Last night on Off The Ball, journalist Ewan MacKenna and Trevor Hogan discussed the ways in which Ireland could broaden its pool of available rugby players by spreading the game beyond just the fee-paying school system.
Tonight, former Ireland captain Keith Wood gave his take on some of the issues and challenges in the growing debate on Wednesday Night Rugby.
"Rugby was and still is very perceived as being an affluent sport. Paul O'Connell's comment about whether a child growing up in Kilkenny will want to play for Ireland or for Kilkenny, my presumption is they'll want to play for Kilkenny for the most part because that is the tradition and history that's there and I do think you want to expand everything," said Keith as he and The Irish Times' Gerry Thornley joined us on the show.
"But I also think you've to be careful what you wish for. Rugby is very, very technical and there are safety issues in terms of it. I see a huge spread in the mini-game and I see it first hand in Killaloe - it's fantastic actually - and people are getting interested in the idea of rugby at a very early age and it's great fun. But when you get to 12, 13, 14 and the boys start growing up and becoming much bigger, you need to have a level of competency and safety to make certain those kids are trained properly. And I think that's a huge challenge for rugby. That's where it ends up getting filtered through the private schools sector a little bit more because they have the resource to make that happen. And because a lot of villages are having new clubs and new clubs are being set up, it becomes incredibly difficult for them to do that very, very well. I think there is an issue with that. I'm often not in favour of streaming players and kids, but for rugby, I think it's quite complicated and the infrastructural change that would be to make that work for every school - non-fee and fee-paying - I think is probably a step too far."
Keith and Gerry also reflected on the Rugby World Cup final. Listen to Wednesday Night Rugby via the podcast.
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