Legs taken: Rugby needs to tackle its injury problemWikimedia Commons

“Take his legs! Take his legs!”

That three-word refrain will forever be etched onto my memory. Coaches and parents alike would bark it out from the touchline as large, over-developed teenagers rumbled through line after line of pubescent defence, increasingly desperate as the giants trundled on until finally the tackle came, some thirty yards later.

Part of the reason why my rugby-playing days ended prematurely was because I listened to those touchline orders. As the six-foot-something boy-mountain pounded towards me, often with a couple of my own teammates clinging to his considerable bulk, I would tentatively dip my head down-wards, readying myself for the executioner’s axe. The trick was to not meet the grunting monster with any force, but to simply let him topple over you. Most of the time it worked quite effectively, and often the shouts from the sideline would stop abruptly, instead replaced by those of “Oooh, good tackle!”

At first I loved it. I enjoyed getting stuck into the unglamorous nature of the game and was pleased to have a recognised role in the team, an important cog in a semi-oiled (but quite rusty) machine. I played mostly as a full-back, and it was my job, as one coach delicately put it, to “tackle anything that moved”. I was ruthless.

But then things started to change. The opposition got bigger, the tackles more frightening, and my pre-game routine became a ritual of physically assessing the opposition, calculating with dread just how big the big guys were. It also transpired that most of the larger players were also the fastest, and this seemed particularly unfair. They scored tries at will, swotting away the attempted tackles of those that dared go near them.

Deep down I wanted more from the game. Players on the TV with a number 15 on their back were playing a different sport to me. Jason Robinson seared through holes in the opposition defence, Geordan Murphy would leap salmon-like into the air to claim a swirling high ball and Percy Montgomery landed monster penalties from all angles of the field. My job as doormat for the biggest players on the pitch somehow didn’t quite compare.

I dreamed of carving through an impossible gap in the opposition defence, chipping over the heads of dazed defenders before dummying round the last man and swallow diving under the posts. But this was never going to happen. The more vividly I realised this, the more disillusioned I became. I began to shy away from tackles, cowering from contact as an increasing number of rollicking forwards slipped through my arms.

This is a problem faced by youth rugby nationwide. Teenagers develop at different rates, meaning it is perfectly likely for a six foot three, hairy-legged beanpole with several hours of weightlifting already under his belt to be pitted against a skinny little scrum-half with two terrifying years to endure before he even touches puberty.

In January 2011, 14-year-old Benjamin Robinson collapsed and died following two heavy impacts in a rugby game, an event that could have been readily avoided had the necessary measures been taken. Similar issues occur at senior level, and the new concussion laws introduced, which stipulate a player incurring a head injury is rigorously examined before being allowed to continue playing, seek to remedy this.

The answers need to be more hands-on. Players could be segregated into size and weight categories, and touch rugby should be played and promoted more widely to emphasise handling and dexterity rather than sizeable collisions. At the age of 12, I found myself thrown onto a full-sized pitch with a vast ocean of space to negotiate: the bigger guys had more time to get ahead of steam and impacts were greater. But by playing on a half- or three-quarter sized arena, the game can be more evenly contested. Youth rugby often felt like being a small fish in a very large pond, living in fear of several other very large fish.

Rugby is a physical game. The emphasis must shift from the importance of size – encouraging young players to pound out heavy weights in the gym – to place greater onus on skill, speed and technique. This is partly due to the size and physicality of professional players who serve as role models, and partly due to the rates at which young people develop. As a sport, it will become more inclusive and the injury rate – currently worryingly high – will begin to reduce, and hopefully the changes made from a young age will percolate through to senior level. Above all, it is the attitudes of coaches and players that need reshaping rather than the rules of the game.

My hope is that future generations of young players dipping their heads towards the pumping thighs of an oncoming player will be felling a pair of legs similar to their own. Equally matched opponents, after all, make the best sporting contests.