What is winning?

I've been talking to someone about this recently because I'm sure that the way coaches define winning gets in the way of developing junior rugby in England. It might also get in the way of developing junior rugby in Scotland, Ireland and Wales, but that's not my problem.

It could be that I'm wrong, and I've been told I am wrong on more than one occassion, but I believe at junior level it's not about winning but about how you play the game. I don't want my kids to be taught to cheat or how to rough the opposition up (which is clearly done in some of the "successful" teams we play). I don't want to see them straitjacketed in a system by the time they are twelve years old and I don't want to see them in teams where the game plan is to get the ball out to the team "superstar".

We've all seen that sort of player. He's bigger or faster that the others in his age group and the coaches' gameplan revolves round him. Each year he gets smaller and slower in comparison to the others. The opposition learn to close him down. Eventually, the physical advantage having decreased considerably, you realise he can't play rugby. It's not his fault; it's the fault of the coaches who thought he didn't need to learn more skills. Meanwhile there are fourteen other kids in the team who have been made to feel second class.

My idea of winning is ending up with fifteen kids who feel good about themselves. They may have lost on points but if they have played hard and fair, played to their potential and produced some good rugby, then they should feel good about themselves. If they have won on points by shunting the ball out to their flying winger all the time you have to ask what they have achieved apart from a "W" on the score sheet. It's nice but in a year, or five or ten, it will be character that counts, not a "W".

It's fashionable today to say "show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser." It used to be fashionable to say something else.

Sorry if I'm being old fashioned, but there are worse things. Just look at the cesspit that is professional football if you want to see what happens when a sport substitutes cash for character.