Kids, Rugby and Risk

Oh, what fresh hell is this?

Rugby scrums should be banned in schools to protect children involved in a sport which is "not safe enough" for them, an expert has warned.

My God? You mean there's a risk attached to a contact sport? Fuck me, this is a revelation.

I mean, sweet Jesus Christ, this can hardly be news to anyone, surely? And to think people paid to have the research carried out. I could have told you that there is a risk of injury to kids playing rugby, and I'd have done it for the price of a pint of Fosters and some pork scratchings.

But the fact that there is a risk and that injuries do happen doesn't mean that something should be banned. After all, we're not talking about hundreds of kids being wounded a day by egg-chasing. No, we're talking about occasional injuries in a game - nothing more dramatic than that. And kids can get injured at any time, in any number of different ways. You cannot ban every single way in which they might possibly get injured. Not unless you stick them in a bubble and don't let them do anything.

Which is the point. Risk and injury are both parts of life. You can try as much as you like to hide this reality from kids, but you're never going to be able to make them perfectly safe and if you try, then you're arguably not preparing them for real life. At some point they're going to have to take a risk. And at some point they are going to be injured. Banning rugby scrums from schools is not going to change that...