Yeah, nah, i don’t think it’s gooses like me that have soccer numbers up.
In my opinion there are a number of reasons
1) over protective parents.
2) a growing apathy for tradition.
3) soccer is the politically correct sport to play.
4) a lack of ‘toughness’ in today’s youth, a phenomenon we are seeing more of as we get further away from the generation of people that won WW2
I could go on and on
access to coaches a possible factor too? Being a rugby coach is damn hard. Limited access to kids, and you've got to spend that time between technical coach, strategy, cohesion and safety and how often do you actually get the full team together.
Now Soccer, and forgive me ignorance, must be easier to coach. "He's a round ball kids, kick it into that net"