Fucking rugby - how much longer

[restofthetimes]

are schools and clubs going to continue initiating little 8 year olds, or anyone, into full contact rugby.

I'm currently sitting here waiting for DH to call me from Kings Hospital where DS, 8, has been ambulanced to following a 'knock' at a festival I wasn't at.

They've just started this term with contact, and almost all the boys were scared witless. Being told, come on you have to tackle. My son was a 'confident' one (probably because DH told him he was rather than it coming from him).

We're in the private school system, and while the headmaster has given the option this year to remain with touch rugby, he's warned that many of the public schools the boys will go on to don't have facilities for touch matches etc.

AIBU to think its barbaric and outdated and wish it was fucking banned to knock anyone from off their feet to the ground and whatever else they're encouraged to do as part of a game????

YANBU. It gets even worse as they get older. DS has had 7 stitched in his head & a concussion. He's now nearly 16 & plays for school and club. Not going to be physically big enough for a long-term rugby career though - which just adds to my stress as many of the players he has to tackle are much bigger than he is.

On the plus side - he loves it, it's great exercise, good for team spirit.

But ... don't get me started on the rugby drinking culture which also kicks in around this age. And silly "club" tours where they have to do humiliating forfeits.

And I know 2 boys in DS's rugby circle who have had really bad back injuries from rugby - one of them when still at primary school.

Children can get all the benefits spouted in association with rugby playing football. The preference for rugby despite the injuries is pure, unadulterated snobbery.

again, this is American football, not soccer.

I saw a statistic that recently that, if I've remembered right, rugby has something like 10x the head injury rate of American football.

I'm a rugby fan, but having seen the movie "Concussion" which is about those research results, I do wonder what is going to happen to the game.

(I think the movie is downloadable from Sky, for those who missed it when it came out. It's worth watching.)

A quote for those who didn't follow the link up-thread.

An updated study published Tuesday by the Journal of the American Medical Association on football players and the degenerative brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy reveals a striking result among NFL players.

The study examined the brains of deceased former football players (CTE can only be diagnosed after death) and found that 110 out of 111 brains of those who played in the NFL had CTE.

CTE has been linked to repeated blows to the head — the 2015 movie Concussion chronicled the discovery of CTE's connection to football.

American football players wear protective helmets too. But what they've found is that there's very little protection from the helmets. The brain gets shaken inside the skull despite it. The energy from the collision has to go somewhere.

We had a high school footballer killed during practice in my area this fall. It happens.

Anybody playing rugby at any school in England had to sign a consent form that you the parent consent to the child playing contact. You could have chosen not to consent.

I do think when you go private you choose what you are paying for so why choose a school that has compulsory rugby?

Starryskies maybe if you are thinking about boarding?

There were only 3 possible private schools Ds could have gone to as a day boy round here. And we chose the one we did based on a combination of academics and overall ambience. Rugby didn't come into it.

I've never seen a rugby consent form.

Rugby has changed since it went professional. Players now train each day and deliberately bulk up. When the game was first created, it was a) schoolboys b) amateurs. The game is now akin to American Football and look at all the padding those guys have.

We had 4 ambulances on the pitch in less than 2 weeks. DS is delighted that we looked at the calendar and he's only got 3 matches left. Until next year. And then the year after. And the year after.... and the year after....

But fee paying schools often have compulsory sports in a way that non fee paying dont.

Most people considering schools think about / know this where I am.

Maybe it is less common in other areas though.

Should add a lot of people here say they choose their private school because of the sports so they would know about it.

Our son went to a private prep. school where they played rugby. They didn't do contact at 8 yrs old. and didn't have contact games until much older. He is at high school now and plays for school and a club.
My brother played to international level in the amateur days and one of his sons is a pro. We come from a rugby playing area of the country where there were 10 rugby pitches in our town and only one football pitch when I was growing up.
My DH played football as he was from an area where that's all they played. He has always said he would much rather have played rugby as the players are much more respectful to the ref. and the fans are much more civilised!
I don't recognise the amount of injuries you are all suggesting in the rugby I know. My Nephew did do his ACL and my brother has arthritis in his shoulders and says it's because he was a prop. but I have arthritis in my shoulders too!! My son did get mild post concussion syndrome from rugby but also had more sever concussion when a branch whipped back at him whilst playing in the woods! I have only once seen an ambulance take a player away for a broken leg in all the years I have watched several generations of my family play.

Oh god, I fucking hate rugby.

My boyfriend has played it since he was a kid and every weekend I think "this could be the match where he gets brain damage and turns into a violent psycho".

He's had his nose broken countless times, ruptured a ligament, had 3 concussions in as many years and right now can't move because of a broken collarbone.

We have the best relationship and both have 100% freedom to do what we want - we go on holidays alone and never check up on each other with annoying "where are you" texts. I don't believe in telling each other what to do. But this is the only issue where I really want to say something. It makes me really uncomfortable he's going to be playing this sport when we have kids. What if he gets paralysed? Brain damaged? The drinking scene/amount of time doesn't bother me, literally couldn't give a shit if he's out all night getting smashed, it's how fucking dangerous it is.

I know it would be absolutely out of order to tell him to stop and if he stopped because of me I'd feel guilty and he'd feel resentful and unhappy, but I wish he'd just take up something else.....athletics......golf.............chess.....?