A split image of England’s Ollie Chessum and Springboks’ Pieter-Steph du Toit with the Qatar Airways Cup.
This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with World Rugby’s “Long World Cup Nations Cup” and the general top-down nature of the global calendars…
There was no greater irony this week other than the news that Ollie Chessum, one of the recipients of England’s 17 enhanced Elite Player Squad contracts, had contracted a knee injury that could rule him out for several weeks, starting with the Autumn Nations Series.
Chessum sustained the injury at training with the England camp, while his Leicester team-mates spent 80 minutes knocking lumps out of Saracens and having lumps knocked out of them in return a day later, in a ferocious and high-quality match.
Injuries can happen at any time, but to contract a player not to play for his club for a certain number of games and then watch him get injured in the training that takes place instead of said games does feel like fate making a callous mockery of everything.
But it also picks at the scabs of a long-running cut at the heart of the game in England and increasingly, in South Africa, where Damian Willemse became the latest Springbok to see his November put in doubt by injury.
The negotiations for the English contracts were far from easy, with the players quite justifiably saying that whatever the money on offer, the amount they might have to spend on the paddock was simply too much. That’s less relevant now, but next year there’ll be someone financing the Long World Cup Nations Cup who will not be so understanding of player welfare when faced with players from the most prominent teams being given the rest they most likely need and deserve during the tournament. Clubs were also aghast, with the degree of control being exerted over their fittest and finest now ramped up even more. And goodness knows what will happen to the British and Irish Lions.
The players deserve to have a say. But the clubs deserve more of a say as well. Of all the leagues currently running, while the Top 14 does well because of the strength in depth of its teams and the colour of the fans, the Premiership is currently serving up a regular top-table feast. The United Rugby Championship is highly enjoyable, but often blighted over the course of the season by international players being rested and withdrawn by parent unions. The Premiership would have the same problem, were it not for the fact that three of their number have gone bust in the past couple of years.
David Campese hits out at ‘boring’ England’s ‘lack of ambition’ and calls for Steve Borthwick to let Marcus Smith ‘run the show’
But the international game continues to prop up the top clubs in all countries except France, rather than the other way round. Which makes the decision to cash in on the Long World Cup Nations Cup wise for the short-term future of the game perhaps, but the colour continues to drain inexorably away from the bottom. To see Sky Stadium more than half-empty for the Final of the National Provincial Championship was very sad (repulsive weather notwithstanding), considering the All Blacks were far, far away and that there was little else on offer. The Currie Cup Final (also a parade firmly pinkled on by the weather) was played with the top half of Ellis Park devoid of souls, unthinkable several years ago.
The colour will continue to drain away if the Long World Cup Nations Cup is allowed to go wherever the heck it likes too. England will likely host the first set of Finals (because you know, why not make the rich unions really, really rich), with those stalwarts of rugby culture, Qatar and the United States set to follow. It’ll open the doors to new audiences perhaps, but you also can’t help but feel it’ll be a priced-up faceless corporate jolly in many corners.
Even international fans will now have a choice, go to the Finals of the Long World Cup Nations Cup in some faraway land – a fast food version of the real thing if ever there was one – or go to the seven-course feast that is the actual Rugby World Cup. In the current economic climate, fast food often wins; but the World Cup is World Rugby’s cash cow. Slaughtering that and serving up the steaks in the corporate boxes in Qatar would be a mortal blow to a game already in trouble.
But back to the present. England awarded 17 contracts last week, one to a player who is yet to play this season, and one to another who is unlikely to play this November now. By the time November finishes, there’ll likely be at least two or three more unable to rejoin their clubs even after a mandatory week off (before the onset of the European club tournaments).
The clubs are doing a terrific job of keeping the conveyor belt of good players turning, but as the national teams flex their wallets to exert more and more control, buying up more and more corners of the calendar, that conveyor belt looks increasingly neglected.
Rugby desperately needs to wake up and realise that it cannot compete with the quantities of football on offer, so it must differentiate itself instead. Offering more of the same internationals year in, and year out is not going to cut it – not least when players are too injured/tired to return to their clubs.
READ MORE: Munster announce shock ‘immediate’ departure of Graham Rowntree after a slow start to URC
Check who’s hot and not following the week’s on and off-field action.
Steve Borthwick has made three changes to his squad for the Autumn Nations Series.
Ollie Chessum could miss the Autumn Nations Series through injury.
Here is our take on the winners and losers from the enhanced EPS contract announcement.
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