Will Greenwood reacts to the suggestion that rugby rules need to be changed
Will Greenwood blasts suggestions junior rugby rules should be overhauled for safety reasons.
Last Updated: 18/02/14 4:17pm
That was Will Greenwood's sharp response to the suggestion that the rules of rugby should be overhauled in the junior level of the game.
The World Cup winning centre blasted the comments of Professor of Public Health Allyson Pollock, who had said on Sky Sports News that the game must "become a very different game from the very brutal game that we are seeing the professional players play".
Greenwood, who was filming an episode for the School of Hard Knocks, mounted a passionate defence of the game and extolled the benefits of the game for youngsters.
"I am not immune to the worries of a parent - worrying that my boy Archie may pick up an injury along the way through rugby," Greenwood said.
"You can keep your stats and your numbers because it is what a sport gives you - that feeling of being together as one and of building something.
"[It] gives the values we hold dear in sport: respect, team-ship, the ability to stand side by side. To me that is far more important than the occasional niggle and the occasional scrape.
"I am passionate in believing that we have a cotton wool nanny state that continually tells me what I can and cannot do. Life is about taking knocks and then getting back up off the floor and going again, and going again, and going again.
"I understand your values but are you telling me right now that you want rugby banned? I have never ever heard such nonsense in my entire life."
