Loose Pass: World Rugby have a lot to answer for

This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with tipping points all over the globe, from World Rugby’s blunder to the fiasco in Wales…

It’s often been written in this column that rugby is approaching a crucial moment in its history. But there have been few moments when the entire rugby world seems so close to folding in on itself.

From the valleys of Wales to the beaches of Fiji, disharmony stalks rugby’s every twitch. Traditions are being downtrodden, old elites are banding together, ring-fences are being put up and vitriolic rhetoric shouted from all outlets. It’s the rush hour of the rugby season, and the minor crashes and roadworks along the route are causing frayed tempers and tooting horns all over. It’s not a pretty sight.

World Rugby has a heck of a lot to answer for. However incomplete the plans for a World League of international nations were, they were flawed from the moment that none of Samoa, Tonga or Fiji were included.

Players of Pacific Island heritage currently constitute around 20 per cent of the globe’s player stocks. No top team is complete without a rampaging Islander either making hard yards up the middle or tearing it up down one or both wings. Sadly, that also includes international teams.

Yet the populations of the Islands simply don’t constitute a market. So commercially, the reality is that this wonderful production line will simply be a sweat shop producing fine garments for the rich and mighty.

We’d not blame the Island teams one iota for boycotting the Rugby World Cup. Having provided so many moments of colour and drama through the first eight editions, the reward appears to be exclusion on the base of size. Who said rugby was a game for all sizes?

Then there’s Wales. Granted, the regional model seems to be struggling at the moment. It needs a shake-up. But when the futures of half the country’s currently highly successful international team are thrown into disarray, when fans from three of rugby’s most traditional and proud towns are told that they’ll no longer have a team to support, when another region rarely known for much sporting prowess beyond Wrexham once beating Arsenal looks to be benefiting with a shiny new professional rugby team, you just wonder who exactly is doing the thinking?

We’re not, therefore, blaming Ospreys chairman Mike James for blowing his top either. They have been, in the medium-term of Welsh regional rugby history, by far the their most successful team. And looking closely at the region, it’s been the only one to have really been a merger of pre-pro Welsh tribes. Would you have imagined players from Neath, Swansea and Bridgend playing in the same jersey (outside of the Five Nations) 30 years ago?

But they’ve made it work. While Cardiff, Llanelli and Newport (we’re not buying the story that the Dragons ever really included Ebbw Vale) all retained their old club identities and colours, the Ospreys have been the new creation. They’ve done well. But as the only region without a proper home – they are tenants in Swansea – they are the ones who will take the hit from the grotesquely-named Project Reset.

And thus far, we’ve barely talked about the players. But it’s been a while since so many of the game’s big names were so vocal about the way in which they are managed. From All Black captain Kieran Read to England captain Owen Farrell, through Johnny Sexton and Ken Owens, the players sound more and more fed up with it all. Another new competition. Another bout of inter-continental travel. Another couple of weeks tacked onto a season. Another round of ‘let’s see who’s best of the best ever’ in some humid backwater at the wrong time of year. And all the while, top players are trickling away, careers cut short by injury and, most darkly, concussion.

Players who should be focusing on historic World Cup assaults in Wales are now worried about where or whether they’ll get salaries next season. Other players are wondering if there’ll be any down time at all before Japan – some will have played and trained 17 straight months almost without respite by then. Older players with families just don’t know what next year’s travel requirements might look like. And to a man, all say the same thing: “give us some breaks!”

It’s a mess. There’s anger and frustration everywhere. We’re six months out from what looks like it could be one of the most competitive World Cups ever and the sport’s governance is doing its best to make sure it will be a sideshow.

Loose Pass compiled by Lawrence Nolan