Only five black players have represented England since 2011 in the same period, 12 have been capped by their union counterparts. How do you get kids from schools into playing amateur rugby and watching games? These are the questions we’re trying to find the answers to and it seems nobody has the answer.” If you went to a rugby league game, you’d struggle to see more than 50 black faces in a crowd of 15,000.

Maybe the sport hasn’t had a mechanism in its recent history to inspire black communities, but with Jamaica qualifying for the World Cup, it now does. When you count solely black players, the number is even lower.Īlex Simmons, who is working alongside Robinson with Jamaica, says: “We have to look in the mirror as a sport, be honest and set some ambitious targets surrounding equality, diversity and inclusion. Less than 8% of players in the community game identify as black, Asian or minority ethnic, according to the Rugby Football League’s latest figures. You’ve got to go into the area with a pathway and a clear idea of what you want to achieve. There’s a bottom-up approach and a top-down approach to consider and there isn’t as much being done as there should be.

“At grassroots level and in schools, more needs to be done. Ellery Hanley, a former Great Britain captain and coach, is a legend of the game.

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