Loose Pass: ‘United refusal’ of R360 concoction, Red Bulls’ false dawn and change is ‘needed’ in Wales
Ex-England centre Mike Tindall and and Newcastle Red Bull players.
This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with the vanished threat, Newcastle’s false dawn and the ongoing worries in Wales…
R360 fades away
It’s no secret that this column has not been a fan of the concept, method or financial strategy of the R360 concoction that has been fouling up the atmosphere around the game for the past few months, so the very public – and especially the very united refusals – of the game’s leading unions to even countenance players leading double lives with rugby on one side and R360 on the other came as a blessed relief.
The soundbite from the unions’ collective statement: “[R360] rather appears designed to generate profits and return them to a very small elite, potentially hollowing out the investment that national unions and existing leagues make in community rugby, player development, and participation pathways,” said pretty much all you needed to know.
In fact, it said more than that. Unions are rarely completely simpatico with each other when it comes to calendars and availabilities and competitions and such, but the intrusion of R360 into pretty much every corner of the fixture schedule seems to have united the unions and the governing body on a level not seen for some time.
Long may that continue. The current calendar and competitive landscape is by no means perfect, but it does somehow serve us reasonably well. Certainly it serves us, all of us connected into the rugby communities, far, far better than anything the F1-style globetrotting glamour tour dreamed up by R360 did, and can only have served to reinforce the notion that we ought to be pretty damned happy with what we have.
Springboks star’s honest R360 admission as unions unite against breakaway competition
Red Bulls need more than just wings
Any scepticism surrounding the takeover of Newcastle Falcons has surely only been reinforced by the events since the takeover happened. The coach who led the team through multiple lows and whose honesty, candour and determination seemed at times to be the only hope the ailing club could cling to, was dispensed with in cursory fashion.
There have been new arrivals, most of them in the forwards, but there seems to have been little impact. Off the pitch, there is supposedly a significant management restructure going on, with Gregor Townsend appointed on a limited-day consulting basis and several directorship appointments suggesting equal attention from the first team and downwards, rather than just the top line.
But the nature of the team’s crushing defeat at Sale last Friday hints at a prevailing feeling of uncertainty pervading the team as a result, while any collective spirit of defiance built by Diamond during his time seems to have been shaken apart.
It’s good, in general, that the new sponsors have not just splashed a bucketload of cash and bought success. But the unceremonious removal of Diamond from his role feels as though it was a move for a move’s sake, rather than something thought through.
Questions hanging over Wales
When the plans to cut the number of Welsh rugby regions to two were announced at the end of August, there was also reference to a six-week consultation period before a decision could be made. That period closed a few days ago; the WRU website made reference to over 7,000 public responses to the invitation for opinion and noted the groundswell of emotion among them.
Dave Reddin, in an equally emotive post, noted that post-consultation, there will be a huge amount of work going into how best to re-bear the principality’s structures in order to get Wales somewhere towards where they once were.
Does four become two? It’s a tough one, but the performance of Wales’ teams over the opening weeks of the current season leaves little doubt that change is needed. The Scarlets’ nilling at home to the Stormers was abject, while collectively, the teams have garnered only three wins out of a possible eleven.
Talks about a possible Wrexham-ification of Cardiff aside, the next four weeks is as critical as it can ever have been for Welsh rugby, and a good deal of pain is expected for some.