Now's the time to reboot

This forced sabbatical from rugby has led to much thinking about how the game should change when it gets going again. I’ve read some encouraging suggestions on how we can get back to the real spirit of the game, rejecting the commercially-driven rugby commodity that those who want to make money out of rugby have been forcing us to buy into.

Rugby has become a product and we are consumers, eagerly searching for the latest and the best. Not that they want us to ever find it. That’s the secret of consumerism – the customer is never quite satisfied, that way he keeps on looking for more, and paying more for it.

Take school rugby. The product that’s been developed and which is enthusiastically marketed by the online rugby media, is one of behemoth schoolboy players, superbly conditioned and skilled, playing for a limited number of “super” schools who all compete against each other, more or less. Even though there’s no national competition, rankings are drawn up and there’s no doubt that those schools play for the South African championship crown.

There has been talk of a national league being introduced and there are festivals at which those top schools play – those are the products, constantly being refined, that keep the consumers hooked. Winning is openly and unashamedly the dominant value and a blind eye is turned to all sorts of unethical and uneducational practices in the pursuit of success.

It’s a million miles removed from the original intention of rugby as part of an extra-curricular, enrichment programme at schools that’s meant to supplement classroom teaching, to instill certain healthy lifestyle habits and to guide young people in the formation of their outlook on life.

The thinking I’ve been doing while there’s no real rugby going on has been around how this forced break might be an opportunity to decide on what is really important and to reboot the system. Schools and educationalists should make those decisions, not the marketers and profiteers of the school rugby system that have emerged in recent years.

I may dreaming, I probably am, but I think there are many in education who will agree. When I speak to principals and coaches about these things, many of them roll out the old “Lance Armstrong” excuse, saying everyone else is doing it, so they too have to professionalise their approach to rugby. I know they know better – there are brilliant educationalists among them – but they feel trapped by the system, which is the system’s intention.

Let’s hit Ctrl, Alt +Delete and when we come back online let’s make rugby a school activity like it was meant to be again – educational, honest, ethical and community-based. Kick the marketers and their professionally packaged products into touch and let the boys enjoy the game at the appropriate level again.