Loose Pass: Analysing Siya Kolisi’s exit and a ‘deeply encouraging’ week for project USA

This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with America’s big week, Siya Kolisi’s exit left and the new speed of set-pieces…

The first step on the long journey

It’s no secret that the project to embed rugby higher in the sporting consciousness of the USA ahead of the 2031 and 2033 Rugby World Cups is a long-term, high-reward, high-risk strategy.

The saying goes that the longest journey starts with a single step, but the fortnight past has seen the USA take a couple of handy strides in the right direction.

Not least the emergence, or re-emergence of the women’s team through Olympic glory, coupled with the emergence of the excellent Ilona Maher as a social media pin-up, has brought rugby sharply into focus. Most critically it has won curious eyes across from the NFL, helped by shrewd social media play.

Last weekend it was the men’s turn. Not so much on the international stage, but it was critical that the final of Major League Rugby served up both a sporting spectacle and a slickly-run, professionally-organised event.

No event is ever smooth as silk, but a record attendance for the final, one team (the now-champion New England Free Jacks being given a police escort as it made its way to depart to said final because of the fuss surrounding it, built on top of a season where attendances overall were up 40 per cent on last season, all speak to a game growing at a comfortable and sustainable pace. An improved live coverage window on Fox Sports for the final helped as well, also built on a foundation of increased live coverage for the league season.

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The final was no showboat spectacle. It was a hot and draining day in California, with both teams never quite finding a groove but the Free Jacks eventually prevailed by dint of making fewer mistakes. Critically though, it has been well-received. Not many have lamented the lack of tries (there were two), nor has there been much criticism of the speed of the game (being as the benchmark is NFL, the bar is not high, but even so).

But it was a spectacle in that it was played in the sun, fans had a good time, the game was close enough to be interesting and the winners were worthy. It’s perhaps the first season MLR has really gone through the entire season process without a major hitch, which is deeply encouraging.

There are plenty more challenges to come. But it’s been a good week for project USA.

Fallen out in France

Kolisi is not the first overseas superstar to not find his feet in France and he will not be the last. More pertinently – as has been mentioned on a couple of occasions – nor will he be the first to have to relocate an entire family, who also found the transition difficult to cope with.

The language, the food, accommodation levels, climate, landscape… the list of potential pitfalls goes on. And that’s just the player, never mind the spouses or children, who already shoulder unconventional burdens when it comes to partnering up with sportspersons. It simply doesn’t always work. Some places and people just don’t blend well together.

But most of all, the weight of expectation is different. Players such as Kolisi – and Sam Whitelock has also been labelled a ‘flop’ during his one-season stay in Pau – arrive expected not only to play at some of the best and most expensively-assembled teams in the world, but also to be permanently a cut above; a fully unrealistic expectation.

The Springboks skipper also had some occasional stinkers for the Sharks and the Stormers over the years, he’s suffered low patches in form like any of us. Back home they’ll look at the willingness, process and work-rate, but when you head to a team bankrolled by a private wallet, they’ll only look at bottom line. And woe betide you if you get injured, in one of the most abrasive leagues in a hard contact sport in the world.

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It’s a shame for Kolisi it did not work out, just as it is certainly right to head home. If your paymaster is calling you ‘fat’ and ‘a shadow’ then you’re probably best just going home. It’s not like one of the great icons of this generation has much left to prove.

But it will be interesting to see what happens at Racing this year. Owen Farrell, for example, will be expected to fire Racing to glory, but Farrell has been a part of a great Saracens team when winning all his silverware. A fine player, but will he win as much without that supporting cast?

Maybe, maybe not. But Jacky Lorenzetti needs to pull his head in a bit and learn that in rugby it is remarkably hard to buy success without creating a solid club identity to underpin the cash.

Crouchbindset

A new Rugby Championship this weekend and a new rule welcomed by Loose Pass, namely the speeding up of setting up set-pieces.

Most of the time this is not a problem in matches, but it’s the close games, one score in it with three minutes to go, when the leading team becomes a master of dithering over set-ups, getting treated for sore shoelaces or cut hairs, gulping down gallon after gallon of water… and suddenly there’s only one minute to go. And then there’s a reset.

The new rule should stop all this rubbish and ensure a little extra peril. Exactly as it should be.

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