AIBU in withdrawing DS from contact rugby in junior school?

[swearymary100]

My DS attends a private school that is strong in sport. He has attended since nursery, before I knew about his non-sporty-ness!
He is 9 and in Yr 4. This academic year Rugby moves from non-contact to contact. All the kids are getting mouth guards & headgear.
My DS is tiny. He weighs 3.4 stone and is 114cm tall - about size of average 5-6 year old. He has always been small & there is no-one in his year as little.
He is into music & dance & cross-country running; he is fit & very active. He hates rugby.

So, I want to withdraw him (if school consents) from contact rugby.
The risk of concussion & injury is too high given that his head will be at the chest/shoulder height of his peers.

I have researched this issue to death & for every expert saying 'don't be bloody stupid - ban tackling in schools' there is another one saying 'it's fine, stop being a precious twat'.

I know that all activity involves risks of accidents, but rugby deliberately encourages tackling and there is impact & concussion risk.

Does anyone have experience of this & AIBU?

There’s no life skill/quality learnt through rugby that can’t be developed in other ways

Apart from the sheer joy of playing. Not relevant to the OP as her son doesn’t enjoy it and absolutely shouldn’t have to take part. But IMO there’s nothing like the experience of playing the sport you love at any age!

They still attend all the rugby sessions, they learn and practise the skills but they don't play contact games

This is what all decent coaches should be offering, not least because it’s inclusive.

I'd talk to them and request that he is exempt from contact elements of the lesson or they have an alternative drill for those who don't want to do the contact ones. I'd imagine at year 4 it's not all contact and tackles and scrums etc so he can do most of the lesson.

I agree, Jacque, it may be worth the risk if you really love it (and are built like a brick shithouse!). It wouldn’t be for me if my DC didn’t absolutely love it, though.

and are built like a brick shithouse

Definitely not necessary

I’ll take your word for it, Jacques!

I’ll take your word for it, Jacques!

Certainly in RL whilst you do, of course, get impact players, the focus is much more on agility etc.

DS1 is 13 and is a huge rugby lover. He's been playing since he was old enough to join rugby tots at our local club and when contact rugby started (I think it was U9's) he's loved it even more.

However, he's hugely tall with an enormous reach, and at his club they call him "shit on a blanket" because once he's on a player they just can't shake him off. Compared to most of his team he's at least a foot taller and always has been.

I wouldn't consider pitting a much-smaller-sized kid against him, no matter how much someone might think they'd gain from it simply because the size, strength and stamina of DS1 is unbelievable at the moment. You'd be within your rights to ask that your DS not take part in contact rugby if you think it could pose a danger to him. He could easily do the training and the teamwork, just not the actual games.

As I said above, I hate rugby and my husband and I argue about it quite a lot.

But not all players are built like brick shithouses. There's a kind of yin and yang, the brick shithouses and the small, lithe players who slip between them like fish swimming upstream.

I stand corrected - seems rugby is mandatory at state secondaries but perhaps not private secondaries, which presumably the OP's son will attend?

not all players are built like brick shithouses
YY that's true. My friend's DS is small and quick, loves rugby and is often picked for the team. But it's also fair to say that our junior school team who won all their matches looked like adult men! I've no idea how they managed to find so many tall, broad 11-yr-olds in the one school.

My ds loved rugby but fell out of love and gave up when he was about 14 because “you either have to be very brave or very fast and i’m not either”

My DS is very fast, and prepared to go in as hard as he can (coaches used to continually praise his committment), but small and slightly built. It meant pretty much every other game he got injured, and was losing half of not just his rugby season, but his football season to injury (not to mention the wrist injury just before a music exam...)

I was very relieved when he gave up.

Yes, the RFU have given a lot of thought to coaching at different levels, and introducing skills slowly and in an age appropriate way. But their end game is still to produce fully fledged adult rugby players playing one of the toughest games there is. So even the watered-down, age appropriate forms are pretty brutal.

An arm tackle that brings a 10 year old to the ground can still result in him or her bashing her head on the ground as they land, with very much more momentum and energy in the fall (the combined momentum of two people rather than one) than would have been the case if they'd simply tripped running after a frisby. My son's coaches were great. They really knew their stuff. They were completely on top of the RFU coaching techniques. DS still ended up with concussion.

It's a tough game, there's no getting round that. No child should be made to play contact rugby as part of a compulsory school curriculum.

DS has always been big for his age, and built like a bullock. When he started playing contact rugby with his club, they moved him up an age category because the coach was afraid he'd accidentally pulverise someone from his own age group. I can't see how the same rule wouldn't be applied in reverse to your DS. By a responsible coach...

If it's compulsory PE, you could ask the school & PE teacher how they intend to differentiate their lessons for your son to ensure his safety.

'No child should be made to play contact rugby as part of a compulsory school curriculum'

My view. My younger ds was a similar height to yours at that age - fast, strong and muscular, but small. He'd either have hated it or joined in enthusiastically (not sure which, but it would have been one or the other), but I would have had serious misgivings. We're in a country that doesn't play rugby at school, though. Thank goodness. What was the thing about 'a hooligan's game played by gentlemen'? Not sure about the gentlemen, but the hooligan's game bit seems about right to me (sorry to rugby fans).

Hooligans game what utter tosh. My eldest DS was the captain of his club team, won many accolades and has trained to be a coach himself and is a lovely young man and very personable as are all his team mates. If you actually play rugby it’s full on in the match however afterwards they all shake hands, the winners are congratulated then they all sit together and have tea.

I'm with you OP!

Not because rugby is too dangerous but because why should he have to endure it.....he hates it, will do nothing for his confidence and well just let the kid sit and read a book, practice his guitar or whatever! Just ask, I would, especially as you are paying for his education! Good luck

Hooligans game? Interesting, rugby parents all chose rugby because it taught civility in the face of disappointment, respect for authority and sportsmanship. It built resilience and an ability to see the strengths of others who had a different body shape and different physical skills.

We avoided football because that really was seen as a game for namby pamby ruffians who rolled around crying if they bruised their shins.

I believe the original quote is something along the lines of rugby being a hooligan’s game played by gentlemen, whereas football is a gentleman’s game played by hooligans.

I'm with you on this OP.
I know too many people still plagued with rugby injuries from decades ago.
Good luck.

Your DS is only a bit bigger than my year 2 boy. Given the fact that he is so small, could you have a chat with the rugby coach? No sports coach is going to want to risk a child being seriously hurt on their watch. It is quite possible that the coach has seen your boy and has come up with a plan to keep him safe, but does not want to make a big deal about it in case your DS is sensitive about his size.

PE teachers are NOT RFU qualified.

Yes some are. My son’s PE teacher played for Saracens and fully qualified.

My 10 year old is 1.35 m and 33kgs and he's the smallest in the year - but with a contact sport like rugby the most dangerous situations are with unwilling and unable participants.
Has your school even HEARD of bio-banding?
Also ask to see a copy of their risk assessment - I plan to do my own with school activities when required.

PE should be for everyone but it is so often unsuitable - there should be scaled for different abilities.
Team sports can be a force for good but equally they can be so divisive, speaking as someone who only ever got cheered in PE whenever I moved away from anyone. I got ABSOLUTELY NOTHING from team games apart from insect bites.

There should always be a non-team option, or do the training but not the actual games.
After all who cares about team sports in schools if the biggest loser's fitness?

I think in New Zealand kids’ teams are sorted by weight as it’s been found to be safer.

Anyway, I have a very fast, strapping, sporty, 13 year old who currently plays football. Apparently he is very very good at rugby in PE lessons and the teachers are forever trying to get him to join the rugby team. I’m having none of it; we have experience of TBI and post concussion syndrome in our family. I have already briefed DS not to head the ball when he’s playing football.

Not sure about the gentlemen, but the hooligan's game bit seems about right to me (sorry to rugby fans).

Have you meditated on why alcohol is banned at football games, but permitted at rugby games?

Have a look at the weight exemptions for his age group from your official body. He may be able to play down in age if they don’t let him withdraw completely.

We have that in the US, for example my 10yo who was in grade 5 played in the gr3/4s and if he’d wanted to play the following year (grade 6) he would have been able to stay down due to his weight.