Unfair criticism levelled at schools

Last weekend I had the very good fortune to watch four matches. One was the All-Ireland League encounter between Young Munster and Shannon at Tom Clifford Park last Saturday. The other three were schools' matches: the two semi-finals of the Leinster Schools' Junior Cup and the final of the Senior Cup at Lansdowne Road on Sunday.

The Young Munster/Shannon encounter was a splendid match, highlighted by a great second-half comeback from Young Munster. That game was certainly a good advertisement for the league and underlined just how much that competition has to offer Irish rugby, especially were the structure altered as it should be.

The two schools' junior semi-finals were excellent matches of quality from youngsters aged under 15. The senior final was a classic, watched by over 12,000 spectators, who could not fail to be enthralled by what they saw.

The intensity of that match could not have been exceeded, the commitment total, the sportsmanship and attitude beyond reproach. This was a contest and rivalry that is the very lifeblood of sporting competition. It reflected the utmost credit on the two schools, their coaches and their supporters and was the embodiment of healthy sporting rivalry and pride in their schools and their traditions.

In recent times, most notably in Leinster, schools rugby has come in for some adverse publicity, totally unjustly, in my view, for happenings - however unfortunate and regrettable - that have basically nothing to do with the game.

Without any evidence, schools' rugby rivalry has been used by some as a means of criticism of behaviour patterns. Of course there is rivalry between schools in rugby and in hurling, Gaelic football, hockey and every sport. Rivalry is part of the very fabric of sport at every level.

The schools' cups are magnificent competitions that have graced the rugby scene for well over 100 years. I have been a regular attender at schools' rugby in Leinster for well over 30 years and in that time and long before it, have attended schools' matches in the other provinces for over half a century. Only once in all that time, before during or after matches, have I seen an incident - and that concerned a man nearer 50 than 15.

Some of the criticism of schools rugby is conceived in the ignorance of those who have not even a peripheral involvement or interest in rugby. It is rooted in bigotry and nurtured on prejudice. For reasons not too difficult to fathom it is singled out unlike any other sport at schools' level. Is it its wide appeal and the tremendous enthusiasm and support it generates, that the bigots find hard to stomach in their narrow little world of inverted snobbery? Rugby is invariably a target for that element.

As someone who feels totally at home in Croke Park, Semple Stadium, Thomond Park, Lansdowne Road, Dalymount Park and especially, Highbury, I will sit or stand captivated by the skill and excellence so often embraced in all sports and by the tremendous enthusiasm all around me. Please spare me from the sporting bigots of this world.

Over 20 years ago I wrote that hasten the day when we see a rugby club in every town in this country. That has not come to pass as yet but tremendous strides are being made in propagating the game in schools that did not previously play rugby and the rural areas.

Let us remember too, that the infamous "ban" on so-called foreign games scarcely helped and let the bigots and those who talk about an alleged "elitist game" bear in mind the number of schools where rugby was banned.

Elitism has many sides and many facets. The belief that it is only now that men from non rugby-playing schools can make it to the international team is another fallacy. Of course, the more players that come into the game from outside the schools' scene, the better. But I would have no problem naming dozens of players who have made it to the Ireland team and some the Lions, who never kicked a rugby ball at schools' level. Some great players are included in that number.

I have no doubt that the vast majority of those who play hurling, Gaelic football and hockey at the top level come through from schools. Just like the schools' rugby cups, the schools' scene in Gaelic games generates tremendous enthusiasm and keen rivalry.

Sport is a vital component of education and likewise a reflection of life, its ups and its downs, it joys and its disappointments. It teaches, or should teach, to win and lose with dignity. But never let the will to win be diminished.

Of course it is great see new schools and new powers emerging to challenge the traditionally strong. It was splendid to see Kilkenny reach the semi-final of the Leinster Senior Cup last and this season. It was equally so to see Portumna in the final of the Connacht Senior Cup this season and win the Junior Cup in the recent past. Blackrock are the most successful of all schools in Leinster. That is no reflection on the other schools. What it tells us is that, this great rugby academy produces a level of consistent excellence year after year.

Some other schools in all four provinces are also in that category. You are always going to get the traditionally strong schools in all sports, such as St Jarlath's College, Tuam, who have won the Connacht Senior Football title 42 times over the last 68 years or St Kieran's College, 45-times Leinster hurling champions in the last 78 years.

Those and other schools have given to Gaelic Games what so many schools have given to rugby. Every day we have reminders of a less caring society and historical and cultural changes. The problems are not caused by sport in schools. The solutions lie well beyond that area of life.