Rugby can never lose that [loving] feeling of contact

Contact in rugby is under the microscope with every hit examined by experts the world over, some agree, many don’t. But, amidst it all, we should never lose the joy of contact, says Alex Mead.

Even for a sport based on the body-on-body take down, push back, and barge through, of an opponent, contact in rugby has never filled more column inches and social feeds than in recent times.

The lawsuit aimed at the powers that be by an ever-growing number of ex-players was the spark that lit the powder keg, with a written statement proclaiming:  “The claimants suspect, therefore, that this is a case where there has been an abject failure of documenting or recording systems, protocols, reviews, health records, playing records, or commissioned medical and scientific research to support any decision by the governing bodies that related to the priority of players’ safety.­”

It's powerful stuff, especially when you see the impact it’s had on the likes of Rugby World Cup winner Steve Thompson.

Some changes have been swift, perhaps too swift, such as the announcement of tackle laws being applied beneath the top tier of English rugby – it created a unified, tidal wave of emotion throughout the grassroots game unlike anything we’ve seen in modern times.

And, new laws at the top end of the sport are now endlessly scrutinised via social media at every major game. Owen Farrell has trended for all the wrong reasons, and similarly, clashes in the opening round of the Rugby World Cup in France have provided ammunition for a swarm of social and television analysts to have their say on contact.

More often than not, the emotion behind contact is forgotten, and the debate seems to be akin to Brexit, where one side believes calling the other stupid and blatantly in the wrong is the way to make them change their mind, as opposed to some kind of understanding as to why they take an opposing view.

Rugby is about contact.

Any coach who’s ever had to tell their players ‘let’s do some touch’ and to witness the collective shoulders slump and the groans fill the air of at least half of the players, knows what happens when contact is taken anyway from a group of rugby players.

The same happened when during Covid we had a hastily thrown together version of non-contact rugby to deal with. It was the best we could do in the circumstances, but it wasn’t our rugby. Our rugby has contact and the types of contact we have, is what makes it unique.

We’ve had the same debate over depowering of the scrum, and every time another debate surfaces, we have to balance legitimate safety concerns with, what can only be described as the joy of contact, to find an outcome that suits everyone.

The new campaign we’ve just launched for Rhino (We Are Contact) is all about the feeling of contact and how, for some – I’m not saying everyone here, I personally, as a scrum-half, was always more inspired by avoiding contact, pushing others into contact and complaining when they didn’t stop opponents making contact with me – that is where the joy of rugby comes from.

We Are Contact was designed to highlight that at that very point of contact, when you set in the scrum, when you wrap or drive through your opponent (or when they drive you), it’s a piece of Rhino kit you practise on. They are the contact.

But the execution, the ‘feeling of contact’, was in part inspired by our interview with Welsh-Tongan prop Sisililia Tuipulotu for Rugby Journal when she told us that when she first discovered rugby in her teens, she was overwhelmed with how much she loved the physical side. “I just loved the contact, the tackling...” she said. Being of Tongan origin that’s hardly surprising, but for so many that is what drives people, and she felt that instant connection with rugby that so many rugby players feel when they discover it.

The feeling when you make a tackle, break a tackle, win your wrestle in the front row, drive back a defender, all of this is the meat and veg of the game. We can’t all beat opponents outside, bewilder defences with our silky skills, or knock one over the posts from the touchline, but we can all feel contact, make an impact. And, more importantly, we can all then spend hours talking about afterwards. Tackles made, tackles missed, when we drove them ten yards, when they drove us twenty.

It doesn’t even end that day, which rugby club WhatsApp chat isn’t filled the following day with talk of the aches, pains, sores and wounds each player has woken up with.

Contact fuels the rugby life, it fuels the friendships, and it’s what we all grew up with. Love it, or hate it, it’s a feeling so familiar, so unique to our sport, that when any talk of it being taken away surfaces, it’s natural instinct to defend what you love if you feel, rightly or wrongly, its existence is being threatened.

Shouting people down who do so isn’t going to solve anything, no matter how right you think you are, and how wrong you think they are...

And, this isn’t about not making changes – the awful scenarios faced by so many ex-players has to force change in the game somehow. Even I, involved in rugby in many different ways, have to be confident I’m sending my son, who’s in the under-8s, to play a game that’s not going to cause him long-term harm.

Instead, we have to work together to find the best way forward, while also maintaining the joy of contact that has brought millions of people to our game, for generations.

Rugby is often about doing your talking on the pitch, but right now, doing it off the pitch is more important than ever.