If ever there was a year for rugby union to show the best side of itself it is 2019. A first Rugby World Cup to be staged in Asia, fresh financial investment offering club rugby a chance to take a significant next step, a Six Nations championship requiring only a sprinkle of on-field brilliance to rank among the most compelling tournaments in recent memory.
So why the slight sense of unease as the New Year fireworks crackled and popped? Partly it is because rugby has a long, undistinguished history of failing to grasp such major opportunities. It is only in 2015, for example, that English rugby was toasting the massive long-term benefits that hosting the biggest World Cup in history would inevitably bring. Barely three years later the talk is of damaging cuts to the community game, clubs struggling to put out as many adult teams as they used to and the Rugby Football Union’s latest winter of internal political discontent.
Sam Underhill a Six Nations doubt after ankle ligament injury
Mix in the potential complications of Brexit, increasing disquiet over the game’s ever-growing physicality and the ongoing wrangling over the new global international calendar and there is a rising cacophony of noises off. None of this, though, is as damaging as the bleakest scenario of the lot: the prospect of rugby losing any semblance of a reputation for respect, honour and integrity with participants, to borrow from Oscar Wilde, knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing.
Recent events have been far from encouraging in this fundamental area. Last weekend alone one of the supposed showpiece games of the English season was marred by accusations of a player spitting at an opponent, while a director of rugby had an unseemly press-room altercation with a journalist and a leading player publicly lambasted a fellow pro for potentially endangering his career. Before Christmas the England captain and an international teammate were pinged for backchat by a referee sick and tired of constantly being advised how to do his job.
Eye-gouging, biting, simulation, bullying allegations, nightclub misconduct … any pretensions to the moral high ground to which rugby used to cling have long since been eroded. This matters for one fundamental reason: if rugby ceases to be regarded, even by those who love it, as a character-building, mood-enhancing and cherishable team sport for all, it becomes even harder to justify the lengthy queues of battered players in A & E.
This is not to say rugby has surrendered its soul, merely that all involved need to be aware of the slippery slope they are on. Hard but fair should be rugby’s watchword, not “I think you’ll find the video evidence is inconclusive”. When players appeal to the referee, as they so often do, for penalties at breakdowns when the supposed offender is being deliberately pinned down by their own teammates, they should understand they do their sport a small but significant disservice. Ditto the mock outrage when a scrum goes down or, worse, arm-waving appeals are made to the assistant referee. Playing to the absolute limits of the laws is absolutely fine; deliberately going to ground after contact with the clear aim of getting an opponent carded is not.
Some will argue such cynicism does not matter in the great scheme of things, that what happens out on the pitch is heat-of-the-moment stuff and no one else’s business. This ignores the snowball effect on behaviour at lower levels as well as the rising levels of frustration it generates, from directors of rugby downwards. Whether at games or on social media, there is no question that rugby fans as a species are growing more one-eyed, less tolerant and generally more easily enraged. This would also appear true of society as a whole but rugby, a game fundamentally predicated on respect for its officials and participants, is cheapened more than most by finger-pointing and unnecessary posturing.
Rugby union: talking points from the Premiership’s weekend action
The point was rammed home at Wembley, of all places, last weekend. It is always instructive to attend other sports as a paying spectator to see what rugby should both learn from and beware. Tottenham Hotspur v Wolverhampton Wanderers proved a perfect case study. Those of us who have waited a lifetime to watch Wolves win at Wemb-er-lee in the flesh enjoyed the day immensely but, as a pure live sporting spectacle, Premier League football is no better – and arguably worse in certain respects – than its oval-ball cousin.
This was particularly true in the stands where the concept of friendly rivalry remains depressingly alien. Dotted around the Spurs section were a number of closet Wolves fans, not all of whom could disguise their joy at their side’s equaliser. When Wolves scored again and a couple of them rose to their feet once more, the stewards were duly summoned. No sooner had a semblance of peace been restored, however, when Wolves scored again, precipitating an all-in mêlée involving home fans leaping over dozens of rows of seats and seeking to punish anyone looking even mildly enthused by Hélder Costa’s late clincher.
None of this made the papers, obviously, because football is football and, depressingly, it is seen as perverse for human beings from different tribes to mix with each other as they do in both rugby codes. Different worlds, and all that, but sometimes rugby forgets to celebrate its greatest strength, namely its power to unite the unlikeliest of people on and of the field. Dilute that special quality, lose the humour that remains the game’s safety net and fail to nourish the sport’s image and 2019 will be remembered as the year that rugby union, at a critical moment in its history, threw it all away.
Way ahead
This week the RFU will announce the remaining 28 full-time contracts being awarded to England’s leading 15-a-side female players. Aside from a nine-month period before the 2017 World Cup, England’s internationals have had to juggle their rugby commitments with work, making this a ground-breaking moment. “It is hugely significant for the women’s game,” confirmed Sarah Hunter, England’s captain. “Young girls can now aspire to making a living out of playing 15-a-side rugby rather than have the stress of finding a job that you are able to fit around the game.” If it does encourage a marked rise in female rugby participation, the extra financial commitment for the RFU will be well worth it.
Worth watching …
There were some good tries scored in 2018 but one of the most heartening was scored by Toulouse’s South African wing Cheslin Kolbe in Toulouse’s big win over Toulon last weekend. Classic offloading by big forwards, deft handling and a wonderful finish by a talented pocket rocket, it was almost a throwback to the golden era of French rugby. Any coach seeking to re-energise his team heading into the new year should encourage all his players, from 1 to 15, to take a look.