Loose Pass: Contrasting approaches in north and south

Colin Newboult

This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with finals, new highs and dispatches from the provinces…

Un jeu dur

To be fair, it was verging on the predictable for anybody who watched the all-French ties in earlier rounds, but that made Saturday’s European Champions Cup final no less disappointing.

The French do French things well to teams from other countries, but when it becomes a domestic squabble with so much on the line, ‘squabble’ becomes the watchword. There’s a lot of chandelle, a lot of plaquage, a reasonable amount of bagarre and minimal jeu beau. Eventually one team will either get tired and concede the crucial score or push the boundaries so far and so regularly that the referee just whistles them for everything. The ball is kept with the forwards and the artistes outside are left frequently to feed on scraps; it says a lot about Saturday’s game that the man who beat the most defenders was a prop.

Yet Saturday’s showpiece was also relevant for those who have a say on rugby’s future and on those who are desperately trying to help officials enforce and implement the laws. The red card that ultimately was the turning point in the contest was deserved, but there were at least three other collisions that might have been seen similarly. Even the yellow card shown to Rynhardt Elstadt could have been accompanied by another to a La Rochelle player who flew off his feet, shoulder first, to get the transgressing Elstadt out of the way.

Meanwhile, how it took five or so minutes to decide that the senseless Maxime Medard did actually need a HIA after Levani Botia’s shoulder had thundered into his chin is incomprehensible. As for the final play of the match, the decision of Luke Pearce to not see Guillaume Marchand’s side entry into a ruck at the end was a decision made by someone who was just as sick and tired of the endless ruck transgressions as we all were. Some teams call it scrapping, but the borderline-pushing from both sides at the breakdown was verging on childish. Mr. Pearce, usually blessed with no little enthusiasm and good nature on the pitch, was visibly fed up with it all.

Factor in the all-too-frequent TMO interruptions and toing and froing from the physio teams, and the fact that an 80-minute game took a shade under two hours and well… it’s just not quite what was signed up for.

What to change? Perhaps a re-look at that nipple-line tackle height suggestion is due as there are still too many high collisions going unnoticed. We’ve covered before a more stringent application of how to challenge over-the-ball at rucks and forbidding binding onto the player on the ground. A newspaper column also suggested in the aftermath of the game that a maximum squad weight be introduced to prevent clubs fielding teams of colossi intent on simply bruising oppositions to their end.

Or perhaps nothing should change and this is a moan borne of frustration about a poor game from which so much more had been expected, a lament that teams are happier to win ugly than fans are to watch ugly, or an agnostic attitude to the fact that there are many, many ways to win a rugby match.

But it’s difficult not to conclude, after watching a re-run of Saturday’s game (Friday’s wasn’t much better) that rugby as a sport is continuing to push all the wrong borders in terms of bulking up, kicking far and insisting the officiating is correct.

Meanwhile, across the equator

Perhaps, however, all those problems are only concentrated up north, for in terms of team performance and exhibitions of skill, class and exhilarating attitudes, look no further than the Crusaders’ demolition job of the Reds.

One-sided the result might have been but there was plenty of skill and pace on show from both sides (how good was Harry Wilson’s offload?) and a real lack of anything other than willingness to use all 700 of the pitch’s square metres.

Granted it was hardly a final – and also granted, the Premiership especially has been conjuring up some special rugby over the past two months or so.

Yet the constant reversion to type: smash, bang, penalty, kick to the corner and maul (the full extent of Leicester’s strategy on Friday) is becoming tiresome. At least Super Rugby shows there is hope.

Elsewhere in Europe

Rough times in Germany right now. Three years ago the national XV side was one game from qualifying for Japan 2019 and were receiving funding from World Rugby with the hope of creating a fully professional rugby structure.

Since then, the acrimonious departure of billionaire Hans-Peter Wild – who left in disgust calling the Federation ‘the depth of amateurism’ – has seen the team tumble down the ladder.

The sevens team, funded to no small extent by federal Olympic sports money, has been doing better, but even that is now in disarray after it was reported that two individuals within that federation are being investigated for extortion and other criminal offences, with prosecutors acting on information provided by a whistleblower. Not a good look.

Loose Pass compiled by Lawrence Nolan.