Loose Pass: Global hope, a looming issue and innovation | Planet Rugby
This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with rugby’s place in the calendar, looming selection issues for national teams and New Zealand’s innovations…
Summer sun, something’s begun…
So it seems increasingly likely that we will get our global calendar. Amen to that. It also seems increasingly likely that one of the hemispheres will have to significantly shift its season. OK.
And it now seems increasingly likely that the hemisphere that has to do that is the northern one. Which does at least make sense, after all, despite climate change’s best efforts, we’re not exactly approaching Australia or South Africa in terms of heat index up here – with the exception of southern Europe. On the other hand also, because of climate change, we’re playing much of early autumn and spring in more summery conditions anyway.
Martin Johnson was somewhat staid in his response in the Daily Mail this week, saying: “…it is not a summer game. People want to play rugby in winter in this country.”
As a player of a sweaty persuasion who liked the chill of winter to help keep cool, I might agree. But the arguments for the majority of stakeholders – so fans as well as players – are beginning to persuade.
The disentangling of finals season from finals season in soccer is extremely persuasive, as is the thought that finals weeks all over the world could be better-aligned. As, of course, would an international season be.
There are those souls who used to head to cricket pitches during the summer months, but chances are high that rugby would not only switch seasons but also times of day, with 7.00pm the new kick-off norm in summer rather than 3.00. Cricket and rugby could, by and large, co-exist there as, by the by, could golf and rugby. And tennis. Not a huge amount of sport is played in the evenings in summer.
The game, you would hope, would benefit from being played on faster, drier and firmer pitches in terms of speed and skill (and we might end up no longer needing the knee-skinning, ligament-tearing artificial pitches). Wouldn’t it be nice to have a team full of skilful players rarely, if ever, needing to look up at the sky on matchday and think: ‘Ugh, we’ll have to kick it in the air or stuff it up the jumper today, lads.’
But still, there are some age-old arguments against. Not a lot of sport is played in summer evenings, but there are times of the year when lots of people really do want a break from sport, and warm summer evenings are one of those times for people of all generations. There are also a lot of people of all generations going on holiday together (in normal years anyway), Northampton v Leicester is unlikely to benefit from being moved from mid-March to the second week of the English school holidays.
🗣️ “They (rugby league) said it was the best thing they’ve ever done.”
Summer switch backed by RFU chief Bill Sweeney. 👉 https://t.co/IqFouFrmBo pic.twitter.com/POhRm5seN9
— Planet Rugby (@PlanetRugby) June 7, 2020
We’ve alluded to the potential cultural loss of forwards winning a murky battle in a November mudbath where you have to peer through the steam rising off the players to actually see them. Lots of people do actually like this, as do quite a few players.
Yet it’s hard not to see the benefits carrying heavier weight. Alignment of calendars would ensure internationals played with teams at similar stages of their season. The World Cup would also have its own place in the sun, so to speak, at the end of the global season. There’s much less fight for dominance with soccer, which can only be to rugby’s benefit.
Most pertinently perhaps, it would only be the professional game that would need to change. If the sub-pro game stayed where it was in the calendar, you would automatically have a threefold benefit: players and fans from the sub-pro game would actually have the time to go and watch the pro game, players from the sub-pro game could be more efficiently scouted and recruited by the pro game, and pros could spend more time in the off-season giving back to the sub-pro game, something that has been one of the very laudable by-products of the corona pause.
While the game is in no danger of losing its overall identity, the professional game has really struggled to develop its own identity. The current crisis has exacerbated this struggle. Of all the solutions being punted around, this one looks like the freshest and most interesting for all.
Where to redraw the line
With George Kruis off to Japan, with Premiership teams set to reduce their wage bills by up to 30 per cent, it’s fair to assume that more seasoned international players may end up following.
Who’d blame them? Yet there is a looming conundrum facing northern hemisphere teams should the exodus take shape: will nations be able to retain their international players, or will there be a loosening of restrictions such as Wales’ 60-cap rule or England’s playing location rule?
The hope is that the lure of the jersey will keep players in place, but given that the recent 25% cut in wages might become permanent, there is absolutely a possibility that a career international may choose to head off at 27 years old rather than at 31; in other words, one World Cup earlier.
Nations and their constituents would then have the choice: drop their barriers or hope that the production line starts churning out a lot more international-level product than it has. Never was the case for cutting marquee player salaries and investing the money in robust academy and recruitment networks so strong.
🟠 Sharing is overrated. Bring on the golden point. #SuperRugbyAotearoa pic.twitter.com/azyxxr17LX
— Planet Rugby (@PlanetRugby) June 9, 2020
Law experiments
As we’ve said over the past few weeks, now is the time for disruption, experimentation and change in the game, from top to bottom.
So Loose Pass welcomes the trial in Super Rugby Aotearoa for sudden death extra time; after all, nobody likes a draw (least of all, harking back to the Lions in 2019, New Zealanders).
But the red card being downgraded from the rest of the match to merely a ‘double yellow’ (i.e. only 20 minutes and a replacement coming on instead of the disciplined player returning) is not one that sits well with us.
Yes, we bemoan a dodgy reffing decision that costs a team a player, and yes, the loss of a player is often a game-changer. But we are also getting to the point where players are becoming better at making sure they are tackling right, while officials, through a comprehensive system of review that Loose Pass has recently been privy to, are getting better at calling it right.
And just as we reach that nadir, where the ultimate deterrent is working, we reduce the deterrent?
If a player does something really stupid, he will be disciplined, but the team is punished too. It’s why so many players don’t bother – it’s what makes the red card such a strong deterrent, that feeling of having let your team down so badly.
Not that we expect a rash of foul play as a result of this, but lessening the responsibility of the player to the team in this regard has the potential to make individual players take his duty of care less seriously, which is not quite what the laws as they are were designed to do.
Loose Pass compiled by Lawrence Nolan