Youth Rugby

On Saturday May 7, 2011 I was given the opportunity to witness my first ever youth league sporting event in Maroubra Beach.  The sport that we were observing was rugby.  Prior to this I have had two experiences with going to rugby games, one professional, one lower level professional, and now one youth level.  All three have been different experiences but also very informative about the nature of rugby throughout Australia.  Showing up to the field today I did not expect to see the amount of children as well as parents involved in the sporting event as I saw.  It reminded me of my youth soccer program where everyone between the ages of eight and twelve played on a team regardless of their athletic ability or skill level.  From what I could understand by observing it looked as if most of the different levels of play were broken up by age group; nine year olds had a division, ten year old, etc, all the way to twelve or thirteen year olds.  The parental involvement was also very shocking.  Almost all of the coaches, referees, and members working at the snack bar seemed to be volunteer parents who were very competitive when it came to rugby.  I saw one coach get pretty intense with his team of ten year olds and I expected a negative reaction from his players.  Sure enough I was wrong and within the next five minutes his team scored twice showing that even at a young age rugby is very competitive throughtout Australia.  In America if coaches yell at young athletes the reaction will be the opposite of what was witnessed today, hence why American youth sports are often scrutinized for not being competitive.