Loose Pass: Glasgow should be long-celebrated, ‘vexed fans’ at Twickenham and Top 14 ‘belter’
Split with Glasgow Warriors captain Kyle Steyn and Toulouse players huddling.
This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with Glasgow’s triumph, a strange sing-song at Twickenham and an exciting final in store…
The best away day ever
After making the – still valid – point about how much home advantage counts for in play-off rugby, it would be remiss not to point out just how impressive Glasgow’s triumph in Pretoria in the United Rugby Championship Final was.
It’s not just winning there. It was the entire week. Following a win in the semi-final at Munster last Saturday – itself no mean feat – the Warriors’ ops team had a remarkably small window in which to work out how to get 47 players and staff onto any number of flights and safely into decent accommodation on site, never mind sorting out decent training facilities and getting equipment across. By comparison, the same fixture within the league schedule had been planned for 12 months in advance.
Some players ended up in business class, others in premium economy. Both are proper budget-busters when it comes to last-minute flights. Some flew via Dubai, others via Europe. Everybody carried an extra bag in order to share the load on kit and equipment transfer.
By sometime late on Tuesday, everybody was safely ensconced in Joburg and ready to put in a shift on the Saint Stithians College grounds, just down the road from the Monte Casino hotel.
With the flights, and the Munster game, doubtless still to be felt within the sinews, Wednesday training was largely based around recovery, while Thursday and Friday were basically game-plan refinements.
Hardly ideal preparation for a showpiece final. Yet it seems to galvanise teams. Munster also headed to Cape Town a couple of years ago facing similar logistical difficulties and residual fatigue from a long season, yet more than one member of that title-winning team has spoken of the unifying effect getting everything together at such short notice had on the squad, how it gave them a harder target to work harder for and created an environment in which nobody ever let up.
The Bulls were not on their game, for whatever reason. Jake White’s post-match dig at the officiating was also wide of the mark. But for Glasgow, this is one of the finest achievements of the modern rugby era and should be long-celebrated.
YOUR NEW #URC CHAMPIONS!! 🏆 #BULvGLA pic.twitter.com/PmSESvnFim
— Planet Rugby (@PlanetRugby) June 22, 2024
Wrong song
Twickenham showed its better side on Saturday. Stewards ensured that the children were given a fair run of the place. Transport links were better than remembered in the past. The weather was good. The food stalls ought to have stocked up better and it might have been better to sell the tickets in the sun trap area of the stadium last, but whatever. It was a fun day out. The rugby matched it, fitfully in the first game, in spades in the second.
But two aspects of the second game saw many vexed fans. Primarily, many wondered what had happened to so many of the Fiji team which had thrilled so many at the last World Cup; the simple answer was that many had been unable to secure release from their respective British and/or French clubs, as the game was outside of the international Test window.
Fine, except those same clubs felt it ok to release 11 players selected to play for the Barbarians.
“The Northern Hemisphere boys aren’t able to be part of the side. The only one who has been released for us is Vilimoni Botitu. We see the clubs releasing players who are part of the Barbarians XV but not releasing our boys,” said Head Coach Mick Byrne, while Fijian Drua CEO Mark Evans, in a social media post described it as “despicable behaviour,” which it absolutely is.
Secondly, although the Barbarians are RFU-affiliated and playing at Twickenham (apparently the official reasons for this), is it really a good thing to get together a Barbarians team consisting of players from eight nations and captained by one of the all-time great All Blacks singing ‘God Save the King’ before a Test match? Do the Baa-baas need to have an anthem at all?
One to watch
The Ligue Nationale de Rugby, in its received wisdom, has managed to avoid a similar clash between the French national soccer team and its big game, such as that which occurred last weekend when Toulouse’s semi-final victory over La Rochelle battled for TV supremacy with the soccer match between France and Holland. It’s that time of year.
But the final this weekend in Marseille ought to be a belter. The two teams played out a sumptuous clash a couple of months ago, just shaded by the European champions.
The two teams were the top two in points scored, tries scored and clean breaks (and line-out success) for this season’s Investec Champions Cup, both also in the top three for points scored in the Top 14.
It’s a who’s who of French rugby all over the pitch, sprinkled with some overseas stardust, to be played in front of a long-since sold-out crowd in the Stade Velodrome. It should be the perfect finale to what has been a terrific European club season.