Junior Leagues - full speed for the iceberg!

Details about next season's RFUW junior leagues have been revealed, along with next season's junior calendar, in a mailing to all junior clubs. The letters detail that the planned U15 Leagues will be as last year - ie. games for between 7 and 10-a-side [odd, I thought U15 rugby was a 13-a-side game?], however the U18 Leagues could be significantly different.

While - again - games will be for 10 to 15 a-side, clubs will not be able to enter the U18 league unless they have at least 18 registered players - and there will be separate leagues for "developed" and "developing" clubs. Alternatively (presumably if there are insufficient entrants in an area) there will be a "Challenge Series" of four festivals, with "friendlies" covering the rest of the season.

The state of the leagues was discussed last month, and given the decline in both competing clubs and completed games at U15 level "carry on regardless" does seem, at best, odd - especially when compared with what is proposed at U18 level. A similar system of festivals - what sounds a bit like the old "SW League" - would actually make far more sense at U15 level.

From information I have seen about the state of U15 rugby, after one year of the U13 scheme, there is little doubt that entries for the leagues will be even lower this year. Across East Anglia and Middlesex it is likely that there are probably three - at most four - entrants (and one of those will be a cluster) a truly appalling state of affairs when you consider how many U15 teams the region had before the RFUW began its leagues. And no - the decline is not a co-incidence. Not even slightly.

With so few entrants any club entering a U15 league is therefore likely to be faced with ludicrously long journeys to fulfil their fixtures - thus guaranteeing that many games will not take place, and so the spiral of decline will continue. Its crazy - why not just gather all the clubs together in one place for a 7s or 10s festival like, well, we used to do?

The decline of U15 rugby has clearly been accelerated in this area by U13 rugby, as this has ensured that clubs have even fewer players. There is little doubt that for club rugby in Hertfordshire the U13 scheme in  has not been a disaster but a complete catastrophe. Across the county surveys indicate that there are fewer than 20 U13s who have joined a club, and only one club would be remotely capable of fielding a team.... which means that that club has no one to play! Obviously the U13s could be all brought together at county level to form a county team (like we used to do with the U12s)... if the RFUW had not forbidden inter-county U13 rugby!

Will this madness never end? Well, clearly not as the Junior Calendar (see below) now has a whole host of dates set aside for inter-club U13 rugby! ROFL! It is a level of self-delusion that is mind-blowing.

Compared to this insanity and hole digging, the proposals for U18 leagues are actually remarkably imaginative. The  festival idea is an interesting proposal which would - in effect - return the running of U18 rugby to the counties and regions with a game based around friendlies and festivals. This will happen if insufficient clubs enter the main league in any area - a distinct possibility because of the minimum number of players needed to enter. I mean, even at the peak if the junior game, about 4-5 years ago, how many clubs were there that had 18 or more players at U18 level? Half a dozen, at best, nationwide?

The one snag, however, is that this requirement may well encourage the more ambitious coaches and pushy parents to drive to set up Super Clubs of the sort we saw in the discredited and unlamented National Cup, which would be a disaster for everyone else for reasons discussed too often on here.

So - what we could we look forward to next season? Potentially it is a disaster of Titanic proportions:

• Girls who have been playing mini rugby moving into U13s and giving up on the game either because they find that there is no rugby for them to play, or if there is its a weird form of the game that they thought they had left before at U9s;
• A tiny sprinkling of U13 girls joining a club having started playing at school, but giving up for much the same reasons as above;
• The odd club forming a U13 team... but finding there is no-one for them to play within at least 50 miles or more;
• U15 leagues, but with fewer clubs than last year, resulting in teams having to travel insane distances across country to play maybe one game of 7s;
• A small number of U18 super clubs cherry-picking the best players and playing in a national league.

Of course it may not all be like that. There are some potential lifeboats. U18 coaches may have the sense to consider all their players, and the game as a whole, ahead of the gleam of silverware and go for the festival model. And in Hertfordshire at least the county's internal U15 and U18 leagues and cluster events will continue - a fine example of what can be achieved if you ignore RFUW edicts and carry in regardless. Wouldn't it be great if the rest of the country could do the same?

Finally - the Youth Calendar for next season....

Girls' rugby: a health report

The RFUW's review of the U13 game, and the U15 and U18 leagues, has yet to report but responses to last week's item do seem to suggest that some people have doubts about the outcomes:

I am not convinced the RFUW survey will help anyone. I think the RFUW have fooled themselves with statistics as to how successful they are. We hear reports that more girls are now playing rugby due to the new U13 format. This is because RFU staff are going into schools and delivering programmes and counting these heads. They are not getting these kids to clubs and clubs are suffering.

The concern is that, while more girls are playing this introductory game at school, very few players are making their way into clubs - and that the club game, and especially the U15 age band, is struggling.

One way to test this - well, the only way - is to look at the number of clubs competing (club registrations mean little - it can often be little more than a statement of intent, the hope that a girls team will be formed - and as for player registrations... ROFL!). Fortunately the leagues have published results, and we can even compare this season with last. Not all teams play in the leagues, obviously, but the major teams probably do.

What is remarkable is the contraction in entries. For 2010/11 there were 9 U15 and 9 U18 leagues, with 54 and 57 clubs entered respectively. This season that had shrunk to 5 U15 and 6 U18 leagues, with 36 and 41 entries - a loss of a third of the U15 teams and a fifth of U18s.

However, that might be understandable. Last season the leagues were starting out and clubs were pretty much blackmailed to enter very early even if they did not know if they could make the games. So the lost teams means that for 2011/12 the leagues will have consolidated down to the strong well-established clubs.

Or you'd hope so. There is, however, one way of testing this. How many games have actually been played? last season, at the time we reviewed the league, 531 matches had been "played", of which 179 had ended in walkovers - just over a third (33.7% to be exact).

So - if in 2011/12 we have reduced the competition down to the strong and reliable then this walkover rate should have fallen. Dramatically.

The trouble is - the scary thing is - it hasn't. Overall 388 games are now recorded as being "played", and 114 have been walkovers - a small reduction (29.3%), but still roughly a third and hardly the sign of a healthy game.

Admittedly its a mixed picture. Some U18 leagues have gone very well - every game so far in London South has been played, and only one game in North U18s resulted in a walkover. But the U15s is a different matter - overall it is worse than last season. 66 out of 182 U15 games have been walkovers - 36%. In Midland U15 the opposition has failed to show up for nearly half the games - 15 out of 32 - and South and London North have been nearly as bad.

The implications of this are very worrying. Indeed. In 2010/11 a third of all games were walkovers, and the result was that a third of clubs failed to register for this season. If that pattern is followed in the future (and there seems no reason why this would not be the case)...

• In 2012/13 there will be 24 U15 teams and 30 U18 teams in 4 leagues
• By 2013/14 there will be 16 U15 teams and 23 U18 teams in 3 leagues
• By 2014/15 there will be 10 U15 teams and 18 U18 teams in 2 or 3 leagues...

Well, you get the idea.

Someone remind me - how many teams were there playing in the various very successful "unofficial" leagues - Surrey, and Thames Valley, and South West, and Midlands - before the experts in Twickenham thought they knew best and took it all over? And then decided to "help" the U15 age band by taking a third of its players away?

Its almost as if, embarrassed by the success of the national team, RFUW are determined to torpedo the game below the waterline by killing off junior girls' rugby. In fact I can't think of a better explanation...

RFUW plans next season

Details of the groupings for next seasons U15 and U18 leagues are out. Letchworth are not included - and are not along. The number of leagues in both age bands has shrunk significantly - down to six in both cases. North Eastern teams are particularly notable by their absence, and clubs from the South West are also rather thin on the ground:

U15 leagues:

	North		Midlands		Central
1	Tyldesley / Waterloo	1	Melbourne	1	London Irish
2	Liverpool St Helens	2	Hinckley	2	Welwyn
3	Eccles	3	Old Northamptonians	3	Berks Baa Baas
4	West Park Leeds	4	Spalding	4	Worcester
5	Vale of Lune	5	Wellingborough	5	Paviors
6	Manchester	6	Vixens	6	Oxford
7	Northwich	7	Ashby	7	Oxford Vale
8	Glossop	8		8
	South		London North		South East
1	Oakmeadians	1	Lakenham Hewett	1	Medway
2	Solent Sirens	2	Thurrock Chicks	2	Guildford / Camberley
3	Ellingham and Ringwood	3	Newmarket	3	Folkestone
4	South Sussex Barbarians	4	Rochford Hundred	4	O A Saints
5	Aylesford Bulls	5	Ealing Jades	5	Hertford
6	Swanage and Wareham	6	Saracens	6	Hackney

U18 leagues:

	South		North		Central
1	Oakmedians	1	Tyldesley / Waterloo	1	Paviors
2	Solent Sirens	2	Eccles	2	Lichfield
3	Ellingham and Ringwood	3	Preston G / Vale	3	Welwyn
4	South Sussex Barbarians	4	Manchester	4	Worcester
5	Aylesford / H 3	5	Bridgnorth	5	Berks Baa Baas
6	Swanage and Wareham	6	Liverpool St Helens	6	Oxford
7		7	West Park Leeds	7	London Irish
8		8	Glossop	8
	Midlands U18		London South		London North
1	Old Northamptonians	1	Thanet W	1	Newmarket
2	Aylestone St James	2	Folkestone	2	Lakenham Hewett
3	Sleaford	3	Medway	3	Thurrock Chicks
4	Hinckley	4	Guildford	4	Rochford Hundred
5	Vixens	5		5	Ealing Jades
6	Melbourne	6		6	Saracens
7	Eccleshall	7		7

Beyond that plans for the U13 band continue to exist in some strange parallel world. RFUW insist the new age band will be launched in September, despite there being...

• No coaches trained to teach the new game
• No referees trained to officiate the new game
• No school PE departments trained to offer the game (only six weeks to the end of term...)
• No sign of the promised DVD illustrating the new game (due to have been circulated last month)
• No documents of any sort, beyond the self-contradictory draft rules issued a few weeks ago
• No answer to many requests for information about the supposedly successful trails carried out last year
• No evidence that any girls involved in the above trials have moved into the U15 game

I could go on. Its like watching a runaway express train thundering down the line to certain doom, except in this case its fully manned by people quite capable of putting on the brakes but determined to go ahead because They Know Best.

What is even more remarkable is when you look at the cause of this..., well "lunacy" would not be pushing it. Overall rugby has lost players about 16% of its players over the past four years - but all of the loss seems to have been among adults. Junior player numbers (leaving aside one strange result in the 2008-9) are almost unchanged:

Once a month participation in rugby union, 18-19 year olds:

2007-08 - 34,600 players

2008-09 - 50,200 players

2009-10 - 35,600 players

2010-11 - 35,200 players

So its all very odd. Nothing seems to be being done to make changes the adult game where the "problem" is (and truth be told the loss of players will be entirely a men's problem), but instead RFUW are training their guns and risking all on the one area of the game where things are going quite well.

That is assuming it is a problem with rugby at all. Of 86 sports and past-times surveryed, 46 show a loss of players - and many are doing far worse than rugby. Rowing, weightlifting, rugby league, water-skiing, gymnastics - they have all lost over 30% of their players. What are the big gainers? Walking, body building, rafting, caving, cross training, judo, angling... If there is a theme here at all, it is a move from formal, organised sports and team sport to informal, individual past-times. It is a change affecting most sports, and is probably nothing to do with the nature of the sports and everything to do with how much spare time people can commit.

Its certainly nothing whatsoever to do with the physicality of rugby union!