Be kind when you play a weaker school - they are important to you

Here’s something I’ve been going on about for a long time – no school rugby game should ever be allowed to get to a score of 114-0!

It happened in an U14B game on Saturday. What would have happened is that the winning team scored their 1^st try directly from the first kick-off, followed by another from the next and the next – for the entire game. There might have been a few seconds here and there when the losers did have possession and tried to do something but they would have been smashed by the defence.

I’m not making it up. I’ve seen it happen. The weaker team has no way of slowing down the scoring, and someone, apparently, carefully keeps the tally. It’s an abomination and none of the adults who were there while it was happening should be allowed anywhere near a rugby field where kids are playing ever again, starting with the referee. They can’t be trusted to have the interests of the children at heart, and I would encourage the parents not to allow their children to play rugby again when they are around.

Once it becomes clear that the one teams cannot defend itself, the game should be stopped, and I don’t care if it’s still in the first half. The point has been made, the lesson has been learnt and it doesn’t do anyone any good to let it go on.

Now that I’ve got that off my chest, let’s consider how such mismatches happen. The principle of strength vs strength is a cornerstone of sport. It clearly wasn’t applied here. Why? Because school sport isn’t about winning and losing. Fixtures between schools are about community. They have to do with traditional relationships, with giving players an opportunity to play against those who may have been in primary school with, about laying the foundations for lasting friendships and associations later in life.

In the past, before elite schools emerged, all the schools in the community played each other - you stayed in your own town, mainly, and your fixture list stayed the same, year after year. Not anymore. Some schools invest heavily in their rugby programmes and they do many of things that happen in professional rugby. Other schools cannot do that, they fall behind, and the talented players don’t attend them – and if they do, they are soon lured away.

So, as an elite rugby school, there’s increasingly no-one to play against in your town and the traditional rugby fixture list has turned into a schedule of festivals and out of town tours. The danger is that you will eventually only play those sorts of games. Look at Grey College. There are no Bloemfontein schools they play against anymore.

That means you don’t have a community of opponents. You play in some sort of super league and you have no other meaningful contact with the schools you play against. Against that background, you find that those fixtures against local opponents that do survive become special and should be handled very carefully.

Once you have decided that it’s important to continue the fixture, you, as the stronger school. have to make it worthwhile for your opponents. The management of these contests is different to your games against your super league opponents.

Here’s what I think. The objective is that you want the management of the other school to say: “We lost just about every game, and the 1^st team got a hiding, but that was a good fixture, we’ll be back again next year.”

For them to do that, you have to be kind. A wise colleague pointed out when I was espousing these views to her, that you have to be kind in everything you do, as a school. Who can argue with that? Certainly you have to be kind to your opponents on match day. Save your hard-nosed and aggressive attitudes for the schools that are challenging your position in the rankings.

Play to win – it would be an insult to the opponents if you didn’t – but show a little empathy. And it won’t be a slight on your prowess if you show some mercy. Don’t put the boot in when your man is down, and tell your coaches and referees to stop the game when the score gets out of hand.

And, of course, there is no room for bullying or arrogance – not from coaches, players or spectators.

Be unfailingly polite and respectful. You have a better rugby programme and better players, that doesn’t make you better people.

Tell the other school how important they are to you (because they are) and how much you appreciate them. Maybe then they’ll want to come back next year.

And blow the runaway games short!