SRU encouraged by target-beating rise in Scots rugby player numbers, particularly among youths

SCOTTISH rugby may be struggling to attract major TV and sponsorship interest, but ahead of tomorrow's 2010 AGM the SRU has announced a significant rise in the numbers of rugby players across the country.

• Gordon McKie

When Scottish rugby first carried out a detailed audit of the playing numbers in 2006, a year after Gordon McKie swept into Murrayfield atop a new governance system, the startling statistic of 9,000 adult players was produced and taken as more evidence of the game's worrying decline. No-one was quite sure what the figure had been before that, but it did not take any accounting skills to appreciate the drop in the number of teams within clubs and schools that a decade or two earlier had sent out 5th and 6th XVs regularly.

The SRU set out to drive up participation levels within its five-year strategic plan, launched in 2007, with a target of 38,000 players in total, male and female from Primary Four to adult levels, to attain by 2012. The target was set for their own development officer and manager network working in tandem with clubs and schools, and the statistics are provided by an online registration system that goes as far as spotting duplicates and eliminating them if a player is registered with more than one club and/or school.

There was scepticism that the SRU could achieve that target in that time-frame, which explains why McKie, the SRU's chief executive, was particularly delighted with new figures produced yesterday that revealed a 64 percent rise in youth rugby players, from 15,200 in 2006 to 25,000 in 2010. Combined with the adult rise, that has taken the total four years ago from 24,200 to 38,500.

McKie was quick to state that these new numbers do not include those youngsters that turned up for a fleeting moment at a rugby festival, or were taken for a rugby lesson in a school, never to see a rugby ball again.

He insisted: "There is a difference in this audit of figures to that of festivals and other events aimed purely at attracting people to the sport.

"The whole reporting of players and the online registration system we now use was designed in consultation with clubs so the information comes from them, but it has also been subjected to much more scrutiny than it ever was. That (38,500] is what we believe the number to be, though it's rounded of course, and we do believe the trend is growing year on year.

"The growth has come through a wide range of initiatives, from Rugby Champions, care of Scottish Widows Bank, other schemes in place with primary schoolkids, street rugby; from more clubs playing rugby and clubs having more teams, which means more volunteers helping to bring through a new generation of young rugby players, so overall, with the help of people across the game in Scotland, we have reached our strategic target for participation two years earlier than we thought we would."

These figures do only go back to 2006 and many in the game will easily remember the days when many more players turned out each weekend. Virtually every sport, however, has suffered a fall in numbers in recent times. The drop-off in the 16 to 19-year-old bracket has harmed the flow to adult rugby, and had the knock-on effect of reducing quality right through the levels.

That, and a glance at how far Scotland lag behind the leading rugby nations in terms of player numbers, underlines the importance of growing the game through youth levels. According to the SRU, the number of schools regularly playing rugby in Scotland has risen from 184 in 2008 to over 240 in 2010.

This is due in part to a state school programme, run in partnership with the Scottish Widows Bank, which rewards and supports staff who give up their time to take extra-curricular rugby while providing free training kit to the school as the sport develops.

Scottish Rugby head of community rugby, Colin Thomson, himself a former PE teacher, said: "We have channelled a lot of energy into developing state school rugby and through our regional network supported by sportscotland, in partnership with clubs and local authorities, have delivered over 19,000 rugby sessions to over 180,000 primary and secondary school children in the last year alone. Together we fund a network of 75 club development officers around Scotland who develop and grow rugby at all levels in their area and these figures are testimony to their shared success."

Thomson argues that more long-term support from local and central government is crucial to maintaining the upward trend in player numbers.

He added: "Sport can play a huge role in the development of young people, teaching respect, self-confidence, motivation, discipline and determination, while binding social communities and offering a sense of belonging.

"If we're serious about sport moving towards the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, we should be serious about state school sport because if we don't do it in our state schools we won't get anywhere."

But the health of Scottish rugby is all inter-linked. Scotland are now seventh in the IRB world rankings, but know they have a battle on their hands to stay there. The other pressing challenge is therefore to improving the quality of competition through the youth levels to create a better quality of player and team from club through to Andy Robinson's Test side.

It is certainly easier to do this with an increasing number of players to choose from.