runs weekend and after-school groups for Rugbytots involving children as young as two. Safe to say, he has studied this issue from just about every angle possible for a coach!
TIME TO STAMP ON RUGBY’S THUGS
On Sunday I watched England’s first win in Dublin since 2003 (and only their third over Ireland in that time) from the comfort of my sofa. It certainly wasn’t a pretty game, and unlike the similarly ugly fare on offer in Paris the day before, there wasn’t even a solitary try to cheer. Two penalty goals for Ireland against four by England, the lowest scoring game in 6 Nations history, and the first tryless encounter between these sides since 1984. However, it was an absorbing game, with some flashes of skill from both sides and especially from the adventurous Keith Earls, but mainly a story of guts, commitment, physical intensity and solid tactical kicking in poor conditions. As often in these games, the side making the fewer mistakes was the winner.
Now, I’m a passionate and ‘involved’ supporter and work on the principle that even if I’m not actually at the game, the players might hear my words of encouragement if I can just make them loud enough! I also use the opportunity to give the referee the benefit of my expertise at similar volume – something I would never do at my local club, for example – safe in the knowledge that I’m essentially talking to myself. Sunday’s referee, M. Garcès of France, must have had seriously heated ears at one particular point, when he failed to deal with the following incident which occurred right under his nose.
I saw the stamp by Healy at normal speed, and when the whistle went immediately afterwards, assumed that M. Garcès had too and was about to reverse the penalty against England for collapsing the maul, and show Healy a card for serious foul play. On reviewing the incident in slo-mo, I was sure Healy would be red carded; the ball was already won (indeed Conor Murray had his hands on it) and in any case, the part of Cole’s leg stamped on was nowhere near the ball. In other words, the usual defence of over-vigorous but legitimate rucking couldn’t apply, and the offence could only be judged as a deliberate attempt to injure an opponent. As an aside, the replay also showed that after the ball had left the ruck, Peter O’Mahony trampled on Cole as he lay on the floor – this too is in contravention of the Laws.
However, after calming down the fighting players and pulling the captains aside and appealing for ‘discipline’, M. Garcès made no reference to the stamping and carried on with the penalty against England. To say I was flabbergasted sells my reaction rather short. I realised that Healy would be cited (this has indeed happened), but this option now seems to be the default for referees and we risk the game becoming ever more like 13-a-side, where even serious acts of foul play go unpunished on the pitch and are dealt with by the ‘on report’ system instead. And far from eradicate foul play, my belief is that this laxity encourages it.
Incidents of players being ‘targeted’ for special treatment seem to be on the increase (or maybe with the prevalence of cameras we just see more of them), and clearly this sort of thuggish behaviour needs to be cleaned out of the game for a number of good reasons. How, for example, should I explain to my U8 players that they mustn’t indulge in foul play when they see international players getting away with just that? But the citing process alone isn’t enough, and it’s time that a player’s on-field misdeeds had serious on-field consequences. In short, Healy should have been red-carded leaving his team a player short for the rest of the game, and THEN hauled before a disciplinary panel to receive a lengthy ban.
The effect of a sending off is two-fold: it harms the team, leaving 14 men to do the work of 15 – and any player with an ounce of integrity would feel shame at leaving his colleagues in the lurch; and secondly, the reaction of team-mates and management after the game would be of the kind that tends to increase this sense of shame. So players who want to dish it out the way Healy did on Sunday must be made to feel they have let their team down, by events on the pitch as well as by the displeasure of their team-mates. Only in this way will players be made to think before they stamp, gouge or punch players in an attempt to injure or incapacitate. Citing alone, like the on-report system in 13-a-side, allows the ref to abdicate responsibility and thereby avoid accusations of influencing the game – and for that reason, refs need to be encouraged and empowered to take a stand on foul play before someone gets seriously hurt.
WHY DO WE BOTHER WITH LAWS IN MINI RUGBY?
We’re a quarter of the way through season 2012-13 and already it’s been a very promising year for our U8s. Numbers are good, and at 29 players we have the biggest U8 squad our club’s ever had. This presents challenges in terms of getting all the players involved in games, but by being organised we’re able to ensure that, come match day, all of them get a fair amount of time on-pitch and everyone gets a chance to run with the ball. In training we try and maximise this with small-sided games on reduced pitches, and we split up all the ‘best’ players between the teams so that there’s a mix of ability in each – then we ensure that these more skilful players don’t hog all the play. It’s not perfect, but we’re at least giving all the players the opportunity to develop their skills in a fun and enjoyable environment.
So far, so idyllic!! You’d be forgiven for thinking that everything in our garden is rosy, but alas nothing’s perfect and despite all of the above, I have a gripe. In fact, it’s a perennial gripe, one that I’ve noticed has become more of a problem at this level of rugby in the 6 years since I last coached an U8 team. And the gripe is this: we have a set of modified Laws for this form of the game, to provide a structured yet simplified framework for the kids to display their skills on; yet far too many coaches seem to regard a lot of these rules as inconvenient or optional. This creates points of tension and contention whenever we play a match against another club and – as my son has indicated to me – frustrates the hell out of my players when they feel the opposition has been allowed to cheat throughout the game.
There are a number of possible responses to this. One could be that I relax my refereeing of the game and allow/encourage my players to infringe in the same way as other teams. This would allow them a level playing field to complete on, but it goes against the grain for me to tell my players it’s OK to cheat if it helps you win. I realise that as open-age players they’ll be expected to ‘play the ref’ and to be a bit smart and streetwise about infringing to slow down the opposition. However, I feel that when you’re taking players new to the game and moulding them into rugby players for the future, you should make every effort to reinforce respect for all facets of the game including the Laws – and for me that means serial infringers shouldn’t be allowed to prosper.
Response number 2 would be to just chill out and ignore it – different refs interpret the Laws differently, my players have to learn to accept this, and as a coach I have to set the example for them to follow. Any frustration I feel needs to be hidden and I ought to focus on what my players can do to outflank the opposition even if the ref is letting them infringe. I’d agree with all of that – except for the fact that my players deserve better, and when they know that the ref is getting it wrong, I’m the one they ask why. Somehow, ‘never mind the ref, look at your own performance’ seems a little too harsh a message to give to a 7-year-old. In any case, it’s not as if the Laws for U8 rugby are especially complicated or difficult to referee correctly, so surely it’s not too much to ask that a ref be more than just vaguely competent?
Response number 3 is to approach the ref in question, say at half-time, and request clarification on why infringements are or aren’t being dealt with. For example, to ask ‘I notice you’re not pinging them for handing-off sir, does that mean our players can do it too?’ However, this is fraught with difficulty. Some refs will take your oblique point and will clamp down on the relevant offence for the rest of the game, and will be happy that you’ve brought it to their attention. This is a definite win. However, others will take your intervention as a personal criticism and a rather tetchy exchange then ensues in which no-one emerges the winner. I had one of these at a well-known festival in the south of England in April, in which a neutral ref was great at pinging my players for not passing within 3 steps after being tagged, but terrible at penalising the opposition for shoulder-barging my players out of the way. At half time I politely requested that he stop them from doing it; he very shirtily replied that he was the ref and I didn’t have the right to tell him how to ref the game and he hadn’t seen the offence in question. Not a successful outcome then, and one which probably left each of us looking at the other and thinking “Self-righteous prick!”
Response number 4 is never to allow anyone but me to ref our games – just not practical I’m afraid, and in some cases not necessary as a number of refs are every bit as good as me or nearly so!
No, the only solution that is really acceptable is to get all coaches at our age group to referee using all the modified Laws, rather than ignoring certain ones to give their team an advantage. It’s the only way to ensure a level playing field for both teams in a match. ‘Local variations’ can mean that in some cases your team is asked to play a vastly different set of rules than they are used to. A few years ago, our TAG age groups toured the North East and on starting their first match at their festival on the Sunday, were surprised to find a ‘double-tag’ rule in operation whereby ripping off both an opponent’s tags at once, gave you an immediate turnover. All the Northumbrian teams were aware of the rule, but it took our players some time to adapt. Not all differences are as pronounced, but it is true to say that every time we play a match, the Laws used are slightly different from the previous game. For youngsters learning the game and the skills to play it, this kind of inconsistency needs to be stamped out. I meet coaches who justify a lax approach to refereeing minis’ rugby on the grounds that ‘They’re only kids’ i.e. the poor little cherubs shouldn’t be burdened with being expected to follow the rules of the game. So why do you think the Laws are there? The fact is, the simplified Laws for TAG rugby are designed for kids to be able to follow. Yes, it might be difficult and onerous to get it across, but with time and persistence, it’s definitely achievable. And once the habit is formed, it gets easier to help the players adapt to the Laws as they change with the different stages along the Age Grade pathway.
It might be that CBs and RDOs need to give some thought to refereeing as part of a coach’s skill set so that we get more competent refs working with the youngest players, then match day will stop being a lottery based on what rules the home side thinks should apply.
Are law changes always the answer? PART TWO
In part one of this article, our imaginary focus group at RugbyMusings Imagineering™ was asked to recommend amendments to the Laws, with a view to speeding up the game by reducing the time the ball stays in the breakdown area, getting it back into open play as quickly as possible. Our focus group’s report follows:
1. CAUSES. There are two main causes of the current penchant for delaying the release of the ball from the base of the ruck. These are:
a) Slow ruck ball: players are conditioned to release the ball wide only if it’s recycled quickly with the team going forward. When it comes back slowly, they invariably choose to stay close to the breakdown and go through another phase, hoping for quick ball next time. They mainly do this by carefully assembling players into position for a pick and drive move. There are a number of factors that slow down recycling, chiefly:
i. Infringements by defenders – not releasing, using hands in the ruck etc
ii. Players of both teams going off their feet, arriving from all angles and diving straight on the ruck area
iii. Attacking support players concentrate on sealing off rather than clearing out
b) Strong defensive alignment: the decision makers (9 and 10) see a wall of defenders spread across the pitch with cover behind, so they choose to go to the breakdown again in the hope of sucking in some defenders and creating space. This defensive alignment arises because:
i. The defending side will often not contest the ruck, putting in only one player while the attackers commit four or five, because
ii. The tackled player is often allowed to get away with holding on to the ball until support arrives; also
iii. The tackler can no longer ‘jackle’ and has to roll away and get up before contesting possession; which means
iv. The attackers usually have time to get enough men in to the ruck area to seal off the ball, therefore trying to contest possession is pointless.
2. ORIGINS. These issues have their origins in recent Law changes made by the IRB (e.g. as in 1b/iii above) and reinforced by numerous directives made to referees, enshrined in referee education courses, to use subjective judgements of Materiality and Context in making decisions, rather than basing these solely on Law and Fact as in previous years.
a) For example, all the causes listed above at 1a are (or were, in the case of sealing off) infringements of the Laws, yet frequently these are not penalised in order to allow the game to ‘flow’. Ironically, this often serves to slow the game down – the opposite of what was intended.
b) Similarly, by changing the Laws at the tackle in favour of the attacking side, the IRB has neutered the contest element of the ruck, creating a disincentive for the defence to commit men to the breakdown area, resulting in the defence having numerical superiority away from the ruck. This mitigates against the running game the IRB wants to promote.
A further unintended consequence of the Law changes was the tendency for defenders to hold up the attacking player, preventing them from getting the ball to ground. This leads to ‘unplanned’ and invariably static mauls, in which the ball becomes unplayable and gives the defence the put-in to the resulting scrum.
3. CONCLUSION. It can be argued that the issue the IRB is now seeking to correct at the breakdown was itself created by hastily-introduced revisions to the Laws and a tendency to give ever-varying directives to referees on how to control this area of the game. It seems logical therefore to look at other ways to resolve the situation than simply amending the Laws again.
4. RECOMMENDATIONS. We believe that the following initiatives, if followed through with rigour and consistency, should deliver the desired outcomes of providing quick ruck ball for the attack and/or creating space away from the breakdown for the attack then to exploit.
a) The tackled player MUST release the ball as soon as the tackle is complete i.e. when he is brought to ground and held. SANCTION: penalty.
b) Likewise, the tackler MUST release the player once the tackle is complete, and may immediately get to his feet and contest the ball. SANCTION: penalty.
c) Players MUST stay on their feet at the breakdown. A ruck must form properly, consisting only of players on their feet, bound fully into the ruck. No part of a player’s body above the feet may be in contact with the ground or anyone lying on it. SANCTION: free-kick or penalty as per existing ruck laws. The first player to infringe is to be penalised.
d) No player from either side may put their hands on the ball at any time whilst it is in the ruck. The ball is to be moved to the base of the ruck either by using the feet or by driving opponents off the ball. SANCTION: penalty.
e) The ball is to be played as soon as it becomes available at the base of the ruck. If the scrum half (or any other player in that role) touches the ball, it becomes live and the ruck is over. Referee to warn attacking side to ‘use it or lose it’ as per the maul, if there is any delay in releasing the ball. SANCTION: scrum to the defending side.
f) If the ball becomes unplayable in the ruck i.e. it cannot be moved to the base of the ruck without infringing the Laws, the referee is to stop play at the earliest opportunity. RESTART: scrum to the attacking side.
g) To enable match officials to control the game under these conditions, only one minor amendment needs to be made – adding the ‘use it or lose it’ instruction to the ruck laws (we suggest Law 16.7). Otherwise, all of the other recommendations above can be fulfilled by directing referees only to use their interpretation of Law and Fact.
The concept of Materiality should be removed from referee education as it allows (and indeed encourages) officials simply to ignore offences, when advantage could be applied instead. Likewise, the concept of Contextual Judgement might allow referees an excuse for ignoring certain offences – most notably acts of foul or dangerous play. The best way to remove such vagaries of interpretation is to direct referees simply to follow and apply the Laws – this way, a greater measure of consistency might be achieved.
5. EXPECTED OUTCOMES. Taking all the above recommendations as a whole, we would expect to see a return to dynamic rucking at the breakdown.
Allowing both teams to contest the ball on an equal footing, by forcing the tackled player to release more quickly, would bring more players from both teams into the ruck area. This in turn would lead to more space away from the ruck, encouraging backlines to run the ball more readily.
A genuine ruck contest would place a premium on players maintaining good body position, driving through the ruck from low to high and staying in a strong stable position on their feet, as opposed to flopping on the ball and slowing it down. Attackers with good technique, hitting the ruck with purpose and aggression and as a unit, would achieve quick ball by driving defenders away, putting the attack on the front foot. Defenders likewise could achieve turnover ball, or slow possession down, by the same means.
At any point during this process, if the referee spots an infringement, he should signal an advantage rather than deciding that Materiality applies. If no advantage accrues, penalise as appropriate. If the infringement results in a fair contest for the ball being compromised (player on the ground handles the ball), this should be penalised immediately.
The use of warnings and cards should be maintained to ensure that persistent offending is eradicated and teams suffer the consequences of their cheating.
While this might all result initially in more use of the whistle, and more matches being decided by kicks at goal, our belief is that the players will adjust and that coaches will have to return to coaching correct technique at the breakdown. And in any case, this might be preferable to rugby spectators than the current dog’s breakfast that the ruck has become. The continued sloppy approach to the ruck, where players are allowed to pile in from all angles without staying on their feet, is now being replicated in age-grade rugby which is not good for their skills development, and in addition is dangerous for less experienced, less conditioned players.
To summarise, the ruck Laws are fine as they are; ensuring they are applied correctly is what’s needed.
So there’s the solution… interesting to see that the replies to part one of this article pointed in this direction to some extent. Simply introducing the five second rule isn’t enough; referees have to be told to use the existing Laws to get the ruck back to what it should be – a contest between players from each side, on their feet, closing around a ball on the ground.
Right, the scrum…….
Are law changes always the answer? INTERACTIVE BLOGGING!!!!!!
This is the first of a two-part post on the subject of Law changes, part two of which has already been written. I thought it would be interesting, and would make for easier reading, to split this in two parts and ask for comments on part one before posting the second. So read this post, which sets out what the proposed Law changes are, then introduces the idea that they address symptoms rather than causes of the issues affecting the game; and at the end, post your comments giving your analysis of what the game needs and how to fix it. At the end of this week I’ll post part 2, and we can see if your solutions look anything like mine. This is interactive blogging, where your input is crucial – enjoy!
PART ONE – It’s summer, so the Laws are being changed. Again.
It’s that time of year again – when the International Rugby Board (IRB) tinkers with the Laws of the game in its unceasing quest to make rugby the perfect spectator-friendly sport. Next season five law amendments will be trialled across the globe in both domestic and international games; the aim is to speed the game up, but will the new Laws have the desired effect? Or is the IRB’s penchant for annual adjustments to the Laws actually strangling the life out of international rugby?
The five amendments to be tested out are:
1. Law 16.7 (Ruck): The ball has to be used within five seconds of it being made available at the back of a ruck, following a warning from the referee to “use it”. This brings the ruck into line with the maul, and if the ball isn’t used, a scrum is awarded to the non-offending side.
2. 19.2 (b) (Quick throw-in): For a quick throw-in, the player throwing in may be anywhere outside the field of play between the line of touch and the player’s goal line.
3. 19.4 (Who throws in) When the ball goes into touch from a knock-on, the non-offending team will be offered the choice of a lineout at the point the ball crossed the touch line; or a scrum at the place of the knock-on. The non-offending team may choose to exercise this option by taking a quick throw-in.
4. 21.4 (Penalty and free kick options and requirements): Lineout alternative. A team awarded a penalty or a free kick at a lineout may choose a further lineout, to which they throw in. This is in addition to the existing scrum option.
5. A conversion kick must be completed within one minute 30 seconds from the time that a try has been awarded.
The IRB also plans an extension of the Television Match Official’s (TMO) powers, with video referees to be allowed to look at foul play and incidents in the lead up to tries, such as forward passes. They want to test this out in “an appropriate elite competition” so that it could be implemented for this year’s autumn Internationals. Currently the TMO is only allowed to rule on the act of scoring.
At first glance these seem pretty logical, and in theory should speed up certain phases of the game – in the case of 3 and 4, by (it’s to be hoped) reducing the number of scrums, thereby avoiding the current fiasco that is the engage-collapse-reset-collapse-reset sequence of the international scrummage. However, the IRB seems to have adopted the same approach as Tony Blair’s government – if it’s not quite right, change the law or pass a new one to fix it. And while New Labour achieved some great strides in education and in promoting social justice, their mania for legislating in the end only served to criminalise ever-greater numbers of the population, rather than fix the ills they hoped to address. This surely is not what the IRB aspires to.
Law amendment 1 above is a case in point. The IRB has noticed that in international games, the ball stays at the base of a ruck for far too long while the attacking side marshals its forces for the next phase. The result of this is some truly awful passages of play, a series of stodgy pick-and-drives that nudge the ball forward perhaps half a metre before possession is recycled and the process starts again. It is boring to watch, and there’s no way someone new to watching the game would want to endure that more than once. Ever anxious that the game should appeal to new audiences, the IRB clearly wanted this practice to be ruled out of the game, and rightly so. However, their answer is to take the lazy option by addressing the symptom, rather than the real problem itself – and I have to wonder, before sticking this Band-Aid®* on to the back of the ruck, did the IRB try and identify why the breakdown had… well, broken down so badly?
So let’s assume the IRB has not yet done anything about this, and that the five amendments are currently still being scribbled on a flipchart by a focus group in the Sports Science Faculty at Stellenbosch University. In fact sod it, let’s assume we (i.e. the staff here at RugbyMusings Imagineering™) are that focus group and someone has tasked us with sorting out the broken-down breakdown. Specifically, to speed up the game by reducing the time the ball stays in the breakdown area, getting it back into open play as quickly as possible. Our focus group would come up with the following points:
TO BE CONTINUED……… (in the meantime, why not post your own brainstorm-on-a-flipchart solutions below)
* other self-adhesive fabric wound dressing strips are available
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