The Rugby World Cup Will Be a Crashing Bore

The Rugby World Cup is the Mona Lisa of rugby union. We all pretend to love it but deep down, we all know it’s not really worth the queue.

Former Wales, New Zealand and British Lions coach Graham Henry wrote a watery preview in the Observer on Sunday in which he posited that a team with ambitions to win the Rugby World Cup must have a world-class fly-half. Graham Henry’s own World Cup was won with a fourth-choice choice fly-half, a man so out of the reckoning that at the start of the tournament Stephen Donald was half-a-world away, fishing.

Dan Carter has been acclaimed as the best fly-half in world rugby for over a decade. And his godlike boots were filled by Mr Nobody? Maybe you could win a soccer world cup with some midfield dynamo from Sligo Rovers filling in for Leo Messi, but it’s very hard to imagine it.

The 2011 Final was a poor game, and a fitting conclusion for a poor tournament throughout. France should have beaten New Zealand in the final. The French themselves should have lost to 14-man Wales in the semi-final, and the Welsh should have carved up by Ireland, who had won their group for the first time in World Cup history.

That World Cup will live in infamy as the tournament that saw the debut of the choke tackle. Historically, tackling in rugby was about hitting someone hard and knocking him down. Les Kiss, defensive coach for Ireland, realised that a law change to help adjust to the professional era meant that, instead of having to knock players over, it is now much more to your advantage to hold them up instead.

The law of Unintended Consequences took over. Running into space is now a schoolboy error in modern rugby. When you have the ball you find the biggest clump of opposition players you can find and head right for them, knowing that your own team are right behind you to support you in the inevitable wrestling match that follows. And then you do that for eighty minutes and pretend you’re playing the same game as Serge Blanco and Barry John and Tony O’Reilly.

Rugby, to its credit, has been good at policing its laws. It’s considerably more aware than some other codes that laws have to be constantly policed, to ensure the game is still true to its original ethos and not twisted out of shape by devious and squirrelly coaches. Unfortunately, both the realisation that the choke tackle is killing the game and that there may be a drugs issue – imagine a sport where a sixteen stone man can pick up another sixteen stone man and hurl him about like he was an empty dustbin having a steroid issue! The idea! – have arisen too close to the World Cup for it to be saved.

This means that, not only will we get the pointless empty-rubber games of the group stages, where the ten nations that compete at the elite level use forty games to lose two of their number, but we’ll also get a whole lot of sterile rugby to achieve even that rudimentary level of crop-thinning.

Not only that, but the organisers have managed to make the most tremendous balls of the seedings, that sees only two nations emerge from England, Australia and Wales, while Scotland and Argentina have been handed Wonka-esque golden tickets to the playoffs. They’ll go the same way as Augustus Gloop once they get there, of course, but still. It’s hard not to feel sorry for whichever of the the Pool A seeds that draws the short straw and has to watch that destruction at home.

The World Cup will be won by the team that makes the least mistakes. England are the sensible bet, as they’re on a softer side of the draw if they win their group. Funnily enough, Ireland could go on a run if they can beat France and win their pool. That would have been a big “if” once, but France are in the doldrums like they haven’t been since before the Second World War.

A quarter-final against Argentina awaits the winner of Pool D, and the winner of that faces, theoretically, a semi-final against England. Neither England nor Twickenham would have any fears for the Irish (the way New Zealand might, for instance) and you can expect the hype to hit record levels should that matchup come off.

The hype will be forced, though. Rugby is played in Intel-esque clean rooms anymore, with all spontaneity or improvisation or joy strictly forbidden. Recycle, recycle, recycle, kick the penalty, recycle, recycle, recycle, kick the penalty. We’ll cheer if Ireland win, but we’ll have to pretend we like it.

Foot rushes, props lumbering towards the line with the Enemy hanging off them, Simon Geoghegan or Brian O’Driscoll flashing through the gap – all these are things of the past. Recycle, recycle, recycle, kick the penalty. Repeat ad nauseam. Fare well, glory. Hail to thee, assembly line. Let’s form an orderly queue, everybody. Greatness awaits.

FOCAL SCOIR: This is the 1,000th published post on this blog over 12 years. I don't post as often as I used to, real life having caught up with me, but still. It's a kind of an achievement, nonetheless.

Lifting in the Lineout - The Rugby World Cup Format is Wrong

One of the reasons that rugby has adapted so well to professionalism is its willingness to change its laws as the game evolves. And not only that, rugby is willing to try a law for a season and then change it back if it doesn’t work. The administrators are always willing to do what’s best for the game.

Which makes it all the more of a pity that they haven’t tweaked the format of the World Cup. A phony war will be conducted all through the group stages, leaving the stakes impossibly high come the knockout stages where the safety net is suddenly swept away.

There are three divisions in world rugby. In the first division, there are the super powers – New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, England and France. In the second division, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Italy and Argentina. In the third division, there’s everyone else.

Only a first division team can win the World Cup. A second division team can’t win it, but on their day they can stop someone else from winning it. The third division teams, God help them, are cannon fodder, and nothing else.

This means that forty group games will be played at the World Cup in order to reduce the top ten rugby playing nations to eight. That’s not the most efficient way of going about it.

In amateur days, it would be lovely for the USA to play New Zealand – they were all amateurs anyway and, even though the USA would still lose, there wasn’t the same air of businesslike formality about the All-Blacks running in try after try. There was still a place for magic and romance, no matter how thin a sliver.

But that’s all gone now as the professionals go about the expert dismemberment of the amateurs, and then have to trust all to eighty minutes of on-the-day inspiration from the quarters on. The pool games are too little while the playoffs are too much.

What’s the solution? There isn’t one, really. Perhaps the first ten teams in the world should play the World Cup as a league, each with one game against the other, and then some sort of semi-final and final to keep it interesting? It seems the fairest way.

The problem would be that the sheer physicality of modern rugby makes that impossible. Some players might manage the twelve game slate, but at a horrific cost to their health in later life.

And so we’re left with this strange shadow-boxing tournament for the first forty games of the World Cup and then the manic intensity of the final seven (let’s not count the third place play-off – nobody else does). But I suppose it’s the only World Cup we have and it’s better than nothing.

Of the five contenders, your Spailpín wouldn’t begrudge any of them, really. Australia isn’t even vaguely a rugby country but when it comes to the World Cup the Wallabies are unquestioned specialists.

New Zealand and South Africa are the greatest rugby cultures in the world (as would Wales be, if only it had the resources available to the other two) and An Spailpín has a lot of time for Martin Johnson’s heroic refusal to apologise for being English. Love him or hate him, the man’s got style.

And France. Always France. One of the greatest rugby nations, and the only one of the great traditional powers that was never part of the British Empire. That’s part of what makes them so different and so exciting.

But while it would be lovely to see France finally win a World Cup, the New Zealanders’ longing for the title, especially now on home soil, has become so acute that we are now in the peculiar situation of the favorites being the people’s champions too – to see New Zealand frustrated in every tournament is becoming cruel to everybody. (With the possible exception of the Australians, of course. Aussies are like that).

Ireland? Ireland should progress from their group, and then stand a fighting chance against South Africa (if things go according to seed), the Tri-Nations country against which the Irish have the best record. Not getting out of the group would be disappointing, but hardly novel. Losing the quarter-final would be par for the course.

But as the twilight quickly descends on the Golden Generation of O’Gara, O’Connell and O’Driscoll, it would be wonderful if they could win the quarter-final and claim one more page of history before night falls. Because when night does fall, it could last a long, long time.

Ka mate, ka mate...

Three Cheers for the Gallantry and Glory of the New Zealand All-Blacks

What a wonderful sporting occasion that was at Thomond Park last night. It was a game that existed both out of its time, in the fact that it was played at all, and very much of its time, with the soon to be world famous Munster haka, demonstrating that there’s more to modern Munster multi-culturalism than the traditional mix of Cork and Limerick.

The very fact that New Zealand agreed to the game is astonishing in itself. The last time the All-Blacks played a midweek game, which were once regular features of the tours, of course, was seven years ago, and the last time the All-Blacks played a provincial or club side was when they visited Llanelli at Stradley Park eleven years ago, taking terrible revenge for their defeat there against Delme Thomas’ Scarlets in 1972. Rugby was only turning professional in 1997, but it’s full on now. Making the All-Blacks’, the biggest marquee name in the world game, decision to play Munster last night and turn the clock back to an earlier era, an era of glory before gold, admirable indeed.

It’s fashionable in the rugby press here to have a go at New Zealand as being cynical towards the game. What could be further from the truth? The New Zealanders’ appreciation of the game’s rich history and their own part in it shines like the silver fern on the jersey.

When Tana Umaga was being treated disgracefully here by bandwagon-jumping publicans, the people of Donegal showed their real appreciation of the All-Blacks by giving them such a warm welcome when the New Zealanders made their way to Letterkenny in Donegal – not noted as a rugby heartland – to pay tribute to Dave Gallaher, captain of the “Originals” that toured the British Isles. Letterkenny is the nearest town to Ramilton, the homeplace of the Gallahers before they immigrated to New Zealand, and the local rugby club named their pitch after him.

Always aware of who they are and what they represent, Umaga and the All-Blacks made their way up to open the pitch. There was no glory there. Letterkenny RFC is far from the great cathedrals of the game in Christchurch, in Durban, in Cardiff, but the All-Blacks are aware that the jersey carries duties as well. The game has no finer ambassadors.

There was concern that the game last night would be a massacre when, in an indication of just how professional the game is now, the IRFU didn’t countenance for a second the release of the Munster players from the international squad, with the game against Argentina coming up on Saturday. But last night’s combination of Dad’s army and boys brigade clung to the fundamental core of rugby that lies behind all this old blather about second phase go forward give and goes; rugby is fundamentally a game about smashing. Munster smashed for all they were worth last night; it would not surprise your correspondent if some of those fellas can’t walk this morning as a result. But what a game. What a spectacle. What an event.

The mutual respect for both sides was astonishing. When was the last time you heard complete silence for an opposition kicker? When did the haka, one of the great spectacles of the world game, receive so rapturous a reception? New Zealand can do the dog on the haka, but the reception it got in Limerick last night, including the challenge laid down by their own exiles, was just exhilarating. The Welsh wouldn’t let the All-Blacks perform the haka the last time New Zealand were in Cardiff. An Spailpín Fánach hopes the Welsh won’t let themselves down again this time.

Irish rugby is in a period of transition right now – the golden generation now look likely to hang them up and live the rest of their lives as under-achievers, while the phenomenal success of Munster ironically could prove to be the undoing of the national side. How many provincial sides will risk an Irish player learning his trade at stand-off half when you can go shopping for a Paul Warwick? But these are debates for another day. In the meantime, what a treat to have seen this game, and three loud cheers for New Zealand and their tremendous and endearing sportsmanship. Go n-imrí na Lán-Dubhaigh uaisle go deo.





Technorati Tags: sport, rugby, Munster, New Zealand, All-Blacks, Thomond Park

All-Blacks Bite the Dust - Who Weeps Not for Baldr?

The cheap sniggering that’s accompanied the spectacular crashing to Earth of the best team at the Rugby World Cup™ has been unedifying, and the one bum note in what’s otherwise been a spectacular weekend for the game of rugby football. We are a nation that allows its head coach to make an eejit of himself bigging up Triple Crowns when the real action is elsewhere, and have been celebrating a game we lost (v Australia in 1991) for sixteen years and counting. Can you imagine the reaction here if Ireland had been on the business end of referee Wayne Barnes’ zanier decisions?

But that’s rugby. The New Zealanders like to big up their team, but your close-attention-paying correspondent doesn’t hear much whinging out of them. Chris Jack was interviewed on Newstalk last night, before the Scotch game. He sounded like a man at his own funeral, but never once did he whinge or whine. To do so would have been the work of a “sook,” and the All-Blacks were never that. They have been able to dish it out, but now they’re taking it, and taking it like men. It’s hard not to feel that the tournament is poorer without them.

Not least as Saturday night’s quarter-final would have made such a thrilling final, if the tournament had gone according to plan. Just what exactly happened is harder to figure, as three narratives are already developing. The first is that the Blacks got done. The second is that they choked. The third is that the French were able to strike back at the Blacks by playing the champagne rugby for which their nation is far-famed and of which is rightly proud.

The incredible potency of the ball-in-hand approach is George Hook’s analysis, a man lately much given to discussing potency, according to the worrying ads An Spailpín Fánach has seen in the gentlemen’s rest rooms of the bars of Ireland. On this occasion, however, George must be on stronger tack than the little blue pills. Surely, as Brendan Gallagher points out in the Telegraph this morning, the reason that the French were still in it was because Bernard Laporte, who’s been derided as a fool since his appointment as head coach of France, played a tactical game at the start and kept the All-Blacks frustrated for the first hour. To go toe to toe with them was to invite doom. Instead, the French waited for their opportunity, and struck hard when they got the chance. Richie McCaw mentioned the same thing in his post match press conference, and he ought to know.

Judgement on the referee is up to the individual. These things happen in rugby and the game is such that referees’ interpretations will always have an influence stronger than the ideal. In the 1980s, games were won and lost according to how the old lineout was refereed. Now, it’s all about reffing the breakdown. The bottom line is that the ball just isn’t round, and it’s going to bounce funny from time to time. C’est la guerre, la vie et la rugby. The choking is something your philosophically inclined correspondent hopes to look at more fully before the tournament is over - or else just after it. Watch this space.

New Zealand's demise was not the only shock of the quarter-finals. For the first time ever your correspondent, who has shed tears for Parnell and always thinks well of the Fenian dead, was cheering England for all he was worth on Saturday as they screwed Australia to the sticking-post. Australia was always more a league than a union nation, and their inability to scrummage correctly is proof again of that. Fare thee well to them.

South Africa are the team that are coming out of this tournament the best, as momentum builds and builds behind Die Bokke. New Zealand’s experience shows how vulnerable you become without hard matches, but too many hard matches will leave you physically smashed to ribbons – not many Frenchmen will be able to sit up today after putting in tackle after tackle on Saturday; in fact, Imanol Harinordoquy probably lacks sufficient strength to shave off that disgraceful moustache of his. Die Bokke got a thorough going-over from Fiji, and the Argentineans will have a good close look at them as well, but South Africa will not have that just-spent-the-night-in-a-cement-mixer feeling that the winners of France v England must endure. An Spailpín hopes it's France - cheering for England is something An Spailpín can't do every week, and besides, my little flutter on France is still alive. Où est la vie, l'espoir, mes petits!

Finally, An Spailpín is sorry to write off the Argentineans, who have thrilled so many in this World Cup, not least with the firefly genius of their stand-off half, peerless Juan-Martín Hernández. But the law of diminishing returns was looming over the Argentina as they huffed and puffed against a severely limited Scotland, and that law will be fully enforced by South Africa on Sunday night I’m afraid, when it looks very much like a case of buenos noches, Buenos Aires, and thanks for the memories.





Technorati Tags: sport, rugby, Rugby World Cup, New Zealand