Eastern Counties Rugby Union

You may remember at the end of last month’s Game Growth article in the EC Notebook we ended with two questions.

“If you were developing the game for a new era, what would it look like and when would it be played”?

This was presented to the new player retention group as this,
Imagine that the whole game had never happened, and you were watching a game of football where a young lad wasn’t getting much of the ball. He decides to get noticed, he’ll pick it up and run with it under one arm. Several players try and stop him from ruining their game but as he approaches them, he puts out a hand and fends them off resulting in players going to ground. He gets to the goal line and dives over it placing the ball on the floor and then walks away never to be seen again.

How would you devise a game of rugby which is relevant to now and that people could enjoy playing? If you set aside the current model what would you create in its place?
a.Why play with regulated numbers?
b.Why play on a certain day when many can’t make it?
c.Why have so many confusing laws
d.Why have scrums :)

Item d was put in to spark a reaction from some of the old forwards at the meeting and it certainly caused a bit of a stir. The point being, it's very difficult to start from scratch without thinking about what we have done in the past. Rather than just try something, we look and see a structure, we see difficulties and think If we do that it will affect this.
One of the biggest difficulties is that we are dealing with a game and clubs that are steeped in tradition and for some part don’t want to change or don’t know how to change. That is something we need to look at. The club experience is everything and can make a big difference in retaining players.

Friday night lights games are now starting to crop up everywhere and seem a very good option for many players who are balancing family and work with playing the game. We are also organising cluster fixtures for seniors as well as colts which is giving clubs with a few players a chance to get together for much needed game time. Hopefully this is going to help retain players and allow clubs to recruit and build.

Whilst the player retention group was mainly set up to look at senior rugby its becoming quite apparent that we need to start looking a lot closer at the younger age groups and what difficulties clubs are having. With this in mind we are also looking at Schools and what part they play in growing the game at youth level. Its important for us to understand the differences between School and Club rugby and the experiences the player has in both environments.

If you have any questions for us or anything that you think needs talking about relating to growing the community game, we will be going around the counties to talk about what Community Game Growth is and what we are tasked with. There will also be a chance for group discussions on player retention and what you think the problems are.
The first of these open discussions will be held at the Suffolk Committee Meeting on Monday Dec 10th at Ipswich YM with visits to Norfolk and Cambridge early next year.
You can also contact me at gamegrowth@ecrurugby.com

Darren Wright – Chair Community Game Growth