How young is too young?

The obvious answer is 'if he's good enough he's old enough'. And I normally agree with this. However, my club Gwent Dragons have recently been blooding more and more youngsters. Again, I'm all for this as the LV Cup is a great opportunity for clubs to try out some new options, promote from within and keep an academy 'conveyor belt' in motion. But how young is too young? This weekend the Dragons are away to Wasps afte losing heavily at home to Bath with a very inexperienced side. In the side to face Wasps is Hallam Amos, set to break the welsh record for being the youngest player to play regional rugby at 17 years and 28 days. Very young. However, the Dragons think this may be short lived as they could break the record again as they have Jack Dixon on the bench at 16 years something. 16!

Now, my head says that if he's 6'5" and 20 stone then physically he'll be fine, but these boys are not. They're backs and surely at that age they're still not fully physically developed. In a sport like soccer which is meant to be non contact, physical development is not as important: a 16/17 year old can compete on skills alone. However, in rugby any physical weakness will be exploited, and the whole sport is based on physically dominating the other team, 'winning the collisions', etc.

I would never begrudge a youngster a chance to show what they can do and expose them to the pro rugby environment, and 'if they're good enough they're old enough', as everyone says, but as a qualified coach in a number of sports something deep down tells me it's wrong to pick really young players in a physical sport like rugby.

Is there a risk of not only physical harm but also psychological harm to these young players though bad experiences at this age. I'm not talking serious psychological problems obviously! But things like loss of confidence, increased sporting anxiety, etc., all things known to affect performance.

I know people will tell me that 'if they're good enough they're old enough', but coaches have a duty of care to all players, so at what point should be limit the age of players to exposure to pro level rugby and should we worry about the increasingly young age that we are allowing boys to compete with men?

I didn't think that was legal.In my local club which is J3 so pretty low down the ladder you can't play senior rugby unless you're over 18.

I think Prydie was given a run at the ospreys at 16...!

Robert Jones was in the Swansea first team at 16 in the 80's.

Maesteg, I think Prydie must have been older than these 2 as they've been billed 'youngest regional players ever'!

I think these days 16 is too young. I played my first senior game at 16 but like rob jones the game was very different then. 16 is too young for senior top flight rugby

When George Ford played for Leicester at age 16 he had to get written permission from a parent before the RFU would allow him to play.

Well, Hallam Amos the 17 year old had just scored a try against Wasps so I guess that shoots my theory/concerns to sh*t!

Griff wrote:Well, Hallam Amos the 17 year old had just scored a try against Wasps so I guess that shoots my theory/concerns to sh*t!

Backs can obviously play much younger than forwards due to the physcallity. Pro rugby is tough.

" In a sport like soccer which is meant to be non contact"

Football is a contact sport (well supposed to be) rugby is a collision sport.

If the players are judged to be good enough and tugh enough to play then they should. The top flight regions are professional and will not risk it otherwise....

I can't agree with that,there needs to be independent rules which protect players.

A young player is never going to turn down the chance to play senior rugby and clubs don't always do whats best for the player.

Even looking at the WC final today when Parra was let play on despite being completely unfit to do so shows how the players welfare is often the last thing considered by the management.

My concern is when clubs are 'forced' to pick young players. The Dragons have been quoted as saying that they've been 'forced' to pick certain young players because of the awful injury crisis. I think we're down to something like our 5th choice tighthead 7 weeks into the season. Teams can't call a game off (or shouldn't) because they've got a lack of certain players, so they sometimes end up throwing in players who they wouldn't normally pick but have pick to fulfill the fixture. Is this fair on the player?

From a legal point of view, is there a minimum age that players need to be to play senior rugby? Is this the same or different for senior pro rugby? I'm guessing by the case of Jack Dixon at the Dragons that 16 is the minimum, but again that seems awfully young to be going in with grown men in a collision sport. At 16 a male is not fully developed, and has not yet reached the peak of his strength/power. Therefore, a 16 year old is at a disadvantage compared to older players in the team in terms of strength, and therefore maybe also in terms of protection. However, to counter my own argument bigger people generally have the ability to be stronger than smaller people, so in a game of such varying player proportions (scrum half - prop, etc.) then even if the players were all 30 years old then there would be some players at a natural disadvantage to compete in terms of strength due to their size. It's a tricky one!

As said above George Ford played at 16 and I think Ben Youngs did as well making his first appearence against Bristol before playing against Gloucester in the GP Final in that same season.

Going back a bit Lewis Moody made his debut at 18 years 94 days (ta Wiki) which was then a club record.

Some players are ready at that age and some require more time to mature, it's a purely individual thing.