Rugby: a 'Gentlemen's Game'? Not at University

I know there's less traffic on the general rugby area but couldn't really justify putting it under club or international, hopefully someone will read it!

I'm back from uni for Easter and thoroughly looking forward to turning out for my local 2nd XV at the weekend. If I'm honest I do a fairly low pressure degree so instead of working over these holidays I've had a bit of time to reflect on the differences between rugby teams for towns and cities and those which represent universities. I really want to stress that although I'm going to talk about my own university's team, they are very much representative and typical of uni teams across the country.

First up I should say I'm not a complete insider in terms of my university's team, I played for them for my first couple of weeks back in September/October before being fortunate enough to discover the 'engineer's society' team, which is full of much nicer guys who do actually display the spirit of rugby. So whilst I perhaps don't know my university's team that well -I'm sure there are plenty of decent enough guys in there - I do have a clear enough idea of the (for want of a much better term) 'lad culture' that occurs in the teams.

The rugby team's behavior makes them widely disliked amongst other students, they just act like arrogant, sexist idiots. One of the initiations for new players is to pull a girl at a club, then on the taxi ride home, dump her on her own in the middle of nowhere leaving her humiliated and with a potentially dangerous drunken late night walk home on her own. Top banter. It gets far worse, at my uni a rugby player allegedly raped a netball player after an inter-sports social. She was unable to prove anything so he remains at uni and on the team. The most shocking thing? This girl now doesn't feel comfortable going to bars/clubs that the rugby team frequent as whenever the r***ist's mates see her they go up to her and call her a lady of loose morals and a slut.

It's not just misogyny, a local bar that they often go to has had to switch to plastic cups for pints as they had taken to throwing the glasses off the first floor of the bar. At my first and only game for them during freshers against the local ex-poly they repeatedly tried to drill it into us that everyone who goes to that uni were 'scum.' I was expecting a fierce derby match followed by some drinks together - what rugby rivalries are supposed to be like, but it seems our team are arrogant enough to genuinely hate someone for going to a less prestigious uni.

The upshot of all this is that you often hear 'I hate rugby lads' or 'the league boys are alright but I can't stand the guys who play union' around campus. None of the other sports teams at uni act anything like as badly as the rugby players, I've never come across a local club side that behaves like this, so why is it that university rugby teams have to act like such idiots? Before coming to university I thought rugby players had a good enough reputation of being competitive but friendly, drinking far too much maybe but never actually doing real harm to anyone other than their own livers.

I think it's pretty sad that the reputation of our sport is so low amongst university students and thought I'd share this. Maybe it's pretty common knowledge that university teams are this bad but it took me a bit by surprise so I thought I'd share.

If you want further evidence that it's not just my uni here are a couple of articles which demonstrate the disdain for rugby teams that there is at other universities.

http://lse.tab.co.uk/2014/10/05/cringe-rugby-banter-brochure-causes-disciplinary-action/

http://bristol.tab.co.uk/2015/02/07/rugby-lads-given-final-warning-roo-bar-Wee weeing-smashing-plates-naked-antics/

Ah - students and rugby, a lethal and often embarassing mixture, in the words of Richard Beard "peed Young Conservatives with muscles".

I'll presume you're at Sheffield as you mention the L word, but basically the narative is very simple, most Russell Group unis. have a high proportion of students who have been privately schooled, they've played rugby since they were 5, and have gone through the mill of initiations, debagging, dirty songs, wee drinking competitions, peed on tour and all the stuff that made rugby great in the 1970's.
Now they are at university, they still like their rugby that way, only now they don't have a housemaster or mum and dad around to reel them in - also unlike their contemporaries at a rugby club they don't have any senior players around to give them a smack and keep them under control.
The other players who come from outside that background either FIFO - like you they play elsewhere in the uni, join a local club or are just lost to the game.
When the players from our colts side come back at vacation, you hear similar stories.
As for the one who took advantage of the young lady, you really should report that to someone at the university or in the union.

Yeah I'm at Sheffield, which is actually less than 20% private school, although I'm sure the rugby team has a higher proportion than that.

As for the r*** incident, I think that's what compelled me to write the post - I only found out about it recently and don't directly know anyone involved. Apparently if she reports it then all rugby tours (and possibly tours for other sports I think I heard someone say) would be canceled which is massively putting her off. Might be worth trying to get that rule changed as surely all it achieves is that it puts off people coming forward.

Whilst no where near the levels you mention, my experience at university regarding rugby was similar. I just wanted to play rugby, have a few drinks after the game etc. I was fine with drinking games and whatever, but to be honest most of the guys in the university side weren't people I'd want to drink with.

Funnily enough I ended up joining an engineers side as well (different uni) and it was awesome, even if we were a bit crap at the playing bit! Our "initiation" was simple. A double Ray and Nephew (60% rum) and that was it. Tastes like Poopie, but you're soon over it.

On another forum I frequent, one dad passed on a comment from his son, who said that university rugby was basically like "being on tour 24/7 for 12 weeks at a time".
If you were in the rugby club you had to hang out together all the time, there were constant drinking competitions, socials, and stupid forfiets. The son gave it up and went and joined a local club.
It was pretty much the same in my Uni days nearly 30 years ago but I'd have thought some progress would have been made by now.

I stopped playing rugby at University when I (quickly) worked out it was more about drinking than playing.

It felt like a great shame, that a game that had sustained me and gave me more than I could have imagined through my teenage years was so crap at the next stage. I should have just looked for a local club outside of the uni, but instead switched to other sports.

I have done a bit of editing Radox so we don't get in trouble

As for your story, I completely agree.  Having played rugby from the age of 6 to 18 I went to Uni expecting to carry on.  I played in the fresher's trial and then was immediately put off - similar things to what you have mentioned. I then didn't play rugby for pretty much my entire time at Uni - 5 years - only really starting again when I came back home to Edinburgh. Given your adult playing career is at the very best around 20 years, I now look back at a quarter of that being wasted having been put off by the Uni rugby team!

Basically at my Uni they acted like they owned the place and were God's gift to women.  I almost got in a fight with one of them at the Union because I was on the dance floor with my girlfriend and one of them came up behind her and just put his arms round her.  She was struggling to get rid of him so I grabbed him and pushed him away.  The only thing that stopped me getting into a fight was that he was completely mashed so didn't really know what was going on! Things would have gone badly for me if it had though because all the bouncers played in the rugby team too - you know who would have come out worse if they had intervened.

Their initiation was quite homo-erotic really.  They hired a double decker bus and all the existing players were upstairs, the newbies downstairs.  One by one the newbies would have to strip naked and go upstairs where they were force fed a lot of booze and had to run the gauntlet to get to the back of the bus.  They were then dropped off in a really dodgy part of the City and had to get back to the Union to get their clothes back.

I had left before having to go through it, but it certainly was pretty humiliating!

The sports balls seemed to be where they saved their worst behaviour though - as you say the other societies were just having a good time, whereas the rugby team were taking a p!ss on one of the tables.

Same here, I played for my local youth team through school, then at college, but when I went to university I wanted nothing to do with that shower of .....

Carried on playing again for local teams soon as I left.

Sadly it was exactly the same for me. Completely put off by the morons in the university rugby team and came close to leaving the game behind for good - looking at the links above it would appear that little has changed. Thankfully I found the department teams were much better and kept me involved.

I don't think all Uni teams are that bad though - I had plenty of friends at other unis that were very happy with the set up, and understand that they had a much more friendly/sensible approach. I wouldn't be surprised if there are a limited bunch of teams that go through a depressing but established cycle of being full of idiots and therefore attracting idiots and remaining full of idiots.

This sounds all too familiar.

Stopped playing at Uni level due to the sorts of things mentioned above and instead played for a more social side. Best decision of my life - was still a good standard and those guys are now some of my best friends. Yes we got drunk - occasionally very! Yes we sang the occasional crude song, but I don't feel like we ever crossed the line.

Surprising the number of similar experiences.

I quit the University team after just one term. Problem was there was no room for enjoying anything else. It was the rugby crowd 24/7 or nothing. I started playing for Finchley instead and had a great time.

Sounds like I did well by getting injured before my trial. Two of the lads in my hall had noticed that I could chuck and kick a ball about and had invited me to the team trial on the Saturday. I went and played indoor cricket of all things on the Wednesday and ended up damaging my ACL. No rugby for me, but from the sound of it, I don't think my liver could have taken it...

Crazy, exactly same reason I quit rugby during first term of uni..horrible culture. Got back into it again in London after a club were flyering for new players and got excited again. sadly after the first social I remembered why I quit again. Rugger buggers stealing food from strangers plates in the restaurant, guys peeing under the tables, trying to shag eachothers girlfriends etc etc, now I do triathlons instead and love watching it at a professional level.

Is this because a normal club has loads of older guys around to keep the young ones in check? A Uni team must have a much lower age profile than most clubs purely by virtue of the age of lads in tertiary education.

I think it was similar where I was. I went to a fairly big rugby uni and ended up playing social rugby I'm the 4ths as I wanted to get a degree as well. Some of what has been said rings true but a lot of the unpleasantness to others I think comes from the arrogance and I guess you don't get too much of that of you're playing in the fourth team!

We drunk too much and did a few silly things, but we respected each other and those not on our socials enough to not take it too far. Guess we might just have had a good group though.

MrsP wrote:Is this because a normal club has loads of older guys around to keep the young ones in check? A Uni team must have a much lower age profile than most clubs purely by virtue of the age of lads in tertiary education.

You're probably right that having older players would help but every other university sports team is only young players and they're all much better behaved. Also the engineers team I play for are all young too without feeling the need to act like the uni team, and it sounds like other posters have been able to find student teams which aren't full of idiots.

It's not the drinking I mind, we definitely drink a lot on our socials, it's just the fact that when official university teams try to enjoy themselves there always seems to have to be a victim, whether it's the younger players, the owners of the bar or girls at the club who they're looking to humiliate.

It's a real shame that lots of other posters were driven away from the game at uni, have to say I'm very grateful that there are alternative student rugby teams available to me. I would love to be playing in varsity though.

I went to a local varsity game a couple of weeks ago. They kicked it off at 12 so people didn't have a chance to get too drunk before hand, but the resourceful students found a way. Each set of fans had their own touchline, fans on the pitch each try, football-style chanting going on (including what I can only assume was an ironic "We pay your benefits" ditty from the more prestigious of the two schools), coloured smoke bombs, someone with a megaphone (so his funny chants could be heard by larger numbers) and a full on pitch invasion at full time by both sets of fans, dropping beer cans everywhere, meaning a few volunteers had to clear the pitch before the Women's game after.

The rugby definitely wasn't the primary focus of that game.

At least no dwarves were harmed.

robbo277 wrote:I went to a local varsity game a couple of weeks ago. They kicked it off at 12 so people didn't have a chance to get too drunk before hand, but the resourceful students found a way. Each set of fans had their own touchline, fans on the pitch each try, football-style chanting going on (including what I can only assume was an ironic "We pay your benefits" ditty from the more prestigious of the two schools), coloured smoke bombs, someone with a megaphone (so his funny chants could be heard by larger numbers) and a full on pitch invasion at full time by both sets of fans, dropping beer cans everywhere, meaning a few volunteers had to clear the pitch before the Women's game after.

The rugby definitely wasn't the primary focus of that game.

Rugby never has been the primary focus of University rugby, the naivety of the posts on here is breathtaking.  

Its Uni, that means 3 years of drunkeness, or 4 if you fail a year . If you take your rugby that seriously at Uni then find a club.

Most of the time it is just boys being boys and at my Uni, which was very posh, we did like to mark ourselves out from the whiff waff. One year in freshers week we shoed a kid so badly he went home and never came back; it's important to sort the wheat from the chaff. You don't want someone letting the side down in a 10 pint boat race after all. Those that have poor banter, can't play 5s, are beyond playing reverse 21s and can't sing the Engineer's song must be mercilessly singled out and made to wear lingerie, it's simple expediency and nothing more than harmless character building that most public schoolboys are familiar with.

Talk of date r*** etc is of course poor show and not the sort of behavior anybody wants to be involved in, but it is not just an issue for rugby teams or indeed an exclusive problem for University rugby. Bad conduct and criminality still goes on even in pro rugby. Mils Muliaina is currently on bail after being alleged to have committed sexual assault. Did he even go to Uni?

Point is people will eb people and Uni Rugby was , in my experience, resented because we had the most fun. Rugby used to be a gentleman's game but since it went pro all sorts of ne'er do wells are playing it and no wonder standards have dropped.

Please let that last post have been a WUM.

thebandwagonsociety wrote:Please let that last post have been a WUM.

I think its just an example of the kind of thinking behind those who enjoyed the kind of thing that turned the rest of us off

lostinwales wrote:

thebandwagonsociety wrote:Please let that last post have been a WUM.

I think its just an example of the kind of thinking behind those who enjoyed the kind of thing that turned the rest of us off

One hopes so

Gwlad wrote:

robbo277 wrote:I went to a local varsity game a couple of weeks ago. They kicked it off at 12 so people didn't have a chance to get too drunk before hand, but the resourceful students found a way. Each set of fans had their own touchline, fans on the pitch each try, football-style chanting going on (including what I can only assume was an ironic "We pay your benefits" ditty from the more prestigious of the two schools), coloured smoke bombs, someone with a megaphone (so his funny chants could be heard by larger numbers) and a full on pitch invasion at full time by both sets of fans, dropping beer cans everywhere, meaning a few volunteers had to clear the pitch before the Women's game after.

The rugby definitely wasn't the primary focus of that game.

Most of the time it is just boys being boys and at my Uni, which was very posh, we did like to mark ourselves out from the whiff waff.

This is the problem right here, from what I have seen. Rugby (at least here, and I'm fairly sure in most places) is quite an upper-middle class sport. A lot of young rugby players who are brought up in that environment, often seem to think they have to make up for it by presenting themselves as these faux hard men. They believe they have to "mark themselves out from the whiff waff". It is an inferiority complex, really. They often operate in packs as well.

Generally, this just makes them look like top class knobs, but at least they can cower behind the safety of "banter" whenever they are challenged on their puerile behaviour.

Rory_Gallagher wrote:

Gwlad wrote:

robbo277 wrote:I went to a local varsity game a couple of weeks ago. They kicked it off at 12 so people didn't have a chance to get too drunk before hand, but the resourceful students found a way. Each set of fans had their own touchline, fans on the pitch each try, football-style chanting going on (including what I can only assume was an ironic "We pay your benefits" ditty from the more prestigious of the two schools), coloured smoke bombs, someone with a megaphone (so his funny chants could be heard by larger numbers) and a full on pitch invasion at full time by both sets of fans, dropping beer cans everywhere, meaning a few volunteers had to clear the pitch before the Women's game after.

The rugby definitely wasn't the primary focus of that game.

Most of the time it is just boys being boys and at my Uni, which was very posh, we did like to mark ourselves out from the whiff waff.

This is the problem right here, from what I have seen. Rugby (at least here, and I'm fairly sure in most places) is quite an upper-middle class sport. A lot of young rugby players who are brought up in that environment, often seem to think they have to make up for it by presenting themselves as these faux hard men. They believe they have to "mark themselves out from the whiff waff". It is an inferiority complex, really. They often operate in packs as well.

Generally, this just makes them look like top class knobs, but at least they can cower behind the safety of "banter" whenever they are challenged on their puerile behaviour.

wow, some people take themselves faaaaaaaar too seriously.

Maybe.. But clearly this type of behaviour has affected people and put a lot of people off the game. So it is an issue.

I had the exact same experience. I played in South Wales and found it to be the most clique, self obsessed, vile, chauvinistic group of people I have ever met.

I played a year and half and just packed it in. For me it wasn't sour grapes, I picked up a few man of the match awards and all that but just horrible mentality. I now play for a wee Welsh village team in Div.1 and much more settled, friendly and honest. Also know one other guy who plays for us now and said the same thing.

Gwlad wrote:

Rory_Gallagher wrote:

Gwlad wrote:

robbo277 wrote:I went to a local varsity game a couple of weeks ago. They kicked it off at 12 so people didn't have a chance to get too drunk before hand, but the resourceful students found a way. Each set of fans had their own touchline, fans on the pitch each try, football-style chanting going on (including what I can only assume was an ironic "We pay your benefits" ditty from the more prestigious of the two schools), coloured smoke bombs, someone with a megaphone (so his funny chants could be heard by larger numbers) and a full on pitch invasion at full time by both sets of fans, dropping beer cans everywhere, meaning a few volunteers had to clear the pitch before the Women's game after.

The rugby definitely wasn't the primary focus of that game.

Most of the time it is just boys being boys and at my Uni, which was very posh, we did like to mark ourselves out from the whiff waff.

This is the problem right here, from what I have seen. Rugby (at least here, and I'm fairly sure in most places) is quite an upper-middle class sport. A lot of young rugby players who are brought up in that environment, often seem to think they have to make up for it by presenting themselves as these faux hard men. They believe they have to "mark themselves out from the whiff waff". It is an inferiority complex, really. They often operate in packs as well.

Generally, this just makes them look like top class knobs, but at least they can cower behind the safety of "banter" whenever they are challenged on their puerile behaviour.

wow, some people take themselves faaaaaaaar too seriously.

And some people think they are being funny

lostinwales wrote:

Gwlad wrote:

Rory_Gallagher wrote:

Gwlad wrote:

robbo277 wrote:I went to a local varsity game a couple of weeks ago. They kicked it off at 12 so people didn't have a chance to get too drunk before hand, but the resourceful students found a way. Each set of fans had their own touchline, fans on the pitch each try, football-style chanting going on (including what I can only assume was an ironic "We pay your benefits" ditty from the more prestigious of the two schools), coloured smoke bombs, someone with a megaphone (so his funny chants could be heard by larger numbers) and a full on pitch invasion at full time by both sets of fans, dropping beer cans everywhere, meaning a few volunteers had to clear the pitch before the Women's game after.

The rugby definitely wasn't the primary focus of that game.

Most of the time it is just boys being boys and at my Uni, which was very posh, we did like to mark ourselves out from the whiff waff.

This is the problem right here, from what I have seen. Rugby (at least here, and I'm fairly sure in most places) is quite an upper-middle class sport. A lot of young rugby players who are brought up in that environment, often seem to think they have to make up for it by presenting themselves as these faux hard men. They believe they have to "mark themselves out from the whiff waff". It is an inferiority complex, really. They often operate in packs as well.

Generally, this just makes them look like top class knobs, but at least they can cower behind the safety of "banter" whenever they are challenged on their puerile behaviour.

wow, some people take themselves faaaaaaaar too seriously.

And some people think they are being funny

i bet you are a really fun guy.

Gwlad wrote:

lostinwales wrote:

Gwlad wrote:

Rory_Gallagher wrote:

Gwlad wrote:

robbo277 wrote:I went to a local varsity game a couple of weeks ago. They kicked it off at 12 so people didn't have a chance to get too drunk before hand, but the resourceful students found a way. Each set of fans had their own touchline, fans on the pitch each try, football-style chanting going on (including what I can only assume was an ironic "We pay your benefits" ditty from the more prestigious of the two schools), coloured smoke bombs, someone with a megaphone (so his funny chants could be heard by larger numbers) and a full on pitch invasion at full time by both sets of fans, dropping beer cans everywhere, meaning a few volunteers had to clear the pitch before the Women's game after.

The rugby definitely wasn't the primary focus of that game.

Most of the time it is just boys being boys and at my Uni, which was very posh, we did like to mark ourselves out from the whiff waff.

This is the problem right here, from what I have seen. Rugby (at least here, and I'm fairly sure in most places) is quite an upper-middle class sport. A lot of young rugby players who are brought up in that environment, often seem to think they have to make up for it by presenting themselves as these faux hard men. They believe they have to "mark themselves out from the whiff waff". It is an inferiority complex, really. They often operate in packs as well.

Generally, this just makes them look like top class knobs, but at least they can cower behind the safety of "banter" whenever they are challenged on their puerile behaviour.

wow, some people take themselves faaaaaaaar too seriously.

And some people think they are being funny

i bet you are a really fun guy.

You missed the punchline there, should be:
"I bet you are a really fungi"

offload wrote:

Gwlad wrote:

lostinwales wrote:

Gwlad wrote:

Rory_Gallagher wrote:

Gwlad wrote:

robbo277 wrote:I went to a local varsity game a couple of weeks ago. They kicked it off at 12 so people didn't have a chance to get too drunk before hand, but the resourceful students found a way. Each set of fans had their own touchline, fans on the pitch each try, football-style chanting going on (including what I can only assume was an ironic "We pay your benefits" ditty from the more prestigious of the two schools), coloured smoke bombs, someone with a megaphone (so his funny chants could be heard by larger numbers) and a full on pitch invasion at full time by both sets of fans, dropping beer cans everywhere, meaning a few volunteers had to clear the pitch before the Women's game after.

The rugby definitely wasn't the primary focus of that game.

Most of the time it is just boys being boys and at my Uni, which was very posh, we did like to mark ourselves out from the whiff waff.

This is the problem right here, from what I have seen. Rugby (at least here, and I'm fairly sure in most places) is quite an upper-middle class sport. A lot of young rugby players who are brought up in that environment, often seem to think they have to make up for it by presenting themselves as these faux hard men. They believe they have to "mark themselves out from the whiff waff". It is an inferiority complex, really. They often operate in packs as well.

Generally, this just makes them look like top class knobs, but at least they can cower behind the safety of "banter" whenever they are challenged on their puerile behaviour.

wow, some people take themselves faaaaaaaar too seriously.

And some people think they are being funny

i bet you are a really fun guy.

You missed the punchline there, should be:
"I bet you are a really fungi"

Nah that's Welshmushroom

Rory_Gallagher wrote:

Gwlad wrote:

robbo277 wrote:I went to a local varsity game a couple of weeks ago. They kicked it off at 12 so people didn't have a chance to get too drunk before hand, but the resourceful students found a way. Each set of fans had their own touchline, fans on the pitch each try, football-style chanting going on (including what I can only assume was an ironic "We pay your benefits" ditty from the more prestigious of the two schools), coloured smoke bombs, someone with a megaphone (so his funny chants could be heard by larger numbers) and a full on pitch invasion at full time by both sets of fans, dropping beer cans everywhere, meaning a few volunteers had to clear the pitch before the Women's game after.

The rugby definitely wasn't the primary focus of that game.

Most of the time it is just boys being boys and at my Uni, which was very posh, we did like to mark ourselves out from the whiff waff.

This is the problem right here, from what I have seen. Rugby (at least here, and I'm fairly sure in most places) is quite an upper-middle class sport. A lot of young rugby players who are brought up in that environment, often seem to think they have to make up for it by presenting themselves as these faux hard men. They believe they have to "mark themselves out from the whiff waff". It is an inferiority complex, really. They often operate in packs as well.

Generally, this just makes them look like top class knobs, but at least they can cower behind the safety of "banter" whenever they are challenged on their puerile behaviour.

This x1000

Pretty gutted to read this as that was my old uni. I knew a few of the rugby lads and quite a lot of one of the hall teams and there reputation was significantly better then. I wasn't playing at the time so wasn't in amongst. Actually what you described was the reputation attached more commonly to the football team. Very disappointed to hear both rugby and the uni are dragging their names through the mud with such moronic and illegal behaviour. Sounds like a few need a good slap.

I'd like to take a small opportunity to defend university rugby a touch here.

Although most comments above are correct, there is a lad culture within University rugby, it doesn't stop at rugby, there are tons of examples of University sports teams in deep troubles, my mind automatically goes to this years Stirling footballers who 'blacked up' on a night out, to Liverpools womens rugby team who engaged in a fist fight with locals, Loughbrough's Tennis players, Shef Hallams footballers, Boltons Hockey players, Cardiff footballers, and Aberystwyth cricketers etc etc!

University rugby does provide some great examples, I know of 2 current University teams who have raised 1000's of pounds for charity.

Lets not consider this as a Rugby problem, it is only regarded as such due to rugbys nature as a middle class or elitist sport, and well due to the violent nature of the game, and the squad and player size they are pretty much the easily recognisable on campus a lot of the time.

I'm not saying there is a problem, there clearly is, but it is not solely a Rugby problem, howeer it is a University problem, when you put 50+ students in sole charge of a sports team the biggest and baddest will become most visible!

Radox For Men wrote:I know there's less traffic on the general rugby area but couldn't really justify putting it under club or international, hopefully someone will read it!

I'm back from uni for Easter and thoroughly looking forward to turning out for my local 2nd XV at the weekend. If I'm honest I do a fairly low pressure degree so instead of working over these holidays I've had a bit of time to reflect on the differences between rugby teams for towns and cities and those which represent universities. I really want to stress that although I'm going to talk about my own university's team, they are very much representative and typical of uni teams across the country.

First up I should say I'm not a complete insider in terms of my university's team, I played for them for my first couple of weeks back in September/October before being fortunate enough to discover the 'engineer's society' team, which is full of much nicer guys who do actually display the spirit of rugby. So whilst I perhaps don't know my university's team that well -I'm sure there are plenty of decent enough guys in there - I do have a clear enough idea of the (for want of a much better term) 'lad culture' that occurs in the teams.

The rugby team's behavior makes them widely disliked amongst other students, they just act like arrogant, sexist idiots. One of the initiations for new players is to pull a girl at a club, then on the taxi ride home, dump her on her own in the middle of nowhere leaving her humiliated and with a potentially dangerous drunken late night walk home on her own. Top banter. It gets far worse, at my uni a rugby player allegedly raped a netball player after an inter-sports social. She was unable to prove anything so he remains at uni and on the team. The most shocking thing? This girl now doesn't feel comfortable going to bars/clubs that the rugby team frequent as whenever the r***ist's mates see her they go up to her and call her a lady of loose morals and a slut.

It's not just misogyny, a local bar that they often go to has had to switch to plastic cups for pints as they had taken to throwing the glasses off the first floor of the bar. At my first and only game for them during freshers against the local ex-poly they repeatedly tried to drill it into us that everyone who goes to that uni were 'scum.' I was expecting a fierce derby match followed by some drinks together - what rugby rivalries are supposed to be like, but it seems our team are arrogant enough to genuinely hate someone for going to a less prestigious uni.

The upshot of all this is that you often hear 'I hate rugby lads' or 'the league boys are alright but I can't stand the guys who play union' around campus. None of the other sports teams at uni act anything like as badly as the rugby players, I've never come across a local club side that behaves like this, so why is it that university rugby teams have to act like such idiots? Before coming to university I thought rugby players had a good enough reputation of being competitive but friendly, drinking far too much maybe but never actually doing real harm to anyone other than their own livers.

I think it's pretty sad that the reputation of our sport is so low amongst university students and thought I'd share this. Maybe it's pretty common knowledge that university teams are this bad but it took me a bit by surprise so I thought I'd share.

If you want further evidence that it's not just my uni here are a couple of articles which demonstrate the disdain for rugby teams that there is at other universities.

http://lse.tab.co.uk/2014/10/05/cringe-rugby-banter-brochure-causes-disciplinary-action/

http://bristol.tab.co.uk/2015/02/07/rugby-lads-given-final-warning-roo-bar-Wee weeing-smashing-plates-naked-antics/

Sadly a lot of this at my Uni and Med school team (though there were some great blokes there) too, and though I'd play rugby for them (though the "lad culture" drove me away from the first couple of years), I was never really part of the club itself for this reason

University rugby players were some of the worst people I've ever met. for years I hated rugby as a result of my experience watching their behaviour, and it is still the reason I find the whole 'gentleman's game' a complete load of sanctimonious drivel.

There are top people who play rugby, football, whatever. And there are awful people.

I am very late to this thread, but sadly I have to agree with most of these comments. I left a London uni 15 years ago, but the moronic behaviour of the team ensured I quickly stopped attending games/socials. The sad part about it in hindsight, is they also did some fantastic charitable work.