Loose Pass: Club World Cup concerns, Henry Pollock advice and a ‘mystifying’ decision in New Zealand
The Club World Cup, Henry Pollock and Ethan de Groot is discussed in Loose Pass.
This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with the latest twist in the competitive landscape, the rise of Henry Pollock, and the latest judicial mis-steps…
Be careful what you wish for
It is difficult to imagine a better finale to the European season than the weekend just past. Tries, tackles, skills, talking points, free-flowing liquid refreshment and two worthy winners from two different countries.
How many of those supporters who watched on Friday night doubled up (as some tickets can do) on Saturday is unknown, but there was a combined attendance over the two matches of 107,000 people drawn from the four cities of participants and the small but indomitable throng of the disappointed from other clubs.
Yet while the finale was grand indeed, this column has repeatedly noted that the tweaks and re-boots of European rugby competition have somewhat eroded from the foundations of the success European rugby competition had originally been built on. Less jeopardy. More opportunities to field weakened teams. Ludicrous travel schedules. Teams making it through to the second phase despite only winning one of four pool matches. Knockout rounds featuring impossible logistics for fans and limited competitiveness. And such.
Still, at least the semi-finals and finals were both intensely competitive, brightly colourful and excellent occasions, throwbacks to the better days.
Except that from 2028, even those grand finales will be taken away from us. Because of the desire to have something even grander, bolder, bigger. Always bigger. Because in 2028, even conquering Europe and South Africa will not be enough, now you’ll have to get past the Kiwis and Aussies and Japanese as well.
Idle bar chat has existed for yonks about how well the Toulouses, Bordeauxs, Northamptons and Leinsters of this world would match up against the Brumbies, Crusaders and… well, I guess the Saitama Wild Knights perhaps (?) in some tournament somewhere. Now we have that tournament. It’s at the expense of Europe’s grandest non-international occasion. And while interesting in the bar, we’re not sure if watching Leinster take on travel-weary Brumbies in Marseille is actually going to be better than watching the knockout rounds in the Champions Cup. Or, for that matter, if European sides ended up trying for a win in an Otago winter somewhere down the line.
The worst thing about this new tournament – and the list is extensive – is that it has left us with the parts of the existing tournament we didn’t like so much, and taken away the good parts to foist upon us something entirely devoid of the tradition, colour and history that makes European rugby such good fun. In a close second place for bad things comes the thought that this might be some form of answer back to FIFA’s horribly-conceived Club World Cup to take place this year, which is enjoying, at best, a lukewarm reception. The same argument applies though: if you want to compete, do what you are best at. European rugby took time to bed in, but seven or eight years after its inception, we were all hooked.
Rugby does history and colour very, very well. It does not do global sporting domination and contrived, vanilla, mass-market appeal.
As a wise old man, who has been involved in the game for 81 of his 86 years explained to Loose Pass on Saturday after enjoying the Final: “I’ve never been so disillusioned. Weird new competitions everywhere with no meaning. Tours replaced by competitions that might last beyond my remaining years. Now they are fiddling with the Six Nations. Now the European Cup is going to be replaced. You don’t know what to watch any more, or why. And all for money, not to make the rugby better. Why can’t they just sit back and enjoy it, like we’re always trying to do?”
Marked man
If Henry Pollock did not consider that his somewhat extrovert presence in the rugbyverse around the world, replete with plentiful soundbite interviews, idiosyncratic scoring celebrations and full-on attention-loving presence everywhere, would make him a target, then someone is not doing their job.
It was good of his team-mates to back him when, apparently, the Bordeaux players went hunting for him at the final whistle on Saturday. But it’s getting to the stage where club and country need to manage it a little more proportionately. Would it do anybody any harm if one of the older heads at Northampton had a little word? If the media people were to be perhaps encouraged to go looking for soundbites from someone else? If someone were perhaps to hint to him gently that the more he remains in his cage – in non-rugby activities at least – the less likely people are to want to rattle it?
Mystifying
It used to only be Owen Farrell and the RFU who got away with stunts like this, but the decision not even to take Ethan de Groot to task over his head-butt last weekend in Super Rugby Pacific is far, far beyond mystifying.
There’s not a universe in which that movement was not intentional, in which that contact was not significant, in which that action was not clear and obvious even in real time. Getting away with it free as a bird makes even Sam Underhill look like an angel. It’s a staggering miscarriage of justice by the NZRU and World Rugby, which does have previous in appealing non-decisions by judiciaries, needs to have a look at it.
