Loose Pass: Next steps, England’s great day and fine feats

Lawrence Nolan
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This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with the dilution of loyalties, the excellence of England’s ladies and some notable moments from the Test weekend…

The next steps

Before the foibles and frumps, it’s probably worth just sitting back and reflecting on how nice it was to see full Murrayfields and Arms Parks again. Tickets for Wales v New Zealand apparently proved more difficult to shift than was let on, but in the end, in they all came. Beers flowed, songs were sung, hands were even shaken! Club matches over the past couple of months have given us the tasters, but this was the real thing in all its roaring glory. Fantastic!

Yet so much of the past seven days has also gone to show that despite the disruption and opportunity the pandemic created, rugby’s calendar and the actual calendar still fit together rather like an extra B prop forward fits into a designer suit.

Four teams played at the weekend, three of them with at least half a team missing because the calendar simply doesn’t fit enough games and weeks into it to satisfy club and country. The Wallabies are heading up north shorn already of three key players for the same reason and now pondering how to create a selection policy which allows the best Australian players to play rather than just the ones who don’t get better salaries from club teams in other countries.

Wales v New Zealand ought to have been a no-brainer when it came to filling the stadium, but the stories abounded of Welsh clubs furiously trying to avail themselves of their allocation, when the reality ought to have been one of fans furiously trying to avail the clubs. If the cash on offer for the Welsh Rugby Union was good motivation for staging a game additional to the Test window and thus being able only to play half a team, there should be a warning inherent in those stories: fans are not going to put up with watching foregone conclusions forever. As for Australia, the warning is even starker: if players are choosing club over country, there is an enormous problem brewing.

World Rugby is apparently going to be having several meetings in the background over this November, with a view to sorting out the international calendar and making it both more competitive, open and streamlined from 2024 onwards. Six Nations CEO Ben Morel mentioned that such a calendar would also feature ‘some sort of a final’; a nice thought and we all like finals, but does there need to be an additional international one to the actual World Cup Final? Devalue the global showpiece at your peril, World Rugby.

The problem with nearly all of the models proffered is that they are, to a great extent, a World Cup dressed up as an international tournament – it is with no little humour that we noted one of the suggestions being to house lots of teams playing a tournament in the same country so as to reduce the carbon footprint. A laudable principle, but remind us how the World Cup works again?

Ultimately, the meaninglessness of outcome, dilution of squad strength and over-supply of matches will strip away the value of these Test matches. That process was underway before the pandemic and while the relief of being able to go and cheer and sing again will give everything a short-term lift, it will not fix the problems.

So hopefully we get a solution that acknowledges that less is more, that jam is best spread evenly and that ensures that the World Cup retains its uniqueness for all, rather than one leaves fans wondering whether to go and watch Six Nations champions play Rugby Championship champions, or not.

England’s great day

Men’s rugby might be facing innumerable problems because of the above, but women’s rugby is thriving, and with England’s current team there is now a flag-bearing group to lead it forward.

The record win over New Zealand – with the caveat this was the visitors’ first game in two years – on Sunday was achieved with some eyebrow-raising moments of skill, coordination and athleticism, played in front of a five-figure crowd in Exeter and broadcast live on national TV.

Both teams were as full-strength as possible and will be so again in the rematch next week in Northampton, which is likely to be quite an occasion and of even higher quality, as the teams will have had the time to prepare well. Contrast that with England men’s opponents Tonga, for example, or even South Africa, who will only welcome some members back from club duty less than a week before taking on England and Wales respectively. The women’s game is well worth a watch at the moment.

Standout individuals

Congratulations to Alun Wyn Jones for his record-breaking international appearance and to Beauden Barrett for his 100th cap. But also to Gareth Anscombe and Johnny Williams, both returned from Kruger-esque injury nightmares to take their places on the pitch. Congratulations also to Kyle Steyn for his try-scoring heroics.

Comment of the day at the weekend was one particular English Sunday newspaper whose review of New Zealand (it should be noted that the writer in question enjoys nothing more than winding up the Kiwis) rated Barrett as 6/10 and considered him generally more over-rated than Sonny Bill Williams… whatever planet that came from, it wasn’t ours – although nor was the decision not to yellow-card him for a deliberate knock-on in the first half…

Loose Pass compiled by Lawrence Nolan

Australia