Loose Pass: Rugby’s ‘most apposite’ book that rivals Johnny Sexton and Dan Biggar’s stocking filler and British & Irish League ‘refuses to go away’
Dan Biggar and Johnny Sexton both have books out.
This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with new rounds of rugby literature, the merger chat and ‘weird rules’…
The cause without the Rebels
Christmas is shimmering into view on the distant horizon, and while the definitive list of rugby literature for your loved ones’ stockings is not yet complete, there’s already plenty of reading material taking up the shelf space on good bookstores around the world.
Johnny Sexton‘s has garnered all the headlines for probably not the reasons the book was even vaguely written for (the bits about him sharing a flat with supposed nemesis Ronan O’Gara in Paris or the running theme of excruciating migraines are a lot more interesting than a bit of name-calling with an opponent). Dan Biggar‘s – what a great juxtaposition of releases having those two come out at almost the same time – gives all those interested further insights into Warren Gatland’s psychological pressure and the hysteria of the politics rarely far away from Welsh rugby.
But like nights out with Usain Bolt (one of Biggar’s career highlights), the best book and stories often pop up by coincidence. Writer Geoff Parkes started a season with the Melbourne Rebels in late 2023 looking forward to accompanying a team that looked, on paper, as though it might make a couple of waves. Three months later it was in voluntary administration, pleading for help from a union intent on shutting it down to balance the books. Mr. Parkes documents the rest of the season as the players and coaches struggled to keep performances alive despite the clear signs that the franchise was never going to make it through – not to mention the severe emotional and often financial stress.
In a recent interview, the writer noted quite emphatically that much of the acrimony could have been avoided, lamenting the lack of communication and willingness to talk from the two sides and poignantly saying directly: “…there’s not the relationships in rugby that there used to be and there’s not even the same sort of rugby people in administration that there used to be.”
While the stories of Sexton’s struggle to cool himself and Biggar’s determination to silence his critics will make compelling reading, not least for those who may have watched one or both play live in some of the biggest games and will be fascinated by the other side of the story of those big days, A Year in the Life and Death of the Melbourne Rebels is likely to provide a more rounded insight into where the game might be going.
If readers in Europe perhaps feel too far removed from such action, consider the demises of Wasps, Worcester and London Irish. Consider the ruptures in Welsh rugby that always rumble ominously with the ‘culling’ of one of the four regions (another of Biggar’s touchpoints). Such stories are around many a rugby corner currently.
It won’t be the highest-profile book of the year, but considering the financial problems besetting so many of rugby’s sectors currently, it may well be the most apposite.
The British and Irish League
The talk about it refuses to go away, which means that either someone, somewhere, is spreading some properly rubbish rumours from a position of privilege, or that the merger between the URC and the Premiership really still is on the table in one form or another.
Premiership CEO Simon Massie-Taylor’s latest put-down of the story was pretty comprehensive, noting both that the Premiership itself was doing just fine thanks, and also noting that while the top half of the mooted new league would be a doozy, the stakeholders either finding themselves in the second division or finding themselves excluded from any new tournament would take a good deal of appeasing – if appeasement were even possible in that situation.
Neither tournament’s administration has been particularly enthusiastic of the proposal ever since it was first reported.
And yet. The Premiership clubs’ financials from a couple of weeks ago were sobering, for a league which provides a good deal of entertainment and is doing well at promoting itself. The financial struggles of Wales’ regions need little recapping. Maybe it is not something on the table now, but how much more financial pressure – or how many club busts – would it take before it landed on the table?
‘Weird’?
An early contender for curious piece of commentary of the season from Chris Ashton on Saturday, after Gloucester had a try disallowed in their defeat against Bath.
A kick through from Charlie Atkinson was chased hard by the fleet-footed Josh Hathaway but also covered by Tom de Glanville, who fell onto the ball in textbook style to secure it.
Hathaway simply flopped onto him, dislodging he ball from De Glanville’s grasp and thus allowing Max Llewellyn to scoop it up and scoot home.
As has been covered in law discussions before here, the option of jumping onto a player on the ground is probably the only one not allowed. Hathaway could have stayed on his feet to try and steal the ball (had De Glanville held on it would surely have been a penalty try), he could have waited for De Glanville to get up and wrestled him back across his own try line. But just falling onto a player on the ground is clearly outlawed by the, erm, laws. It’s not a tackle because you can’t tackle a player on the ground, nor is it by any stretch of the imagination an attempt to play the ball.
“It’s a weird rule,” said Ashton, but we’re struggling to understand what’s weird about it? Essentially, falling onto a player on the ground does little more than kill the ball for a few more seconds, hardly the kind of thing that ought to be actively promoted?
Not that Ashton’s commentary was in any way generally poor, but while the prospect of plopping onto a covering full-back was probably quite attractive to an active winger, the laws need upholding and explaining at every TV moment, without exception.
