Official Report 280KB pdf
Good morning and welcome to the 19th meeting this year of the Health and Sport Committee, which today is in the splendid surroundings of Murrayfield stadium. I remind all present to ensure that mobile phones and BlackBerrys are switched off. No apologies have been received.
It is not so much an opening statement; it is just a bit of history about my involvement in rugby from a young age up to the present. I started playing rugby at Lasswade Rugby Football Club as a six-year-old. Initially, it was a baby-sitting service—my parents were keen to get me out of the house on Sunday mornings and the club was about 100m from the house, so I was pushed towards that. When I got there, I was welcomed with open arms. It was a good club with a good youth system, as many clubs at the time had. There was a huge number of players in each age group and, crucially, a load of volunteers. There were three or four coaches for each team, from the under-10s to the under-12s, under-14s and under-15s and right through the whole club.
That is very helpful. You were nodding, Ms Kennedy. Do you want to give us a flavour of your pathway to where you are now?
It is interesting that Peter Wright started to play adult rugby when he was 16 or 17. I started playing when I was 19, so I had a different pathway although my background is similar to his. I played at Biggar high school, where, similarly, the team sports that were played were down to the choice of the PE teachers. My PE teacher was very much into hockey. The two PE teachers were husband and wife, and Mr Boyd was into boys' rugby—so, the boys got to play rugby and the girls got to play hockey. We also took part in athletics, and I played tug-of-war because I came from a farming community and had a farming background.
Thank you. Does Jim Hamilton want to say something?
Yes, thank you. It probably will not be as detailed as what Peter Wright and Donna Kennedy said. I will just give you an outline of what I have done. Obviously, I was brought up in England. I did not start playing rugby until I was 16. I played for a local club called Barkers Butts Rugby Club. I was not that talented as a rugby player, but I was quite fit and enjoyed being part of a team and so on. I went to a school in Coventry called Coundon Court secondary and community college, which was very football orientated, so there was no opportunity to play rugby there. However, being 6ft 8in, I was not that good at football.
Thank you very much. Are there any questions?
I have two questions, convener. The first is about football and rugby pitches in schools. From contact with people in my community, I know that some people want a rugby pitch and some want a football pitch, and sometimes they want both but they cannot have that. Would you like to comment on that?
Certainly. Looking at it from the Glasgow perspective, I know that some of the guys have come out of the schools to Glasgow Hawks, which is great. A lot of great work is being done in the schools, such as extensions and new builds. However, it seems to be that the land that is being used is pitches.
If anyone else on the panel wants to comment, just nominate yourself rather than waiting to be asked. Helen, did you have a second point?
The committee is looking not just at the competitive aspect of sport but at on-going sporting activity. It is interesting to learn, although I suppose it comes as no surprise, that 30 to 35 years old seems to be the cut-off point for a lot of competitive sports. Would you like to comment on that? When you are finished with rugby, what sort of sports do you do thereafter?
I would say that it would have to be something very relaxing after 14 years of being battered on a rugby pitch.
I am not heralding your retirement in any way, Jim Hamilton, but Peter Wright has moved on, so what structures are in place for sportspeople when they move on?
Nowadays, the retirement age is getting lower, which is down to the amount of training that we do and the size of the men that are playing the game now. People are weight training hard at 16 or 18 years old so, inevitably, there will be more and more injuries. A player is lucky to go through a season and not pick up an injury.
I am sure that others will pick up on coaching in schools. I remind the committee that we will look at sportscotland's 2006 audit of sports facilities, including pitches and playing fields, which Michael Matheson has previously mentioned.
Peter Wright talked about his background in Lasswade Rugby Football Club, where he started at the age of six, which seems pretty young. The committee is considering whether people who have succeeded in their sport help others into the sport by setting an example. Do you have any idea about the health of Lasswade Rugby Football Club now compared with when you started?
Yes, because my brothers are still involved. The club struggles every year to involve kids. There are several reasons for that. Children have more opportunities these days. When I was younger, either we played football or rugby, or we played nothing. Now, children have fantastic opportunities in numerous sports.
Unfortunately, you just need to look at the committee to see what you describe, although we have some young members.
Unfortunately, Biggar high school does not have a ladies' team, although rugby is taught in the curriculum. It is sad to say that Biggar Rugby Football Club no longer has a women's team, either. I know that women members are affiliated to the club and that a training structure is in place, but the club does not have enough women members to put out a team.
Peter Wright talked about the inhibitor of high-profile serious injury, although that is rarer than a traffic accident. Are parents prejudiced against rugby for girls for similar or other reasons?
People will have prejudice whether males or females are involved. Rugby is a safe sport. Yes, it is a contact sport, but if people are conditioned, if sessions are controlled properly and if the correct coaches are in place to facilitate sessions, such injuries will not happen. It gets a lot tougher as you go up through the age grades, but there is assistance with strength and conditioning to help those players become a lot more physically fit. It is unfortunate that those injuries happen, but they are a minority of the injuries that occur during a rugby match.
What I meant is that rugby is not such a girl thing. As a woman, I can perhaps ask that without sounding sexist. Does that issue come up?
You get comments such as, "Do you actually tackle?" Of course we tackle. It is a contact sport. There will always be the problem that rugby is perceived to be a male-dominated game. It probably is, but women are playing rugby and enjoying it. We just need the support of parents, and we need them to know that the sessions that their children are doing are safe.
It is slightly different where I come from. I am good friends with Matt Hampson, who became a high-profile case back home when he broke his neck in training for the England under-21s. He is paralysed from the neck down. He has been asked whether the contact should be taken out of scrummaging and tackling, to which he says no. His was a training accident—it was a freak accident. People higher up, especially in the Rugby Football Union, are trying to use his case to say that it will make parents stop their children playing the sport. Injury is just one of those things that happens in all sports and in life in general. In football, you see guys dropping down with heart attacks.
This is a health committee as well as a sport committee. When parents are encouraging their children to take up sport, one of the factors that influences them is the long-term future. The injuries that you describe are caused by freak accidents, or they are injuries that stop people from playing the sport at the time. When someone has been playing sport at a high level, and they stop, they still have 30 or 40 years of life ahead of them. You must mix with a lot of people who played the sport at a high level for a long time and now come back to watch rugby matches and take part in the administration of sport. Are the people aged 50 or 60 who have played a contact sport such as rugby at the highest level as fit, fitter or less fit, and do they suffer more from their injuries in the long term, than ordinary citizens of the same age? One school of thought is that everyone who has been in contact sport is floating around in wheelchairs, but another is that they are all running round playing squash at the age of 70. In your opinion, what is the situation?
If you play a team sport or any sport and you get into the habit of playing it, you will still do something when you retire. Whatever level you played at, you will continue to be active. It might just be playing golf. Most of the guys who I played with who have retired are pretty active in sport because they are generally pretty sport-minded. If you do not play sport at all, you do not get into the habit of going out in the evening to train or out on a Saturday to play. When I worked as a development officer, our problem was that too few young kids were getting into that habit. A lot of that is down to parents who are not particularly sport-minded. My father was a football player and encouraged me to play football, rugby and so on. It was in my family. I know a lot of guys, particularly those who have come into rugby, who have done it the hard way because their parents were not particularly proactive at encouraging them. Getting into the habit of playing sport is one way to make it easier. The question whether there are facilities for playing sport is another problem that people face when they are trying to get into sport.
If you had a reunion of the Scottish rugby team of the 1970s and 1980s, would the citizens that you saw at that reunion be a lot fitter and more physically mobile than the average citizen of that age from elsewhere?
I think that they would be. They would have problems specific to the sport, for example relating to certain parts of their bodies. To be fair, though, that may not be down to rugby.
We have all got issues with certain parts of our bodies.
Absolutely.
I am speaking about Dr McKee, not me.
When I bump into the guys who I have played with who have retired, they all look pretty good—apart from me.
From the evidence that we have taken so far from those who have succeeded at the top end of their sport and are now involved in the sport more generally, it is clear that they have identified a range of inhibitors, which have to be addressed, that prevent young people who may be interested in a sport—in this case rugby—from getting involved. You may have mentioned a few already but, given your experience, what do you believe are the main inhibitors to young people getting involved in rugby?
From the women's rugby point of view, it is probably a lack of knowledge about who has a rugby team and about the pathway to getting involved. Another barrier is that some—though not all—male coaches are reluctant to get girls involved, which goes back to the earlier point about parents thinking that girls cannot play the sport and that it is a male game. A crude way of putting it is that there is ignorance about the female game. That is not so much the case for the male game, but it is one of the main barriers for females.
There is a certain degree of laziness, and children are not being encouraged by their parents. In society now, people just sit in front of their televisions, have takeaways and play on their PlayStations. Kids are not as motivated as they used to be. I have found that with my friends, too.
For me, volunteering is the massive issue. Fewer and fewer people are volunteering—teachers, parents and coaches.
The same inhibitors have been identified consistently during the inquiry by you and by representatives of other sports. Other witnesses have given similar evidence on the issue.
That has happened over the years. It is a brilliant idea that works in many instances, but it is tied to the headteacher. If the headteacher is into sport—it need not be rugby—and is proactive, they will encourage local clubs to help with coaching. The flip side is that if a headteacher is not a sporty person—they may be keen on arts and drama or be very academic—it may be more difficult for clubs to get into schools. Everything depends on the opinion of the headteacher.
It would be useful for Michael Matheson to ask the next panel in more depth about the interaction between schools, headteachers and local authorities.
Yes, but I suspect that those witnesses will approach the issue from a slightly different angle.
I am sure that Colin Thomson and Kenny Murray will speak about that issue. The club development officer system is improving all the time. An increasing number of clubs have a full-time employee whose job is to go into local primary and secondary schools to promote sport.
Thank you. I want us to move on, as I am conscious of the time.
I am what Peter Wright has described as the enthusiastic amateur who, having stopped playing, coached youth rugby for 10 years. I am, therefore, unfamiliar with what he has just been talking about. I then went on—I am not sure whether "progressed" is the right word—to raise funds for 10 years. I do not know which was the more depressing of those two tasks.
That is quite a hard question to answer. Personally, I would not want to do anything else in the world. Playing a team sport at the highest level with 14 other guys—could you ask for more? Running out at Murrayfield in front of 70,000 people and standing on the pitch, singing the national anthem—it is just a surreal feeling. My friends, who have not had the opportunity to do that, have said that they would give anything to be able to do that just once. Surely that must be a motivating factor for young children. When I went to New Zealand, I got the impression that all the children wanted to play for New Zealand and perform the haka.
But do you get the same impression about the children where you come from? With respect, I think that the situation in New Zealand is slightly different.
Yes, it is slightly different because rugby is everything there. I cannot really answer from a Scottish point of view because I have not had the chance to go out into the schools here. However, after England won the world cup, all the little kids back home wanted to be Jonny Wilkinson. They were there with the ball in their hands, kicking drop goals. Whether they would have wanted to be Martin Johnson is a slightly different matter. They saw guys such as Jason Robinson, who was lightning and exciting to watch. Jonny Wilkinson was also exciting to watch. Rugby has gone past the stage of being a bunch of fat men running around the field, running into one another mindlessly.
Does Peter Wright want to respond to that? We might see a rugby tackle or two from the witnesses.
When I watched my first international at Murrayfield, in 1962, I would not have described Arthur Smith as a big, fat man.
No, but you understand what I am saying. Rugby is now an exciting sport that is moving on year by year. I have been a professional for seven years, and in that time it has just got more and more exciting. I hope that that is what people who watch the games see.
Let us hear your thoughts, Donna. You cannot be described as part of a bunch of fat men.
I certainly hope not.
I am an ex-player. It used to be fantastic when I went along to things; the reaction was great. It was also brilliant when I worked as a development officer and took players to festivals and competitions. However, we do not have enough high-profile rugby players in Scotland because the base of professional players is quite small. Moreover, the majority of the guys who are names do not, unfortunately, really take part in things to do with rugby. Not many guys from my era are rugby volunteers or involved in rugby coaching, and I am sure that things will get worse in Jim Hamilton's era, as the guys see rugby as a job. Rugby is a tough job, and many guys who reach the end of their careers go away and do something else rather than stay in the game.
I should declare that I am still a member of Stirling County Rugby Football Club, to which I provide occasional medical support.
Such sports have a real part to play in rugby in that they get people involved. Touch rugby is getting bigger in Scotland, and sevens rugby has greatly improved as a result of what has happened with the national sevens team over the past couple of years. That is one avenue to bring in.
You smiled when you said that.
Well, that is one of the reasons why I play rugby—we enjoy that side of it. However, although rugby is a contact sport there is a place for people who are not quite so aggressive. It is still the game for people of every shape and size. That is what rugby is about.
I remind colleagues that the committee has taken evidence on judo, which is a contact sport. I am advised by the clerks that football is not a contact sport, although it looks like one to me.
I think that there is less random violence in judo.
Does Jim Hamilton want to comment on injuries?
We are talking about rugby, but injuries happen in all sports. My mate has injured his cruciate ligament playing cricket at club level—you would not think that someone could do their knee in from fielding in cricket. I have just had shoulder surgery. In the past that would have meant a big open procedure and a traumatic six months out of the game, but now it is dealt with through keyhole surgery and recovery takes three months. At the top level of sport, injuries are dealt with so much better—I would like to think that that happens at lower levels, too.
I was last in the queue to ask a question, so many of my questions have been asked—I thank Michael Matheson for doing that.
Yes, absolutely. Sport seems to be the easy target when half an hour is needed here or there for more English or mathematics classes. My daughter, who is very sporty but also very academic, came in from school last week and said, "Dad, you know what we did in PE today? We went for a brisk walk." They were supposed to be doing cross-country, but because four or five kids objected it was decided to go for a brisk walk instead. I do not know what other schools are like, but that type of thing seems to happen. The two hours of sport per week seem to have gone by the wayside.
Is a brisk walk round the playground classed as PE?
It is classed as physical activity. Unfortunately, a brisk walk is about all that some kids can do. The approach seems to be to go at the pace of the weakest athlete in the class, instead of making provision for the kids who have real ambition. The Government was supposed to provide two hours of sport a week, but that seems to have died by the wayside.
Do kids do just one hour of PE a week?
The target was two hours a week, but I am not sure what has happened about that.
That needs to be addressed. I have a brother who is 14—he is at school back home. When I asked him what sports he does at school, he said, "We had PE today and I did gymnastics for an hour." I asked, "What other hours have you got this week? Have you got football or tennis?" He said, "No, that's it." He has just one hour a week of structured physical education. If we want to encourage young lads and girls to get into sport, that is not the way to do it. There should be lunchtime classes, so that they can play football and tennis. They should do something active every day.
Thank you—that was very helpful.
Opportunities have changed: rugby now is about not so much the old school tie as ability. However, an advantage that the independent schools have when it comes to rugby—and other sports—is that they are very traditional. People at independent schools get a lot of sport; sport is on the curriculum timetable, and people do extra-curricular stuff as well.
You said that things were better now than they were when you started. Is there more access to rugby in state schools now?
Yes, I would say that there is. The active school co-ordinators and the club development officers are really pushing hard for that. The schools that want to play rugby, play rugby.
Does it depend on an individual such as the PE teacher or the headteacher?
Yes. The PE department is important but the headteacher tends to be the most important person, because everything has to go through them.
I want to bring in Donna Kennedy at this point. If there is a class divide, does it also exist in women's rugby? You were at a state school in Biggar.
I could be wrong, but I do not think that women in private schools get rugby, so the issue is not the same as the one that Peter Wright raised. There are probably more women from state schools playing rugby than from private schools.
What should be done to get more young men and women into rugby so that we can expand the pool of rugby players for the future?
My short answer would be to bring rugby into the curriculum. It would be up to each individual PE department, but it would be fantastic if that was a compulsory part of PE.
If we are to take evidence from the teaching profession, we would have to discuss that with the Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee. We do not want to trample on its toes.
Our inquiry has three strands. We have been considering pathways into elite sport, but part of that has been consideration of health improvement and barriers to people from less well-off backgrounds—people who might not get encouragement from their family to get involved in sport.
We have an eye on the time, so I would appreciate short answers—and not necessarily an answer to all the questions from each of the witnesses.
Back home in England, and in New Zealand, they have academies and have had sports programmes and structures in place for years. From what I have seen, things in Scotland are slightly different. How can a talented rugby player up in Inverness, or even further afield, develop? Is there stuff up there for them? It would be interesting to see whether talented players and athletes up there get the same opportunity as people in private schools in Edinburgh or Glasgow, for example.
I will answer the question from the female point of view. We need a lot more coaches, including male coaches who are willing to coach girls in schools and in the club sector. We need a lot more clubs to open their doors to a women's team.
We need more volunteers, so we need to make it easier for people to become volunteers. The one big barrier that needs to be removed is the red tape that all volunteers have to go through and the other perceived difficulties in becoming a volunteer. If there are more volunteers, there are more people available to work with kids.
Thank you. My school was Boroughmuir high school. Even when I was there—all that time ago, when we had gas lights—it had a culture of rugby, which remains the case. I am disappointed that I did not enjoy the democracy that Peter Wright's daughter has. If I had, the school would never have got me on to a hockey pitch. However, we were not allowed to vote on whether to play. Thank you for your evidence, which was extremely interesting. I suspend the meeting for a few minutes.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—
We are back again. I welcome our second panel of witnesses. We have with us Gordon McKie, chief executive of Scottish Rugby and the Scottish representative on the International Rugby Board and the six nations committee; Kenny Murray, senior sports development officer at Glasgow City Council; Colin Thomson, head of community rugby at Scottish Rugby; and Gregor Townsend, who won 82 Scotland caps, has played for clubs all over the world and is now with the Scottish Institute of Sport Foundation.
Good morning. I will make just a short opening statement to give you the background to where I come from. I was brought up in Peebles in the Borders and started playing rugby when I was eight or nine. I played rugby at primary school and then at secondary school, where I was heavily involved in lots of other sports, too. I played rugby for south schools.
Good morning. I am the chief executive at Scottish Rugby. I am a lover of sport, which is a good thing to be in my job. I will go down memory lane, just like Colin Thomson. I played football in Glasgow when I was a wee boy and I played rugby in Edinburgh when I was a teenager. I have also enjoyed playing tennis, golf, squash—you name it. I just love sport. Fortunately, all my kids love sport, too. Therein lies a message about the curriculum—I have enjoyed it from a very young age.
Good morning. I grew up in Galashiels in the Borders. I played lots of sports when I was young. I was at primary school at a time when there were lots of teachers strikes, so there was no rugby then, but I played minirugby with Gala Rugby Football Club, which was my local club. I played football in Edinburgh, as well as cricket and golf, and I took part in athletics. When I was about 13 or 14 I decided to specialise in rugby, because I loved the game.
Good morning. I have been involved in rugby for around 25 years as a player and coach as part of my profession and as a spectator and volunteer. I started taking part in sport when I was in primary school, but it was unstructured. It involved running around the streets playing football and kerby—some of you might remember that game. There was no rugby at primary school, but we played football on the school team.
I will ask you the question that I asked the previous panel. How do we make sure that people from less well-off backgrounds are not excluded from sport, especially if they do not have parental encouragement to get involved? How do we make sport more attractive to girls? Are there any lessons from abroad that we could learn?
To me it is quite a simple process and one that many on the first panel mentioned. We sometimes make things too complicated. If we want all children to be exposed to sport, it has to start in primary and secondary schools. Such an approach has to be based on a long-term player development framework in which every child starts by learning physical literacy—the ABCs of athleticism, balance, co-ordination and speed—at primary school and is then given the opportunity to play a raft of team and individual sports at secondary school. If we want sport to be inclusive, it should start in our schools; after all, that is where all our children go.
I agree with Colin Thomson that school sports are absolutely crucial to introducing kids to any kind of sport or physical activity. From my experience in Glasgow, I believe that we have to work more with local communities. Children and young people must be at the centre of decision making. Instead of telling children that they should take part in rugby, football or some other activity, we should discuss the options and give them the chance to decide what they want to do. That would play a major role in encouraging more people to take part in sport.
I agree with Kenny Murray and Colin Thomson. I certainly believe that we need to change the perception of rugby as a sport. When I was coaching in Dundee last year, I came across a 10-year-old who was the best player that I have ever seen at that age. He was brilliant at everything and listened to what the coaches were saying; however, when, at the end of the session, I asked his mum how long he had been playing rugby and whether the family had any background in the sport—I thought that perhaps her husband had played it—she said that her son had just taken it up. In fact, the kid had had to argue his way to the session; his mother did not want him to take up rugby because she thought it was too dangerous. She wanted him to take up trampolining or a similar activity instead.
You made Donna Kennedy smile when you said that girls concentrate better. I am sure that all the women on the committee agree with that comment.
We could also use the summer months a lot better. I have been at winter sessions with the floodlights not working and the pitch so muddy that you can train only inside the 22. Compared with 10 or 20 years ago, kids now have more life choices and might simply choose not to go out on a dark and windy night. If we could use the summer months to play rugby and work on our rugby and coaching skills, more kids would get into the game.
Kenny Murray mentioned people from communities who act almost as link officers or peer trainers within their communities. How are such folk selected and funded in other countries?
Obviously, countries in places such as Africa have many small communities that are, for want of a better phrase, out in the wilderness. Organisations such as the Caribbean health and sports partnership and the Mathare Youth Sports Association in Kenya work with small communities. That work involves identifying people in communities who have an interest in sport or are proactive in the community in another way and who are motivated to develop their community. Those people then go through appropriate training and education programmes that not only help them to deliver sport, but to move forward in whatever professional career they have chosen. In the African nations in particular, sport is used as a key vehicle for change and is sold in that way to the local community. Yes, people take part in sport, but they are offered so much more, such as information on how they should look after themselves and on key issues that affect community development, such as HIV.
It might be helpful if we asked the Scottish Parliament information centre to provide us with more information from that Commonwealth games meeting on how people target deprived areas. That seems quite interesting.
The previous panel of witnesses highlighted the bureaucracy of risk assessment and health and safety. Is the main reason for the present shortage of volunteers and coaches that we have become too bureaucratic? Is all the risk assessment, health and safety and disclosure form filling a disincentive to many people who would otherwise come forward? Is that a barrier to access?
Any information that I could give today would be purely anecdotal, but I know that sportscotland and Volunteer Development Scotland have carried out research that the committee could consider.
What needs to be done to make it easier for volunteers?
We should have one disclosure check for all involvement instead of checks by multiple agencies. That is a simple thing that is on-going—
I think that that is under way.
Yes, that will happen, but it has taken years to change that.
Will you define what you mean by recognition?
A simple "thank you", or an offer of time off in acknowledgement of the role that a teacher is performing. If they turn out on a Saturday morning, for example, they could be allowed to go home early on a Friday.
I back that up. I went to Galashiels academy, which is a state school. It produced two Scotland captains in the space of five years—first me, then Chris Paterson. After Chris left, the PE teacher who ran rugby sessions outwith school hours left to become a professional coach. Since then, the school has not had a team that plays week in, week out—it only has a team that plays in the Scottish schools cup. It is sad that there is no teacher to provide extra training or coaching outwith school hours; the bureaucracy means that that is very hard to do.
Do you support recognition in the form of time off in lieu for teachers who get involved in such activity?
Yes, but the timetable needs to be changed, too. There needs to be recognition that such work is an important part of the teacher's role and that pupils should be able to take part in after-school activities. We should make it easier for teachers to get out there and provide such activities.
A point that I made to the previous panel—I am not sure whether you were in the room at the time—was that although we all get copies of inspection reports for the schools in our areas, I cannot remember ever reading an endorsement of how well a school was doing in providing access to physical activity. I know that such reports focus on the education agenda, but would you like schools' performance on access to sport to be measured and acknowledged in the same way that their performance on the three Rs is assessed?
Absolutely. Sport has the potential to bring a great deal to communities, especially school communities. I know that not every child will play in a team, but every child will get behind that team.
The question was about reports by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education on school inspections. Mary Scanlon made an interesting point. Do you agree that performance in providing access to physical activity should form part of school appraisals?
Yes.
I agree. In Glasgow, a key sports development initiative that we ran at the end of the year was a school of the year award, which went to a school that, as well as offering a variety of sports as part of the curriculum, involved volunteer coaches and parents in the delivery of after-school clubs. We made a big thing of that, which we used as a vehicle to promote the school; we also had a sports personality of the year award. I fully agree with Mary Scanlon's proposal.
I have a second question—any excuse to ask Gregor Townsend a question.
Oh! I can see that appearing in Holyrood magazine.
We are talking about access to sport and support for elite sportspeople. I appreciate that you have been at the Scottish Institute of Sport Foundation for only a year, but from what you said it sounds as if everything is in place to support athletes at the elite end of the sport of rugby. Do you think that we have got it right at the institute and that the problem is more about access on the ground?
That is a difficult one. School sport can be improved—it can be made more competitive. I have always thought that in Scotland it should be easier for people to come through the pathways because we can notice them much more quickly. Many people view it as a negative that far fewer people play the game here than do in England, but we should be able to spot talented players much more easily. It must be extremely difficult to choose an England schools team because so many school kids play rugby there; a lot of kids must fall by the wayside. The focus should be on identifying and developing pupils, and on making school sport, especially school rugby, more competitive. The Scottish schools cup is a great competition, but it would be great to see a league table, too.
You have not mentioned the Scottish Institute of Sport; can we assume that you feel that you have got things right there?
Gordon McKie will be able to explain the links with the Scottish Institute of Sport and the Scottish Institute of Sport Foundation. We are doing a lot of programmes with the SRU. Such programmes not only fill gaps, but take players, individually and collectively, on to another level.
Two key partners have been with us over the past three or four years. One of those has been sportscotland, which provides invaluable assistance with community participation at the grass roots. Sportscotland supports the co-funding of regional development manager positions, as well as those of performance development managers, as we call them. That is truly appreciated.
My question follows on quite well from that. We have heard that volunteers, teachers and coaches are important at all levels for bringing people on in the game and preventing them from getting into bad habits at the outset. Can you tell us a bit about the structures? We have heard about the bureaucracy and the difficulties with volunteers, and I do not want to go back over that, but what are your coaching structures? How do you get people to teach the game properly at all levels? How do you bring them in? What is your development programme? I am not just talking about the top level; how are you developing coaching right down the line? What are the barriers that prevent you from proceeding with that more quickly?
We have put in place a club development officer structure. We now have 56 guys working with groups of clubs or individual clubs, and we have to upskill them. Those officers are supported by a regional development manger network, to which Gordon McKie referred. They work with clubs on growth. If growth is required, it has to be identified how many coaches, referees and volunteers are needed. There are regional and local action plans. For example, at Stirling County, the work of the development officer becomes far more focused and co-ordinated with respect to the needs of growth. We upskill the club development officer so that he is able to run a foundation course—the first-level entry course—and a refereeing course. So a dad or mum who comes along is encouraged to help. Very quickly, he or she can be educated and supported locally through the club development officer network.
My other question is the one that I asked earlier about getting people into the sport. We have heard a lot about the image of the sport—an inappropriate image—in terms of injury. Some of us who played creak a bit, but most of us get through it okay. I asked the earlier panel about the contribution that might be made by sevens, touch and minirugby. How might those be advertised and slotted into the central game?
I apologise for hogging the conversation.
Not at all.
We have a partnership with the Scottish Touch Association and have worked with it over the past year. Touch rugby is a huge growth area for us. I run a touch rugby team down in Peebles and games are great social events. Touch rugby keeps people involved in the sport, and people who have not been involved in rugby before also come along. Peter Wright talked about Scottish touch rugby getting bigger; that is the way in which we need to go. We must encourage clubs to run touch rugby tournaments to generate income and as social events—that is a massive side to the game.
Excuse my complete ignorance, but what are the differences between those? I thought that I understood touch rugby, but you mentioned tag rugby.
They are all variations on a theme. Touch rugby is more akin to rugby league, in which play stops.
Players are not allowed to hold each other down.
Correct. New image rugby is more akin to the full version. Once a player is touched, they can still run forward for three steps and pass the ball. In tag rugby, players wear tags on their hips. To make a tackle, a player must pull the tag off the person they are tackling. That is usually played in S2, S1 and P7. Those are innovative ways in which to get children engaged with rugby before taking them through the pathways to their local clubs.
I agree fully with Richard Simpson about the ways in which variations of the sport can help to promote the game. However, that touches on the issue of whether we have enough pathways to increase participation in rugby. We talk about sport in schools and clubs but, for rugby and for other sports, we perhaps need to think outside the box a bit and open up other pathway opportunities for children to participate in rugby. For example, we could work with the Boys Brigade and the scouts. In women's rugby, we could work with organisations such as the Girls Brigade. That may be the only way in which we will get kids in the local communities to take part in physical activity and sport. We could do a lot better in Scottish sport—certainly in Scottish rugby—in opening up new doors. However, with the 56 club development officers, we will see opportunities for that over the next two years.
One area that we have not touched on—I do not know whether the first panel touched on it—is inspiring kids to play through television coverage. I was brought up with "Rugby Special" on Sundays, on which I could watch the Scotland game and games from England. That has drifted away. The BBC no longer has much involvement in our club game or in promoting rugby. It argues that the demand is not there, but it has to create the demand. There is more demand for rugby than there has ever been. Kids love it—they come to Murrayfield and they watch internationals. If rugby was shown on television more regularly, that would bring other people into the sport.
In fairness, Donna Kennedy mentioned negative publicity as well as inspirational publicity. When things are going well for international teams and so on, all is fine, but when it is not, it is a different matter. However, that is the press for you. Politicians know that better than anyone else.
There is an interesting comparison with Wales. People have to watch the Scottish professional teams playing Welsh teams on BBC 2 Wales. Okay, people can do that, but I entirely agree that we need more rugby on television. Perhaps it can be shown on community channels and so on, but in any case we need to develop the television coverage, because it encourages people enormously.
I do not wish to get on my soapbox, but everyone knows that our Argentina games were not shown live on any type of television. It would be good to let the games be seen by kids because that would help us to promote the game, but the matter goes much wider than that. Getting six slots a year for the six nations games and the autumn tests is insufficient. People want to watch sport and they want to watch rugby. We had a Scotsport pilot on STV last year, but it will probably die a death. If I could leave one point for the committee to consider, it would be that broadcasting coverage in Scotland—not just of rugby but of sport in general—needs to be addressed.
I return to the point about getting people into sport. I would like to hear your views on the balance between the running of professional sport and amateur entry into sport.
There are two answers to that. First, as I mentioned, we have a strategic plan, and I cannot stress enough that every pillar is equally important. It is critical to the targets that we have set that we grow the game in schools and clubs and have pathways that link the two. Without growth in the domestic game, Scottish rugby might become less important to Scotland as a whole. For example, there might be an effect on our ability to encourage strong kids, a safe and healthy environment, and so on.
On top of that, I think that clubs have to take individual responsibility. When the game was amateur, the clubs probably got the majority of the cake, but with the realities of professional rugby they get less. The more successful clubs are those that are taking the responsibility of growing the game themselves, in conjunction with the SRU, but which are not looking for handouts. They are considering innovative things such as sevens competitions, of which there are now a lot more outside the Borders. Peebles rugby club runs a very good sevens competition in the Borders. It has taken clubs a while to wake up to that.
I was fascinated by the issue that Colin Thomson mentioned concerning schools, and general physical literacy at an early age. We have heard conflicting evidence, including evidence from a generation of PE teachers who do not believe that it is their job to be specific about which sport someone goes into, and who would prefer to simply work on the physical literacy end. Were you suggesting that that should happen more in primary schools? Others might want to comment on that.
Research into long-term player development, as it is called, shows that the right time to learn physical literacy is at an early age. There is a categorisation of sports into early specialisation sports, such as gymnastics and swimming, and late specialisation sports—team sports such as football, hockey and basketball. For late specialisation sports, people learn in their primary years how to equip themselves with the physical attributes to be able to be successful, to stay in the sport and to enjoy it. They learn how to run, and how to throw and catch; they learn athletics and gymnastics, which are the mother of all activities. All children should be doing those.
You suggest that there should be a fundamental change at primary school level.
That is where physical literacy must come in. By the time that kids reach their teenage years, it is too late.
Are you saying that there should be general physical literacy in primary schools but not specialisation, such as Peter Wright taking up rugby at the age of six? You are not looking for children to be able to do that.
The balance was there for Peter because he was doing an awful lot of other sports. The rugby was part of an ad hoc physical literacy because he was out doing so many sports, as was Donna Kennedy, picking them up almost by accident. However, there was more PE in schools in those days. We must get back to that situation and provide support for curricular and extra-curricular activity. Children pick up physical literacy when they are of primary school age.
I was distracted by thinking about how I gave up hockey when I realised that people would hit you on the shin with the stick. Nobody had prepared me for that. Perhaps if I had had some physical literacy on that, I would have stuck it out.
Or if you had had shin pads.
Exactly.
Does Kenny Murray think that the structure that Colin Thomson talked about would be easier to integrate where he is?
Yes. It is fundamental that we give children opportunities in primary school. I did not get those opportunities when I was in primary school. We played the boat game in the hall, as I said, running between the stern, the bow and the starboard. We need to give children in primary schools opportunities. For me, that is where physical literacy will come from: playing some football and rugby, and doing some gymnastics and athletics. Certainly, in sports development in our local authority, part of our role is to work with key partners and deliverers to ensure that primary schools get the opportunity to offer their pupils the various types of activity that I mentioned. I suppose the key is that when they take part in the activities, there is a pathway there for them to move into.
On the links between community clubs and schools, it is fair to say that rugby is probably at a more advanced stage in that area than many other sports are. I suspect that that is largely because of the work that the SRU has undertaken in recent years. However, concerns have been raised about funding for the posts that help to facilitate the development of links with schools, whether it be the active schools co-ordinators or the development officers in the different governing bodies. What is your view on that? Are uncertainties being created because of funding problems for such posts, which appear to be crucial in developing links between schools and clubs?
Does somebody other than Colin Thomson want to respond first, so that he does not feel embarrassed at always being first to the starting post?
Club development officers will play a crucial role for our strategic plan for where we want to go and how we will get there. I was a development officer in Glasgow city nine years ago, when the maximum number of development officers that we had in Scotland was about 30. The news yesterday was that we are up to 56 development officers, so the number has increased massively.
The strategy is working, and the game is growing at youth and adult level. One of the reasons for that is that the club development officers are out in the very heart of the community, working in partnership. We have a fundamental duty to support the position of CDO. I cannot give guarantees—no one can—but I can state categorically that we are committed to those positions and to increasing their number in the future. They are growing the game.
The active schools co-ordinator and the club development officer, managed by the regional development manager, deliver an agreed action plan at local level. Together with the partnerships with clubs, that is what makes the strategy work. The cashback for communities that the Government so generously gave us is helping us to sustain those posts, to create new posts and to push back the boundaries of rugby. We can say to our existing posts, "With this additional money, we want you to go into that area, that area and that area"—areas where rugby has never been before. In the east end of Glasgow, where there is no rugby club, we can put in a development officer to link with the community safety partnerships and get something going. That is how we are using the funding from the Scottish Government's cashback for communities scheme. The great job that the clubs and the volunteers in the clubs have done to raise funding should not be underestimated. What we are seeing is local authorities coming on board with that scheme, too. Given a fair wind, the funding will hopefully be secure.
That is helpful.
One of the issues is culture. When I was first asked to appear in front of the committee, I thought about how I got involved in sport and the things that I did when I was young to take part in sport. When I was at Cartha Queens Park RFC, there was no bus to take me from my house to the rugby club on a Sunday and my parents did not have a car. There was only one way to get there, which was to walk. That is what I did and it is what many people used to do—committee members may have done that to take part in sport and physical activity. The culture has changed. Young people might not want to walk because of territorialism—they are scared to walk through certain areas—or because they have access to their parents' cars. If they do not get the car one day, they may decide not to walk. Young people's attitude to physical activity has changed. We have to overcome that in order to move forward with increasing opportunities and pathways.
The major inhibitor is facilities. As I mentioned, rugby is a winter sport—it takes place in December, January and February. It would be great to do indoor sessions, but we need more indoor facilities. We also need more artificial turf, because for three or four months of the year we are running about in mud. Schools are not too happy to have mud traipsed through the corridors. More artificial, third-generation turf would get more people out there, even if it is windy and rainy, which it is for most of the winter.
I remember from my school teaching days that there would be muddy children sitting in English lessons.
For me, the inhibitor is to do with facilities. In many ways, we are privileged because we have many clubs with which we can collaborate to try to create the conduit from the school to the club to play rugby. However, facilities—not just grass based, but all-weather surfaces—are a big issue for our sport. We are talking to one or two local authorities about that and have shown our willingness to invest in a 4G pitch. In return, we get access and the ability to train and prepare properly. We are also considering the possibility of a 4G pitch here at Murrayfield.
I have to ask what a 4G pitch is.
It is an all-weather synthetic pitch—it is not grass based.
Fine. Some of us have to learn on the job.
It is different from the Astroturf that is used for hockey—it looks like grass and players can run about with studs on.
We have some sports experts, such as Michael Matheson, but some of us learn as we go.
A limited 4G pitch is to be installed in Falkirk, through funding from sportscotland that was announced the other week.
Incidentally, that was the MSP for Falkirk speaking.
The inhibitors are to do with facilities. I question the power of the janny in schools throughout Scotland in relation to access to facilities. In sport in general, janitors seem to rule the roost. We may have enough indoor facilities, although we need to consider whether we need more 3G or 4G pitches. However, there is no national strategy for co-ordinated facility development that ties in local authorities and national governing bodies. That is one big inhibitor.
I will follow up on Ross Finnie's first question and be a little bit of a devil's advocate. I understand that the way in which the sport is organised brings people to their peak for international rugby and representative sport. However, Peter Wright told us in evidence that, of all the people with whom he played, only three or four are still in the game. They have done their job and have moved on to another job. Gregor Townsend said that, since the sport has become professional, players play about 50 games a year, which really takes it out of them. I can look back to what was probably a mythical golden age when I played club rugby as a proud member of my club's fourth team. We were proud of our top players, who stayed with the club all their lives and were an inspiration. In those days, Gregor would have been at Gala all his life. I wonder whether the same inspiration was provided when he went to Northampton and Brive. In trying to achieve success, have we taken a bit of fun out of the game and a bit of the comradeship at the club level for the sake of professionalism and doing well at international level? Have we lost something, as well as gained something?
I agree with that. Professionalism has created two sports. One is the social aspect, for people who are at a club. No international player now plays for a club—they play for one of our two professional clubs or elsewhere. In the past, players always had the intention to give something back. They still do that and there is a lot of good will, but we need more of a spirit of openness. Hardly any of the people with whom I played in 1999, when we won the last-ever five nations, or from 1990 are involved directly in the game. That may be because they have other commitments or because things have changed. We need to get back the culture that if somebody has come through a club or Scottish rugby, they remain involved in some way. That might mean not coaching a team, but just being at games or being involved with the youth section. We need to promote that culture a bit better.
Henry Edwards looks after our coach development activities, and is trying to build closer bridges to all the clubs, particularly the premier 1, 2 and 3 clubs, which are participating for more than fun; they are doing it to win. We are trying to get those guys better trained and better coached so that, ultimately, they can be considered for employment in the SRU.
Unlike the convener, I loved hockey, but I never got a chance to play in the position that I really wanted to play in. I felt really sad about that, and did not get the training opportunities that have been described.
The problem with focusing on the months in which the weather is better, especially during the habit-forming years when people are 14 to 17 or so, is that that is when we are telling kids to stay inside and revise for exams. We should think about when we are examining children academically. Over the past five years, April and May have had the best weather, and June and July have been worse. We want kids to be outside running about at that time of year, but we cannot do it because we are forcing them into exams. That is my personal hobbyhorse. Why do we tell children to stay inside and revise for exams at the best time of year for them to be outside?
The school gates are closed for six or eight weeks in the summer, when the kids could be running about.
Exactly. The school estate could be used for many sporting activities. As was said, we are lucky, because rugby clubs have their own facilities. However, many sports are not in that position, and rely on school facilities, which are in the power of the janny.
I echo Colin Thomson's point. In Glasgow, there are summer camps that take place in schools. We also have 12 community clubs in various secondary schools around the city that have full summer programmes. However, the activities in those camps and clubs are probably prescribed. Will a child turn up to a school if they are going to be told what to do and what is happening, given that they have the option of disappearing from the school environment for six weeks? I think that it is important to involve the children in the decision-making process.
We should bring the session to an end, as we have overrun slightly. I should say that, for Colin Thomson's sake, I hope that he is not ambushed by jannies outside the committee room. If he is, I am sure that his rugby skills will come into play.
I hope so. I said to her that he had the ability that coaches look for and that, when we said "Try and run past these people and pass the ball", he did that. Maybe that switched on the light in her head. She said that he is doing things on his own, and is always out there practising. As everyone knows, that shows that he wants to get better. Hopefully, he is still training.
He is displaying the determination that you have all shown in the pursuit of your sports—I am thinking of Donna Kennedy walking to her training.