Loose Pass: Changes aplenty on the horizon for rugby

David Skippers

This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with adjustments down under, the common sense solution to the short season up north, and holding one’s head high…

The beginning of the end

So last week this column suggested that Super Rugby might not be a viable option looking forward. Two days later, Australia’s leadership brouhaha finally boiled over and Raelene Castle accepted her fate – a pretty shabby fate, as this column has also pointed out once or twice.

Two days after that, Matt Toomua suggested Super Rugby needed a rethink, succinctly laying to rest the notion that players were enamoured with the current format and comparing it deeply disfavourably with his experiences of rugby in the north.

And two days after that, New Zealand Rugby announced that it would be reviewing the direction of Super Rugby in New Zealand, with Blues chairman Don MacKinnon talking of the need to make sure Super Rugby was ‘strong and fit for purpose.’ Toomua’s assessment of the current format: “…if I’m a supporter, I don’t think that’s an attractive product, I really don’t,” would suggest that there are doubts.

The current global health crisis may end up shaping the course of the tournament, or SANZAAR’s internal relationships, next year and season by default – closed borders are set to be in place for a while yet and inter-continental flights immediately after the borders are reopened will be neither cheap nor plentiful. The talk in New Zealand at the moment is of the creation of an international travel sphere encompassing the two countries.

But even if the world opens up again on time for next year’s tournament, the spectacle looms large of New Zealand and Australia splintering off in the interests of cost-saving and appeal to local audiences, creating a ten-franchise trans-Tasman tournament (including the Western Force).

South Africa’s four franchises, along with the Cheetahs and Kings, may end up playing a six-team domestic tournament this year in an appeasement to broadcasters, while in Argentina, there are doubts over the future financial viability of the Jaguares in full Super Rugby in Argentina’s post-corona financial landscape. Inclusion into a South African tournament might, however, be viable.

Certainly the prospect of a more localised tournament seems to appeal more to spectators in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, where vast tracts of empty seats have greeted touring teams who frequently use the long trips for squad rotation opportunities. Derbies, however, still fill the stands.

New Zealand Rugby has a five-year deal with Sky New Zealand for the current format, while Australia’s TV rights are still up for grabs to the highest bidder – a legacy left my Ms. Castle. There has been strong support in Australia for a trans-Tasman competition, which would surely pique the interest of TV companies there. And it’s unlikely that Sky New Zealand would be too put off by a renegotiation which featured a trans-Tasman competition either.

But as it stands, the crisis has made both countries declare publicly that Super Rugby needs a rethink. Noises out of Argentina – and a couple of soundbites from Agustin Pichot – indicate the same is true there. South Africa were not totally happy even before the crisis; if the business of rugby can withstand the crisis there, a rethink would surely be on the cards as well.

It is highly likely Super Rugby as we knew it has played its last. It will be fascinating to see what emerges in its wake.

Why bother fighting?

One of the more catching pairs of headlines juxtaposed this week read as follows: ‘Premiership Rugby Clubs in Danger’ and ‘European Clubs on Collision Course with World Rugby’.

While it highlights just how fraught things have become, it also highlights the fault-lines that the corona crisis has exposed between the thronging mass of bodies vying for government of the game and its players, as well as vying for the television cash that helps clubs continue to spend far beyond their means – a significant reason for the danger faced by Premiership clubs.

The ‘collision course’ involves World Rugby wanting to notionally play a few catch-up Tests in October, right at about the time European Club Rugby wants to stage its delayed showpiece finals in Marseille – assuming the assorted clubs across Europe play ball with that suggestion.

Those dates are, of course, both well into what would have been next season, which rather begs the question: when does next season actually begin? And are players who have been in isolation and lockdown for over a month now – and probably will be for a while yet – going to be fit to go for games of that intensity one after the other?

We’re entering the period of denial here. Vain hopes that something can be salvaged from the mess, even as we enter May, finals month, with no sign of organised sport realistically starting for at least a month and there still remains nine rounds of Premiership and European quarter-finals to play.

Instead of collision courses, dangers and fights for territory and pennies, perhaps it would behoove the myriad of unions, tournament bodies, and various other committees to look at the bigger picture, scrap the current season and use the next couple of months to plan how a well-structured, integrated, player-load managing season that starts in September might look.

Yes there would be hardship for clubs and players under that scenario. Yes, money would be tight. Yes, broadcasters would be irritated.

But yes, everybody would have a reference point far enough in the future for it to be realistic, a time-frame to plan around and enough time in between to organise it properly. Money is nearly everything for the struggling clubs at the moment, and yet it’s somewhat ironic that money simply can’t buy you time.

Australian rugby is better off because of Raelene Castle, not without her

She inherited a mess. She inherited an organization which would have sold out its grandmother to make a fast buck, a loose confederation of warring tribes scrapping over federal self-interest. She inherited a product so poor that it was in danger of losing its main funder.

She determined to stick around and change it. Three years on, she leaves an organization in which she was pilloried for instilling a moral compass, where TV rights for a better product are up for auction rather than slipped under the table to the old boys, with the national team under steady leadership and with the emerging talent shining bright.

If Dave Rennie, Scott Wisemantel and Matt Taylor go on to enjoy the fruits of this three years – witness the success of Australia’s youth teams the past couple of years – that will be Ms. Castle’s legacy, and not the triumph of the person who succeeds her, however much they might claim it.

Loose Pass compiled by Lawrence Nolan

Australia