Page 99 - All Shapes & Zebras From Treorchy

“Some years are fallow, whereas other seasons provide youth teams from which clubs cultivate a bountiful crop of players that go on to represent the senior sides for years to come... ”
When it does work out, so many factors seem to align you can’t help but feel blessed by the rugby Gods. The nature of youth team rugby throws up many a bump in the road towards first team rugby. Youths, by very definition, are adolescents that begin to see the world very differently and are introduced to a number of different activities and amusements – both good and bad. Take some wild hormonal changes, throw in some booze, relationships, school, other hobbies and pastimes, and you get the gist. To put it simply, the distractions for a youth team player are varied. Put plainly, for every player who begins playing rugby at a young age and who becomes a rugby obsessive, there’ll be others who are tired and disengaged by the time youth team rugby rolls around. Some youngsters who have played mini and junior rugby may start to ebb away; we all have our passions and there’s no pre-ordained right that decrees that you need to always play rugby, of course. But some may refer to players leaving the system as ‘burn out’, and that’s a real (and rather sobering) problem, and a fine and delicate line has to be walked by clubs, coaches and parents: how do you maintain passion and enjoyment for a sport, sustaining and building on it season after season into adulthood?
ALL SHAPES & ZEBRAS FROM TREORCHY 97