While ever we have junior rugby played with a win at all cost attitude by coaches and parents then we havent a prayer of getting anywhere near. Mooch down to almost any junior rugby match and you will be amazed at the attitude of The majority of coaches and parents who are desperate to win and will do anything they can (cheating, putting pressure on referees often only a couple of years older than the kids, interpreting the rules to suit, refusing to maximise participation numbers to try gain and advantage, Tayloring pitch size to accommodate the fast kid etc) and much more. The good work done by a few is being outdone by the majority of who are living vicariously through their kids and hopin they prove how tough they are. The environment is shocking many times so it's no wonder that players generally seem to be from rugby families and newcomers are put off by the hostility they encounter.



We need to go to touch rugby up to probably the age of 10 maybe more to develop skills and craft but that won't happen as we've got to prove how tough we and at touch coaches can't give it to the big lad 3 times a set in the last 5 minutes to try and get the final score to win the game that makes everything ok.

Couldn't agree more.

Spot on.



It's not a lot better in Union if my experience of Sandal is anything to go by, but it is better.

Its is certainly the case that the depth of talent is no longer there, but yet we scrap the reserve grade. Go figure! The fact that we are discussing which generally mediocre player should be in instead of the selected mediocre player speaks volumes. There have been a few absentees who might have caused some difficulties, like Hardcore and Ben Currie, but this is the weakest national team I've seen for years. There isn't a single three-quarter who would trouble them. Johnstone wouldn't have troubled them either, because we never made a space.



The backs can only work something if the half-backs generate something, and with three partnerships in three games it was never going to happen. The only one who showed anything, and was man of the match, was benched for the crucial game.



For all Bennett's superstar status, he is the only national coach who has left a series with a feeling of being completely inept. The previous ones have just left us feeling with that we are just a bit behind them, and possibly catching up. I've never felt further behind and that the selection decisions over a three-game series were just bizarre. In the same series, he states that the England players don't believe in themselves, and in the same breath says they are not good enough.



For me, get rid and get someone who will at least instil some fire. Sometimes, that can be the difference.

Ask SL Chairmen about that one - in a collective act of shocking short-termism, they voted for it.



For me, a club that can't run a reserve grade team shouldn't be in SL - and if that means cuts to the 1st team playing budget, so be it.