Are we sleepwalking into a crisis?

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought challenges to every individual and every institution in British society. Vaccines may signal the beginning of the end of this most wretched of periods. If and as that happens, attention will turn to the scorched earth left behind. The extent to which it has been scorched is only now becoming clear.

Rugby League is not immune to the same problems as society. In wider society, the less wealthy you are, the more likely you are to suffer at the hands of Covid-19, other health problems or socio-economic difficulties that have arisen over the last year.

Rugby League is a less wealthy sport. It therefore follows that it is more likely to suffer as a result of the year’s events compared to its wealthier counterparts.

Whilst the most vulnerable in society are being protected from Covid by inoculation (emphasis on Covid, a vaccine cannot protect from wider harms), our sport will need a lot more than a shot in the arm to offer protection.

Whether it is the Super League clubs at the top of the sport, who are missing the fans in their stadiums or the amateur clubs who rely on the generosity and altruism of volunteers at the best of times, we suffer as one.

In the pandemic, perhaps due the fact that children are statistically the least likely to become seriously ill with Covid-19, they are the silent victims of the crisis.

Being spared from serious cases of Covid-19 does not mean that children have been spared from harm. For example, evidence has already started to emerge that more children are admitted to hospital relating to mental health issues than physical health issues. Meanwhile, this article from the BBC paints a harrowing picture of the impact of Covid-19 policies on the young.

Whilst it was also a problem before lockdown, levels of physical inactivity amongst children has increased further. One in three are considered inactive. There has been a 16% drop in children taking part in team sports. 

Whilst some will argue that this is not a top priority considering the many other raging fires, I would argue that to ignore this would be an example of tunnel vision. 

I will explain why. A recent Public Health England Review showed that for those classed as obese, the risk of being admitted to Intensive Care with Covid was far higher than those of lower weight. The risk of death increased by 40% for the obese and 90% for the morbidly obese. From Covid data, there are patterns, but few correlations, but this is one.

In 2018, 63% of UK adults were either overweight or obese, 28% fell into the obese category. Our nation’s picture of general health is shameful for a country of our wealth and lags behind our direct comparators. It is not the sole cause, but may be one factor in why the UK’s death toll from Covid-19 is so devastatingly high.

If there is an expression synonymous with the pandemic, it would be 'protect the NHS'. We have been asked to do that in many ways, by adhering to rules that have changed 65 times in total since March 2020. Stay at home. Stay local. Shield. Work from home. Do not see family. Do not see friends. Wear masks. Maintain a social distance. These are huge personal sacrifices, which have wreaked havoc upon our mental health and jobs. And despite a YouGov survey showing the majority of people blame the public for coronavirus cases, ONS’ statistics show that there has been 96% compliance with mask-wearing and 95% compliance with limiting social contacts.

The measures listed above have all been documented as ways we can reduce the burden on an over-stretched NHS. However, the simplest way we could all ‘protect the NHS’ would be to lose a few pounds. Despite this, gyms have been closed, community sport shut down and, at times, limitations on how long and by which methods we can exercise imposed. This is the tunnel vision I talked about earlier.

You often hear complaints that ‘children are always on their phones nowadays’ and ‘when I were a lad, I was never in the house, I was always playing out’. I’ve probably said both of these things. They were key parts of my childhood and I cannot imagine how having that taken away, as children of this generation have had, would have impacted me into adult life.

We may soon be walking into a post-covid UK and have to pick up the pieces left behind. Our general picture of health is so poor that the next time a public health emergency emerges, if we do nothing, the UK will again be left vulnerable, disproportionately so when considering our resource. We have already sleepwalked into the Covid-19 crisis. We cannot sleepwalk into the next crisis. 

What does this have to do with Rugby League? I hear you ask. Well, the answer could be nothing or everything, depending on your outlook.

Sport England's Sports Participation Survey shows that there has been a 14% fall in people playing rugby league since 2016, from 68,400 to 58,800. This recorded fall will only have increased post-March 2020. Once someone gets out of a habit, it is not always easy to get back into it.

In fairness, over the same timeframe, basketball, football, rugby union and hockey have shown participation falls of between 19% and 25%. Meanwhile, the RFL's most recent participation survey showed an increase from 102,304 to 109,501 in numbers partaking in the sport. This is quite a different figure to Sport England, likely to be attributable to differing methodologies.

The ultimate aim of the sport (from the RFL’s perspective) is for England to be the best. An environment of potentially falling participation levels is not conducive to that.

A national side from the British Isles has not beaten Australia in a test series since 1972. Almost 50 years ago. It would take a whole new blogpost to examine the factors behind that, but one is the player base.

In Australia, Rugby League is a far larger sport. In large swathes of the country it is the sport. The one that is the first sport that a child will try. The one that gets the pick of best athletes in the country. 

By comparison, in the UK, football in the sport. Rugby League comes second often in its heartlands. In large swathes of the country, opportunities to get involved in the sport are limited. And that is not limited to places off the beaten track. Wigan has one of the most thriving amateur scenes in the sport. Yet in the bordering town of Bolton, we have a very limited footprint. We are fishing in a pond that is comparatively empty compared to our Australian counterparts.

And that is before you take into account that the sport lacks appeal (from a participation perspective at least) to those who do not relish physical combat and do not have the highest of pain thresholds.

I include myself in that category. I have been crazy about this sport for as long as I can remember. But its biggest selling point may also be its biggest barrier. Brutality. When I see a big shot from the stands, I will join others with a sharp intake of breath. When I briefly played the game, I did not enjoy being on the end of it.

When you play the sport, you realise that every tackle hurts. It is hugely physically demanding. The scrawny child that I was loved to watch but did not want to play. These are barriers which are not erected by less-physical sports such as football and cricket.

And this is not just a problem for the weak of body. When I was a teenager, I introduced a friend to the sport. He was a big lad, someone who teachers asked to come along to train for the school team, because they knew he would be good.

I eventually persuaded him to attend with me (in the year or so I lasted playing the sport). Unsurprisingly, he was a devastating ball runner and a brick wall in defence. He ultimately signed a professional contract for a Super League club and played a handful of games. He then dropped to a semi-professional level, before retiring by his mid-20s due a persistent injury.

Time and circumstance mean that I now rarely see the player in question, especially since March last year. However, when I did most recently see him, he was struggling with chronic pain, which now impacts on his ability to do his job. I could not help but think, had I not introduced him to the sport as a teenager, would he now have a much higher quality of life, without pain?

Other sports have alternatives. Football has the five-a-side variety, Cricket has 20 / 20. Rugby has its own alternative formats too. We have the full contact version. We have a near non-contact version, tag rugby. We also have the hybrid version, X-League. These are three distinct versions of the sport with varying levels of contact. This removes a barrier to participation. It is essential that we do all we can to further to remove barriers that the sport's nature provides and start to invest and push the alternative versions of the game.

Hopefully, we will soon be emerging from our state of perennial crisis into a post-covid world. It remains to be seen which of the changes to our lives will become permanent, what aspects will return to normal, or even, if you are an optimist, which aspects can be improved.

In the post-covid world, it should be a national priority to tackle some of the problems which have left the UK so vulnerable to this virus. Such as our lack of exercise and our obesity crisis, or the separate but equally serious mental health crisis (especially amongst children). Sport is a force for good that can reduce the impact of these major problems.

Rugby League must stand ready to act. For its own good and for societal good. We should not be content to consolidate or stand still, but to use our initiative to ensure that we can be at the forefront of a push to get more involved in sport and physical activity in a post-covid world. If we do, Rugby League will benefit and society will too.