Rugby needs to wake up to the slow strangling of the grassroots game

The RFU is midway through its latest review to better cater for the needs of the 1,500 rugby clubs in its membership and they urgently need nurturingLiverpool St Helens: a case study in community rugby It has been a bad month for the RFU. The furore sparked by the recent decision to cut funding for the Championship has revealed a fault line running throughout rugby union in England. It might best be termed as the tension between recreation and ambition, community and elitism, the amateur ethos and the professional.The question has never quite been resolved since professionalism. What is the pu…