After being a lifeguard at a day camp for four years, I’ve become very paranoid when watching kids roughhouse or run across pavement or just do something reckless. Watching ten-year-old children play Rugby Union that included tackling gave me horrible anxiety and brought me close to cardiac arrest. I could barely watch as the children dragged each other down while their parents screamed from the sidelines with words of encouragement. The whole ordeal seemed borderline barbaric.
However, a scene like this is normal for any given Saturday morning in Australia. While Maroubra does have a specifically violent past, this type of violence seen up and down the coast is completely normal and encouraged. While the children were on the sidelines waiting to be put in the game, they were running drills, which also prepared them for the tackles. This just seemed crazy to me. Something like this would never be found in an American recreational youth soccer or basketball game.
The closest youth sport we have to youth rugby in my town is something called Pop Warner football, which is made up of kids from ages 5-13 playing touch-American football. Tackling is not tolerated in this contact sport and any injuries that do occur would surely result in a parent suing the township. It’s differences like these that make youth sport in Australia more intense than youth sport in America.
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