Loose Pass: USA promise and the Six Nations

Adam Kyriacou
Add as a preferred source on Google

This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with the onset of professional rugby in the USA and the future of the game. Oh, and the Six Nations.

Across the pond

It has already started, and boy is it looking good. After the false start of a handful of years ago, and after last year’s lukewarm edition, the USA has itself a nice-looking pro rugby league. There are nine teams, they are looking well-coached, there’s plenty of local talent in them and it’s close.

Not one game was decided by more than a score this past weekend – indeed, only one was settled by more than a conversion, and that featured try bonus-points for both teams.

New York City has entered the fray and quickly notched a first win despite playing three time zones away in San Diego. Toronto is also in, and was on the receiving end of the ‘heaviest’ defeat of the round in New Orleans. Houston defeated Austin by a point in as close to a local derby as you can currently come (although next season should see Boston playing New York a couple of times).

And then the showpiece opener: a repeat of last year’s final, edged this time as it was then by Seattle over Glendale, again by a couple of points.

At times it was rough-edged. There were a lot of penalties given away for things you just wouldn’t see in a top-level pro game. But in a nine-team league featuring evenly-matched teams and many players of outstanding quality, this was a notably good opening weekend. It’s going to be interesting to see what the Eagles are able to produce after a few more years of this – if it ends up sustainable and sustained. In the meantime, there are blessedly free live links to every game. Catch as much as you can of it here.

Just up the road, in L.A…

There’s a high chance rugby will look very different in a few years’ time. Referees this week are already going to be told in no uncertain terms to be draconian on the high tackles during the Six Nations. Other laws are under the spotlight.

Meanwhile, money, and its uneven spread, continue to cause ructions deep within some of rugby’s heartlands. Australia continues to suffer. New Zealand continues to lose talent – at some point, the well has to run dry. English and French clubs continue to coin it in and find new ways to bully both their national unions and other European ones to boot.

Test seasons overlap unsatisfyingly with club ones. Players are left wondering which tournament they are playing in next. Injuries – serious ones – continue to pile up.

Rugby’s powerful men are meeting in Los Angeles this week to look at ways of solving all this. For the first time, a global rugby competition looks a real possibility – as does the possibility of Test calendars being decided by Six Nations and Rugby Championship records.

Interesting times are afoot, and a lot should be revealed this week.

[playbuzz-item item=”d7b24a13-5ddf-4166-9ff2-8f79234b8600″ info=”false” shares=”false” wp-pb-id=”882428″]

Oh yes, and there’s this…

The fixture gods are not entirely on England‘s side this year. Time is running out for Eddie Jones to settle upon what looks like a World Cup team and while Ireland, Wales and Scotland all look to have a final 35 or so whittled down, England look nowhere near.

That Dan Robson might get a debut against Ireland on Saturday, as a late audition for a World Cup spot, is extraordinary. But there is no place at the moment for long-serving stalwarts Danny Care or Richard Wigglesworth. The midfield is once again jinxed by injury, so there’s no chance to see what a Te’o-Tuilagi centre pairing looks like. And while Elliot Daly looks to be a shoo-in at full-back, is there really no place to recall Mike Brown, given that England are struggling for solidity?

The squads and teams released this week have generally been predictable, aside from France, whose unpredictability is as predictable as Ireland’s starting XV.

But doubt and uncertainty reign in England, and time is running out for the squad to know itself as a World Cup contending squad should.

Loose Pass compiled by Lawrence Nolan

Loose Pass