This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with seasons, patience (not patients) and the more farcical element of rugby…
All happiness… for now
So there we have it. Rugby is now officially all but a 12-month sport. Stuff seasons, stuff families, stuff the traditions of winter and summer sports, we now have a season that officially runs from September’s onset to June’s climax, with July Tests tacked on for good measure.
There are many good individual things in the new agreement, particularly the reduction of full game equivalents for all players to 30 per season which seems about right for a top-level player, giving him nearly half a year not playing. A challenge it may be for many a Director of Rugby through the season regarding rotation, but the intention is absolutely correct in light of the current attrition rate for top flight players.
The 12-week break between Premiership Final and Premiership start is another good feature, although we’re not quite sure how the planned in-season breaks, European rugby and internationals tally up into this – unless European rugby is set to settle into a new slot in the season.
Nor are we quite sure how happy the Premiership owners and clubs will be about the restrictions on England players, including 10 weeks off, extra mandatory weeks off in season for serial internationalists and trying to fit all these internationals and European rugby in with a potential 24-game Premiership campaign.
Which is where this schedule announcement and all the PR-fed quotes professing harmony and love between Premiership, RFU, B&I Lions and players’ unions seems to become a little murky. There are lots of good features and plenty of time well spent, but as soon as you wonder how it all fits together, you hit a wall. Could it be that a new storm is brewing between English clubs and European Rugby, for example, as it really isn’t clear where European rugby fits in here?
In fact, it really isn’t clear how any of it fits together. The only shreds of off-season up to 2022 look to be the Augusts of 2020 and 2022. Aside from those, England’s best will, notionally, be training or playing rugby in a calendar loaded with fixtures for every single month of the year.
Progressive aspects this agreement may have, but it hasn’t addressed the real problem, which is that the European calendar especially is still overstuffed. It’s going to take more than internal harmony in England to solve that one – an expanded domestic calendar being introduced right at the moment the sport faces up to a mounting injury crisis does not feel like a solution.
Grand finales
It would be a shame if the future of European rugby was threatened in any way though, as it still serves up some special moments.
Where this season once looked like being a road to Newcastle from Saracens and Dublin respectively, several performances over the opening fortnight have served to remind us that this might be a more open tournament than many expected.
And we should not forget the special memories European rugby can give. Munster’s bonus point try at Sale, Ronan O’Gara’s drop goal against Northampton after 36 phases, Clement Poitrenaud’s last-gasp error against Wasps, Shane Williams’ try for the Ospreys to beat Sale… and now Callum Chick’s effort for Newcastle to help them to a last-minute victory over Montpellier.
40 phases the Falcons took, bettering the Munster mark and helping the Premiership’s bottom team become one of Europe’s most elite-positioned, making it two from two against celebrated – if vulnerable – French opposition. It was a fantastic finale and a reminder that Europe conjures up once-off moments between clubs across borders that the Premiership can’t quite match.
Talking of once-off moments
All well and good for Newcastle, but the ludicrous clash – or rather, non-clash – of colours between Glasgow and Cardiff Blues on Sunday was a very succinct reminder that rugby’s professional status remains still young and occasionally naïve.
It wasn’t the fact that the teams had clashing kits particularly, as in these days of designer merchandise and marketing and such, it’s often that you simply don’t know who’s going to wear what for any given game.
But heavens above, even in real amateur leagues, referees email or whatsapp coaches and team management and check about colours. And home teams, surely, surely, have sets of spare kit around that should serve to help the viewers in the event of the worst happening.
Not, evidently in Cardiff. Evidently, Cardiff’s alternative was a staggering 15 miles away at their training base.
15 miles? That’s it? Ok, we might have had a delayed kick-off, but surely it would have been worth the wait not to have stared, utterly bemused, at the TV screen trying to work out the difference between an offside line and a support line in the absence of distinctive colours. Was there not one person in a van who could have charged off, fetched the kit and helped the viewing public enjoy their afternoon better?
“I do not know whose decision it was but [they have] to face consequences for it. It’s a joke and the organisers need to put their hands up,” said Gareth Anscombe. And he was right.
Loose Pass compiled by Lawrence Nolan