Having made a monumental PR cock-up, administrators must consider the game as a whole, including grassroots
Everyone makes mistakes. Apparently the occasional misprint has even been known to creep into the Guardian. All of us are human and rugby union is a famously imperfect sport. But it has to be said the Rugby Football Union has had better weeks. On a sliding popularity scale of one to 10 the general consensus has been that the guardians of the game in England scored, at best, a big fat zero.
It was such a howler that some are simply treating it as an aberration. Maybe it was just a cock-up. But if you are releasing a bombshell statement from the RFU Council – in this case announcing a ban on tackling above the waist at almost every level in England on a trial basis from this summer – it is critical to get the small print right. Sticking out an “apology” a few days later, with the community game in uproar, and claiming the word “waist” should really have read “navel” was akin to trying to apply a dab of Vaseline to an amputated leg.
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