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#Post#: 104174--------------------------------------------------
Re: Ethnicity in British Rugby
DIR By: championes
Date: February 13, 2023, 11:41 am
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--- Quote from: Bex Bissell link ---
>
> Was interesting that Sundays ENG/ITA match that only one
player on the pitch pre-ko that 'took the knee'
>
--- End Quote ---
Not sure it’s relevant to this thread really.
#Post#: 104175--------------------------------------------------
Re: Ethnicity in British Rugby
DIR By: Quinky
Date: February 13, 2023, 11:51 am
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--- Quote from: championes link ---
>
> Just from personal experience rugby seems to attract fewer
people from those backgrounds at far more levels than football
at the moment.
>
> In football you see huge levels of participation from people
with Asian heritage at amateur level but very few end up either
a) pursuing or b) being successful in pursuing it further -
which has been linked to role models, cultural differences etc.
>
> The PFA released something not too long ago (last year some
time) that said less than 0.5% of the 15000 academy and pro
players in England are from a south Asian background (for
example).
>
> In rugby my guess is that there's even less participation at
lower levels - certainly (admittedly only anecdotally from our
experience as part of a club) the clubs around Twickers and the
teams we play against I'd say it's rare to see.
>
> However, as you might imagine, cricket is the opposite (at
least at amateur level). Twickenham and many many other clubs
around here are majority Asian. I think there are stats that
show something like 1/3 of all amateur players in the UK have
south Asian heritage.
>
> But again cricket sees the same thing as football which is
that only a tiny fraction of that number go on to professional
careers (with the ECB and others agreeing that it can't be
attributed to lack of talent). It's still true that you're far
more likely to make it in professional cricket if you're one of
the 6-7% who go to a fee paying school, for example.
>
--- End Quote ---
Growing up in Slough, it was interesting to note that although
shool rugby had it's share of players from ethnic minorities,
local clubs had less so. But then cricket and hockey were not
just the opposite, but actually more extreme (if that's the
right word) in the mix.
In 1980 the Slough team won the national championship and went
on to with the (then) European club title.
#Post#: 104185--------------------------------------------------
Re: Ethnicity in British Rugby
DIR By: Bolly-Quin
Date: February 13, 2023, 3:13 pm
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In my School 1st XV, many years ago, we had a Bahraini, an
Iranian, a Nigerian, 2 Anglo-Indians (I was one) and an Aussie.
Very successful year apart from v Bryanston, who had David Trick
on the wing in his "Oxbridge Year"; we beat Kings Bruton for the
first time in 40 years and Sir took us to watch aforementioned
D. Trick play at Bath, midweek, and we all got jolly tipsy...
There was a Sri Lankan chap in the 2nd XV.
#Post#: 104195--------------------------------------------------
Re: Ethnicity in British Rugby
DIR By: Quinky
Date: February 14, 2023, 5:47 am
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I think what people don't often consider is that any perceived
restriction on people choosing a particular sport is at home.
Not that it's necessarily a restriction, but more o an
influence. If you parents, siblings etc play a particular sport,
then you're moe likely to gravitate towards it. My siblings
played football and rugby. Hard to believe, but my football was
even worse than my rugby... I tried both, but preferred the
rugby for many reasons. I had friends at school whose family
weekend included a visit to the local cricket or hockey clubs,
often to see a family member play. Unsurprisingly, they opted
for those sports in most cases.
Then you get those horrible people who seem to be really good at
lots of sports... (envy alert!)
#Post#: 104198--------------------------------------------------
Re: Ethnicity in British Rugby
DIR By: Yareet
Date: February 14, 2023, 6:21 am
---------------------------------------------------------
--- Quote from: Quinky link ---
>
> I think what people don't often consider is that any perceived
restriction on people choosing a particular sport is at home.
Not that it's necessarily a restriction, but more o an
influence. If you parents, siblings etc play a particular sport,
then you're moe likely to gravitate towards it. My siblings
played football and rugby. Hard to believe, but my football was
even worse than my rugby... I tried both, but preferred the
rugby for many reasons. I had friends at school whose family
weekend included a visit to the local cricket or hockey clubs,
often to see a family member play. Unsurprisingly, they opted
for those sports in most cases.
>
> Then you get those horrible people who seem to be really good
at lots of sports... (envy alert!)
>
--- End Quote ---
That’s exactly what I meant by cultural blocks.
To echo your situation, I grew up in Rugby League land. My rugby
club was literally under the M62.
All my mates were footballers. It was the era of Rush, Dalglish,
etc..
But my old man was a prop so I was only ever exposed to union. I
was taken along to mini rugby at 5. We only watched union at
home. I had posters of Moore, Richards, Skinner, Clarke and
Ojomoh.
I don’t think I’ve ever even played a game of League or watched
a whole match on TV.
And to play football, you had to “have a perm and an earring.”
(Poppa Yareet, c.1982)
#Post#: 104245--------------------------------------------------
Re: Ethnicity in British Rugby
DIR By: Kermitpower
Date: February 15, 2023, 5:02 am
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Why is there a sense that everything has to result in equality
of outcome?
We have a handful of lads in my son's age group of SE Asian
heritage. They're a part of the team as much as everyone else.
One got put forward for Quins Academy trials (which, as a
percentage of those put forward, far outweighed equal
representation) but sadly didn't get picked. There was no
sinister reason for that; his dad said he just didn't really
have his best day on the day. He's still playing rugby at club
and school and loving it.
In 15 years of involvement in age grade rugby, I have only once
seen an issue that made me feel that anyone I've come across was
anything other than completely colour-blind when it comes to the
ethos that rugby is for everybody, and the immediate reaction of
that lad's coaches and club made it absolutely obvious that it
was completely unacceptable to them as well.
Others' experience may differ, of course, but in my opinion,
trying to read anything at all into the numbers of players at
the professional level from any given ethnic heritage is
completely pointless, as the numbers of players are so small as
to make any such attempt statistically irrelevant at a
mathematical level.
The Quins Academy system (and I'm sure that of all the other
clubs as well) is often utterly ruthless when it comes to
cutting young players and crushing their dreams, but from what
I've seen of it, those decisions are 100% focused on identifying
and bringing through the best possible future players,
regardless of their background.
#Post#: 104246--------------------------------------------------
Re: Ethnicity in British Rugby
DIR By: poorfour
Date: February 15, 2023, 5:49 am
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I'm aware of a fair few players coming through the age grades on
both the boys and girls' sides.
One of my son's friends is half Japanese. He played in the World
Schools Championships before Christmas and has been invited for
Scotland U18 trials (he qualifies for several nations through
ancestry, so we'd always joked that he had the best chance of
playing internationally).
My daughters play with a pair of Sikh sisters; the elder one
played county U15s this year and was comfortably the best back
on the pitch in her matches. She's taken time off this year to
fix a dodgy shoulder, but if that's successful I'd expect her to
play to a very high level and her sister could well follow suit
when she's old enough. As a family they were very competitve
judoka at one point but turned to rugby instead.
Part of the challenge, I think is that there's no real rugby
heritage in a lot of Asian communities. Just for interest, I
took a look at Leicester's academy squad. I wondered if, given
there's a big Asian community in Leicester, some of them might
have made it into the academy... but no. If anything, the
largest minority group appears to be redheads.
Equality of outcome is important because if it's measured it
forces organisations to ask "why?". If your academy output
doesn't reflect the diversity of your catchment area, then why
not? Are you missing out on a talent pool that you could be
tapping?
I caught a lift back from one of my coaching courses with one of
the RFU Community officers who first spotted Kyle Sinckler. He
said that at the time the Quins academy coaches had no awareness
of the talent outside the private school sector had took some
persuading to take a look at a young Sinck. It was an eye-opener
for them in terms of casting the net wider in looking for
talent.
#Post#: 104247--------------------------------------------------
Re: Ethnicity in British Rugby
DIR By: Fearless Fred
Date: February 15, 2023, 5:55 am
---------------------------------------------------------
The main cause of a disparity between representation in the
professional leagues and the population at large isn't down to
the clubs or their academies, I think. It's the pathways for
youngsters to get to that point in the first place, alongside
some societal pressures.
First off, rugby is a minority sport (as much as we would like
it to be otherwise). Even at independent schools, it's not
always on the first winter sport option that the school offers.
The school I went to (independent fee paying) offered Hockey as
the main sport when I was there (it's since now added football).
This is a school that's less than 6km as the crow flies from the
centre spot on Twickenham Stadium pitch & what you would think
of as the archetypal school that would offer Rugby, but it
doesn't. It's easy to understand why schools do this, for safety
reasons, ease of getting all the kids involved, etc. It's a lot
harder to get kids into playing a sport that they don't already
play in some form at their schools regularly.
Secondly, I know it is anecdotal, but I'm sure there are
pressures from families of a SE Asian background for their
children to excel academically, more so than the UK average. If
the kids are being pushed to spend spare time studying, there's
less time for them to get involved in local clubs.
#Post#: 104251--------------------------------------------------
Re: Ethnicity in British Rugby
DIR By: Brown Bottle
Date: February 15, 2023, 7:08 am
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--- Quote from: Fearless Fred link ---
>
> ...
>
> This is a school that's less than 6km as the crow flies from
the centre spot on Twickenham Stadium pitch & what you would
think of as the archetypal school that would offer Rugby, but it
doesn't.
>
> ...
>
--- End Quote ---
Feltham YOI?
#Post#: 104256--------------------------------------------------
Re: Ethnicity in British Rugby
DIR By: Fearless Fred
Date: February 15, 2023, 7:21 am
---------------------------------------------------------
--- Quote from: Brown Bottle link ---
>
> Feltham YOI?
>
--- End Quote ---
Hahaha! Nope! that "august establishment" is 6.6km away from the
centre spot of TW Stadium...
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