Conclusion

Teenage rugby culture is conceived by a sense of brotherhood or sisterhood and camaraderie shared between players. It’s also the collective respect between all schools and teams which comes from their shared respect for the game.

Part of what draws people to the game is the rugby culture. It features a gracious and honourable combination of friendship, trustworthiness and respect not found as readily in other sports.

Supporters know it to be unique to rugby and players recognise it as something that makes them a little bit unique. Once a rugby player, always a rugby player.

Disengagement from rugby is a cumulative process with not one overwhelming factor driving participant drop off. Rather, a series of reasons tend to ‘grease the wheels’ of disengagement, with one small factor of discontent tipping players’ decisions to leave.

Teens are looking for a sense of achievement - winning is only a by-product, not the sole reason for playing. Take a stroll down any college halls and glance at the rows of First XV photos - how many of those teenagers made it to the top level? This may help put the game into perspective for you.

At the teenage level, our coaches are key to addressing a lot of these issues. Improved coaching would yield the greatest gains in retention rates of young people in rugby. NZ Rugby introduced a compulsory course for teenage coaches to try and give our coaches the support and training to help them in their roles.

But those who have the power to change things, beware, as any changes to the game will be felt as a loss and felt more keenly. So, we need to manage the narrative and discuss what we are adding to the game rather than taking away.

We believe taking the ‘voice’ of young people to parents and coaches is an effective way to challenge existing behaviour and spark change.

Simple eh?