I don't think I've ever seen Will so angry

[buff]

Will Greenwood is usually a fairly calm type of guy. Not about this, obviously

http://www1.skysports.com/watch/video/9172481/greenwood-fuming-over-rugby-report

You can search the Sky rugby site for the report that set him off.

Does this have much traction over there?

 

[Stuartg]

I agree with every word he says. We have stopped kids from doing so many fun things.

When my son was small he, and his friend used to build oven from bricks and have fires. They learned that fire is hot and can burn, they learned to assess the risks. Did they come to grief? NO!

At the age of 10 we started letting him,cycle to school. At the start he cycled 30m in front of us and he decided when to cross the roads. Once we were happy he could make the right decisions he was on his own.

He's now 27 and he's said to us that we are not like other parents. We gave him the responsibility and the room in which to experiment, learn from his mistakes and take risks. He's a confident adult willing to try new things. Currently he's undertaking voluntary work as a doctor in East Timor.

I was a maths teacher for 35 years and I saw so many kids paralised by the fear of making errors. I used to write on the board whnever I got a new sixth form the following
"Before you learn how to succeed you must first learn how to fail."

 

[Browner]

http://m.skysports.com/article/rugbyunion//9172559

Regurgitates the same "trigger an inquiry" quote from Prof Allyson Pollock that the telegraph included in this report 30 months ago....

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/c...safety-issues-head-on.html#.Tm8V3-Fl-20.email

She has a point. Professional techniques are coached into kids, we've all seen it. The physical needs of pro sport mean the entry level apprentice pro player is steadily distancing physically from a prepubescent 13 yr old, but the time gap never shortens .

To be fair her 'independence' has much greater credibility than WG if he earns the majority of his income from the sport.

Ban it, of course not.... Modify the junior game , probably.

 

[oldman]

Although I now live in London I grow up in a small village in the midlands. We caught a service bus to school, if I spent my bus fare on sweets ( a not uncommon event) I walked home. My choice.
I played football with my mates on the village playing field, I got hurt, again my choice.
I played in the dirt, I had a bath no problem
I got into a fight (again not an uncommon event) my problem.
I got kept in after school again my problem.
I played sport and learnt all the things sport teaches you.
What did I learn? Life is not easy, but if you get knocked down you get up and try again.
I have three children, they went to their grandparents and played football, got dirty, got into trouble at school. At the moment one is in the RAF, he says doing well but is happy, one is at University planning to spend time in New zealand when she graduates. The youngest is still at school but planning to see the world prior to Uni.
As my mother often said 'Never say I wish, go out and do it'

 

[Ian_Cook]

I agree with every word he says. We have stopped kids from doing so many fun things.

I also agree 100% with WG. There are far too many sandal-wearing, well meaning ninnies running education in the western world, wrapping kids in cotton wool and producing a generation of helpless, poorly adjusted young adults.

I was a maths teacher for 35 years and I saw so many kids paralised by the fear of making errors. I used to write on the board whnever I got a new sixth form the following
"Before you learn how to succeed you must first learn how to fail."

You wouldn't get away with that these days, because "fail" is a banned word. Children no longer fail, they have "deferred success"

Some of them end up deferring it indefinitely.

 

[SimonSmith]

The subject came up in the Scottish Review:
http://www.scottishreview.net/MichaelElcock140.shtml

They were generous enough to publish my response

http://www.scottishreview.net/TheCafe142.shtml


​

 

[didds]

You wouldn't get away with that these days, because "fail" is a banned word. Children no longer fail, they have "deferred success"

Some of them end up deferring it indefinitely.

similar with RFU awards. Coaches do not fail, they are "Not Yet Competent" (NYC)

didds

 

[Browner]

The subject came up in the Scottish Review:
http://www.scottishreview.net/MichaelElcock140.shtml

They were generous enough to publish my response

http://www.scottishreview.net/TheCafe142.shtml


The central issue is.. How you safely provide competitive sport for everyone, yet prepare and supply entry apprentices into the pro game.

You often hear "made a man of me...helped me grow... etc" uttered by lots of 50 yr olds, but they weren't subjected to the rigours of modern rugby as a 13-18 yr old.

Pro rugby influences jnr rugby there is no doubt, coach expertise,intensity,technique,power etc . anyone with detailed knowledge will tell you a u19 'county player' of 2014 will be better prepared, coached, techniqued, physically trained, than a international u19 player of 1985.

Notwithstanding , I accept the players of 1955 were similarly behind the 1985 mob, but the physical differences at the top level weren't so vastSo perhaps it reflects society 'progress' !

The main difference was playing rugby socialised careers, now its become the career, both on & off the grass for some, and with this evolution comes all the ill's of money cascaded / filtering down.

Would modern rugby grab me as it grabbed me then?, no - i honestly dont think it would ! which may be at the root of the shrinking of the community game.​

 

[Jarrod Burton]

similar with RFU awards. Coaches do not fail, they are "Not Yet Competent" (NYC)

didds

When I started my apprenticeship in 2001 TAFE Tasmania (technical school) had introduced a new testing regime. First test was normal, closed book. If you failed you got another go, but only had to do the questions you got wrong. Failed it again and you got one more go, after you had paid $20 retest fee, again only those remaining questions that you got wrong. The worst part of it was that the majority of the questions were multiple-guess and you got to reuse your old tests in the retests.

Some of the class failed several tests several times but are now fully "qualified" electricians. One of the teachers told me that failing apprentices didn't happen any more because their employer and TAFE complained, and at the time the performance review process was directly linked to number of passes rather than teacher ability - which in my opinion - is not related to student outcomes in an adult environment.

I see far too often kids who fail once and disappear from sport, or find its a tiny little bit too hard and give up without any effort. It makes me angry as the parents of these kids are often the most vocal when they see a perceived injustice on the sports field and have even had threats from a parent of being reported because I was too harsh on their darling - who I had YC'd for a high tackle!

 

[SimonSmith]

I was lucky. My mother played hockey to a very senior representative level. My sporting moral compass was very well set from an early age

 

[menace]

As a kid/teenager I grew up in a small coastal town and did many risky things
- at 12 + I used to go to the surf/beach all day long without a parent
- paddle the canoe up the river without lifevests or any floatation devices, and skive about
- ride my bike without a helmet on the streets at night without lights (rust bucket bikes with no brakes and ride no hands of course! Crashed a lot)
- go rock fishing in some pretty dangerous spots (often putting my life at risk to catch a bloody fish)
- dig underground cubbies in sand dunes (god knows how they didn't collapse...but learnt a bit of engineering by trial and error)
- make treehouses (managed to keep the saw and axe from my limbs, and stay up the tree)
- catch poisonous juvenile snakes with my hands (red belly and copperhead) - no idea how I never got bitten!
- have sling shot fights with mates (I lost an eye...but from another freak incident not involving sling shots)
- throw aerosol cans into the fire
- smoked wacky-tobacie
- drove under influence
- roof rocked the locals just so that they knew teenagers lived in their town too (only got clipped in the ear once when one adult caught us)

After all that I came out at the end fit and healthy (but a few battle scars :biggrin, stayed out of big trouble, and have a good job and a whole lot wiser for what I learnt as a kid.
God I loved my childhood BUT I shudder to the core now that I have kids if they ever did what I did (im dying to tell them my stories, but dont want them copying them!). I try not to over protect them, but I admit it's hard to let them have the free reign my parents gave me. I think parents have a right to stop their kids doing certain things, even rugby. I just don't think they have a right to tell everyone else what they should or shouldn't be doing. We all assess the scale of 'risk and consequence' differently. No point getting angry at them because you don't agree with their opinions or parenting style.