THERE has never been a more fervent response from our rugby readership. Last week in my Rolling Maul column, I said the experimental law coming in next season to all levels of rugby which allows defending teams to collapse the maul was potentially dangerous. The International Rugby Board was outflanked in its campaign to bring in a grim raft of more than 30 experiments for next season and only 13 remain, many of them minor. But it is in the game for children and youth players where anger and fear are at their highest.

My disquiet had already been shared. My colleagues in our club coaching group and in all our opposing teams of late had expressed alarm. So had parents, some of whom are terrified, and so have schoolteachers. And so, now, have our readers, and we include today just a flavour.

“With three sons aged 8-15 playing rugby and as a first-aider and manager of a youth team, I can say this initiative will drive many boys (or parents) to move to other sports,” wrote Tracey Brader.

Christopher Croft makes a point about the youth game. “How can you compare Andy Sheridan falling on top of Carl Hayman with a 12-year-old who has grown early falling on top of one who hasn’t?”

David Rundle of Warlingham wrote: “The danger to adults is potentially as great. I weigh 11½st and play for a local third team. Next season I am faced with the prospect of wrapping my opposite stand-off up in a tackle that then turns into a maul. So far so good, until the maul is collapsed and the weight of the packs breaks my leg/dislocates my shoulder/ renders me tetraplegic.”

Some coaches will not put their youngsters in danger, as John Hughes, a coach from Mortlake, asserts. “I will be writing to our league secretary suggesting they contact all clubs telling them not to try this stupid experiment. If they refuse, I shall contact opposition coaches asking them to play without this experiment. If they refuse, I will award the game to the opposition. If collapsing the maul is allowed there will be horrific consequences.”

We understated the RFU, who have initiated a cogent debate, are considering not allowing the maul law to be applied to the youth game. The RFU’s laws task group may remind the RFU it has the power to introduce variations to the laws at youth level, so they could simply refuse to allow the experiment.

The IRB point to a Manchester University study into a similar experimental law in South Africa that concluded serious injury does not rise if mauls can be collapsed, but playing styles and ground conditions there are different, and many will doubt that this is a representative sample.

In any case, what happens to danger levels when collapsed mauls become the norm, when one body is trapped at the bottom of a crashing heap? Can there be research for that? It is one thing to make a farce of rugby with the experiments, universally detested in Britain and Ireland. To put young players in danger is palpably another.

To read Stephen Jones’ original article, please visit www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/ rugby_union