For the sport of Rugby Union, it has certainly been a momentous year, and the excitement around the sport is only set to continue leading up to next year’s Rugby World Cup.
The news of England beating Canada 21-9 in Paris to capture the 2014 Women’s Rugby World Cup has no doubt gave solid foundations for those planning to introduce more women to the sport, as women’s rugby gathers more interest through international success.
Additionally, the upcoming 2015 Rugby World Cup held in England has also demonstrated how the sport’s popularity is ever-growing.
After the organising committee of the tournament, England Rugby 2015, revealed that a total 950,000 tickets were sold in September’s general sale.
Everything seems to be flowing smoothly in the professional sphere, but as with every sport, the majority of obstacles faced are at grass roots level, these often include issues of participation, education or training.
The Rugby Football Union’s National Youth Council aims to highlight the issues in youth rugby nationwide and seek to highlight the views of young people within the sport.
The council are a group of 16-24 year olds.
Council Member Sam Strickson, 21, said: “With up to 1million young people having access to rugby through schools and colleges by 2019, the RFU believes it is vital that young people impact the decision making process and have their say across England Rugby.”
The NYC will act as a consultative body for the RFU at a national level.”
He added that a key area for council focus was the retention of players aged 16-24.
“With such high profile events such as the Women’s World Cup victory and the upcoming 2015 World Cup, we hope to use these as tools to get more people into rugby union.”
He added how World Cups have helped participation to increase before: “The 2003 World Cup Victory for England in Australia gave a huge boost to the profile of the sport.
“More people were getting involved in all areas of rugby, playing, coaching, and refereeing.”
12 years on from the historic victory led by the likes of Martin Johnson and Jonny Wilkinson, next year’s final held at Twickenham looks to be a momentous occasion, after 500,000 ticket applications were received by tournament organisers.
Stuart Lancaster’s squad has arguably undergone a huge improvement over the last year, and the head coach presumably has his sights set on challenging the likes of New Zealand, Australia and South Africa for the trophy.
Strickson added: “Working as a youth insight focus group for the RFU, having a direct influence on new RFU initiatives and projects is another council focus. Collectively, we felt that the council’s main purpose should be to provide an opinion from a youth prerogative.”
The RFU values the opinion of young people, especially when they are dealing with issues surrounding young people in rugby, there is a logical sense to approaching people of a similar age to the people your work will have the most impact on.”
Current RFU concern surrounds the safeguarding of concussion, after ex-England centre Shontayne Hape retired after suffering more than 20 concussions in his playing brought on depression.
However it was highlighted that this was not the concern of the Youth Council.
“In regards to concussion, the youth council has very little involvement with the campaign and it is away from the work strand.”
“Work which is being put forward from the National Youth Council surrounds youth volunteers, and trying to get young people being part of their club committees to have a say in what needs to be put into place in order retain the youth in Rugby” Strickson added.
