What schools don’t want you to know about rugby

Today, I have joined 70 doctors and academics in writing to the government calling for a ban on tackling in rugby matches, saying that injuries from this ‘high-impact collision sport’ can have lifelong consequences for children. I speak from both professional and personal experience.

I remember as if it were yesterday, that autumn afternoon 11 years ago when my son’s school phoned me at work to tell me my child had been injured and hospitalised for a second time while playing rugby. I was sickened, upset, anxious and angry. School should be a safe place for children. The first time my son was injured the school had described it as ‘bad luck’ and promised that he would play in the third and fourth teams where he would be less at risk of injury. But on that day, the firsts were a boy short due to injury, my son was fast and a winger and the obvious choice, and so he was taken out of the middle of the match he was playing in the thirds and played as a substitute in the first team.