In or Out!

As expected, current players have a significantly greater interest and level of involvement in rugby than past players and, in turn, non-players.

In order to determine the boys’ overall interest in rugby, all subjects were asked to rate their attitude towards the game on a five-point scale from one to five.

Eight in 10 current players rated rugby with the best possible score on this scale that is, ‘Like it a lot – love it’ (81%), with most of the others stating they ‘Somewhat liked it’ (14%). This is a significantly more positive result than the result for past players and especially for non-players, with only 30% and 9% respectively stating they ‘Like it [Rugby] a lot – love it’.

To explain why a teenager plays rugby or not, researchers divided the subject’s responses into two categories – push and pull. The pull factors are drawing players toward the sport and the push factors are pushing players away.

PULL FACTORS

The key reasons teenage males play rugby are relatively easy to spot in a wide list of motivations.

• Social Aspects

They love the social aspect that rugby gives them. Or as they would say – “I like hanging out with me boys”.

It’s what most team sports impart to their participants because joining a rugby team is a great way to connect with others. There are several reasons for this. First, the teen and their team are all playing together, with the same set of rules and a common goal. They learn to trust each other on the field and as they get to know one another they play off each other’s strengths.

Rugby is played by a variety of people, but they instantly share a common point of interest.

They don’t have to worry about making chitchat in order to bond, because the game helps with that. As a result, they have common ground to go over in changing room and beyond.

But don’t tell them sports helps them get along socially. Teens struggle with many social graces, and sports can help teach them about interacting with other people, learning to take the spotlight without arrogance and handling losses with humility. As they play, they learn to understand the benefits of giving other players the chance to shine. All of this is invaluable when it comes to making lasting friendships.

• Achievement

Achievement rates high as a reason to play rugby – “We have had a good season”.

Achievement has traditionally been filled with two differing points of view. At one end there is the belief that winning is worthless in teen sports and at the other end is the belief that winning is the only thing that matters. Our teens rate the importance of achievement somewhere between these two principles.

There can be too much emphasis on winning, however those who support the view that winning is not important often miss the point that without an attempt to win, the pursuit is no longer sport. The lifeblood of sport is striving to win - without that driving force, the pursuit is a different creature.

But teens also see winning as relevant only in the perspective it was achieved. Winning against teams of much lower skill levels normally does little to excite or be meaningful.

A team can operate well and still finish second and conversely a team can perform poorly yet still win because the opponent also failed to perform well.

Some teens would prefer to play for a losing team than sit on the bench of a winning team. We will address this later in the book.

• Fun and Enjoyment

Fun and enjoyment is one of the major reasons we all play sport, and this is no different to teens – “Having a good time”.

All of us want to have fun. But what does fun mean, exactly? For some people, fun is about running around having a laugh, throwing balls in the air, playing silly games and acting like a twit.

Is it fun to get fit by doing a lot of kilometres around a park, run in the rain, practise over and over, and get knocked over by the opposition? Maybe, maybe not!

Teens see fun as learning how to enjoy themselves wherever they are and whatever they are doing – so for the purpose of this book we will lock in ‘enjoyment’ as the key word.

How adults interpret enjoyment is where things get murky!

• Competition and Challenge

Teenage boys also want a competition or challenge and interestingly – they said they wanted to “Win and smash people”. This is noteworthy because one of the reasons they don’t like the game is because they “Get smashed”.

Note – “Getting smashed” was a comment used by most teens so obviously they are givers rather than receivers.

The dynamics of rugby allow it to be a purpose-built challenge for teenage boys. The physical nature of rugby is seen by teens as what distinguishes rugby from other sports.

Rugby teens feel the unique, strong bond with each other.

“All members of the team are willing to put their bodies on the line – be it by getting tackled, tackling a player, or trying to tackle a much bigger player.”

Obviously when you talk about being competitive, debate on the importance of winning and whether it really matters naturally arises. Being a winner for many may be the most important thing they can do in their life, while for others it’s a chance to experience being the best they can be. We will also look into this later.

PUSH FACTORS

The key reasons boys will not play rugby is because they don’t enjoy the social aspect of being in a team. They dislike being criticised by the coach or teammates; being put down, told they aren’t good enough, sitting on the bench and some of their peers trying to take charge.

They also have, as we pointed out earlier, competing demands. Remember the demands for a teen is probably a little different to what adults call demands, but they perceive their world to be a busy domain.

Enter the ever-increasingly busy world of today’s teenagers. A world of super-sized everything, hyper-academia, extracurricular activities, personal calendars and a variety of social circles. Part-time jobs, other sports and school work can also conflict with practice and game times.

A lot of the teens felt they didn’t feel a sense of achievement or accomplishment. Losing lots of games or losing by a large margin didn’t give them a lot of satisfaction and not getting much game time also registered as a turn-off for rugby.

Getting injured or feeling there was a high risk of getting injured didn’t feature as high as we would have thought but it was still a factor in teenagers not wanting to play rugby. Many of the boys indicated injury was not the sole indictment, rather it had more to do with the time away from other activities and feeling left out if the injury was long-term.

If a player gets injured halfway through the season, by the time they are back playing it’s the next season. They no longer consider themselves as part of the team and the group as they knew it has moved on.

A worrying trend was one in four committed players considered quitting for all the reasons above and ‘at risk’ players were significantly less happy.

But what was consistent throughout the research, was teens desperately wanted to be with their mates! A simple fact but one that has a lot of implications.

So, what exactly was going to keep them in the game? We asked them, and the teens gave us some points to consider.