Rugby league’s dangerous junior grading system is damaging the game - just ask this broken 12-year-old

Rugby league’s dangerous and outdated junior grading system is eating away at the fabric of the game. Just ask Oliver Campbell, the broken 12-year-old who will walk away from the game he loves.

• Investigation launched into junior tackle

Oliver Campbell should never have spent nine hours in hospital.

He should not be waiting for surgery on his shattered shoulder that will impact his life for months to come.

And he should not be quitting rugby league at the age of 12, scared off from the game he loves.

Oliver has been let down by junior rugby league rules that allowed him to be pitted against an opponent whose strength allowed him to hurl him in the air and drive him into the turf, breaking his humerus bone.

Critics suggesting rugby league is a contact sport and that injuries are just part of the game need to look at the facts.

This could have been avoided.

Yes, rugby league is a tough sport. As far as physicality goes, it’s not basketball, soccer or tennis.

X-ray for junior footy story

But Oliver was playing in an under-12s division-three game.

Division three.

He signed up at the start of the year to have fun with his mates.

Of course they want to win.

But he’s not there to be pile-driven into the turf.

Playing lopsided opposition is not fun for these kids.

Oliver’s father, Peter, says junior players with greater skill and aggression levels should be playing at higher levels. And he’s right.

Rugby league has a duty of care to make sure incidents like this don’t happen to their kids.

Kids grow up in all shapes and sizes, which makes it imperative that, in body contact sports, that they are properly graded.

The system desperately needs an overhaul.

What parent will want to put their 11-year-old kid into the sport, where they want to run around and pretend they’re Nicho Hynes or Nathan Cleary, but at the same time be at risk of being injured and ending up in hospital with injuries?

When Cleary was 11, he played soccer, and one day a mate convinced him to come give rugby league a try.

Thankfully, he was growing up in New Zealand where rugby league had weight divisions.

Had he been registered to play in a competition in Sydney, up against kids far bigger than he was, who knows whether we would now be watching one of the NRL’s all-time great careers unfold.

Junior tackle sparks investigation.

Administrators have to make sure rugby league is a safe environment for kids.

It’s the only way it remains the greatest game of all.

This incident has been terrible publicity for the game.

However, something positive can still come of this.

The incident is going to wake a few people up who have been asleep at the wheel.

It must be the catalyst for change.