This week we will be mostly concerning ourselves with blue cards, Lions captaincy contenders and Super Rugby’s woes.
Drop goals
If we were ever asked to trim a few teams from a tournament, we’d like to say we’d have the nous to suggest the application of some sort of tournament. We’d then use results to determine who remains and who goes.
Our thinking is based on the fact that better sides are more likely to win than lose, so you’d soon be able to identify the dead wood: it would be those teams who end the season with the fewest wins.
That this simple process – let’s call it ‘sport’ – is lost to the administrators of SANZAAR betrays just how far off the beaten track they have wandered.
The body that has overseen Super Rugby’s expansion from six teams to 10 to 12 to 15 to 18 has announced that they now wish to ditch up to three sides, with the identity of the unlucky sides to be determined within the confines of the boardrooms rather than out on the pitch.
We shouldn’t really be surprised that SANZAAR reached its decision through consultation with the accountants of Accenture rather than the league tables. Super Rugby is now more business than sport, and it has brought this imminent downsizing on itself through sheer financial greed.
They convinced themselves that quantity was at one with quality, and the TV execs went along with the ride.
Stretch a tournament from Tokyo to Buenos Aires and attempt to grow rugby union where rugby union has always been alkaline to the soil – namely Perth, Melbourne, Port Elizabeth and Singapore – and this is what you get: a tired, unwieldy, confusing artifice.
The fans saw it coming. The media saw it coming. So why didn’t the blazers? Was the money really that good?
It should never have got to this point of disbandment and redundancies, but it is to SANZAAR’s credit that they now seem steadfast in their commitment to right their own wrongs and restore their bloated pantomine to its former glories.
As they begin to wade through the deluded spreadsheets and vast political minefields, they should take some comfort in the knowledge that Super Rugby’s gaggle of problems radiate from a single and very common sporting complaint: hyperextension.
Let’s hope that the battered old wreak can be massaged back into shape.
Hogg in the limelight
Have you put any thought into who should captain the Lions on their tour of New Zealand? Of course you have! Pub-goers across Britain and Ireland can hardly hear Ed Sheeran over the constant din of debate.
Even Eddie Jones has joined the fun, suggesting that the tourists should name four captains – one from each of the four national teams.
“Wrong, Eddie!” we would bellow, if we were in the pub together sharing a beer, leaning into his ear to mitigate against Ed Sheeran. Tribalism is the one thing you want to avoid on a Lions tour, and four leaders would inevitably lead to four distinct camps.
Loose Pass is siding with those calling for a ‘tour captain’, and we were duly heartened by Warren Gatland’s recent suggestion that whoever is picked as captain would not be guaranteed a place in the Test side.
But we’d go even further than that. To ward off the myriad perils that prey on Lions tours – tribalism, cliques, accusations of favouritism, dirt-tracker selections – we’d actually pick a tour captain who only had an outside chance of making the Test side. This man would thereby be able to probably represent the whole party rather than the 1st XV.
For the same reasons, we’d also look outside the two counties who look set to dominate the Lions squad: England and Ireland.
And given Gatland’s ties with Wales, a Welsh pick could be construed as caballing.
That leaves us with the Scots. Injuries have left us short of stocks, but in Stuart Hogg we have a man who ticks all our boxes.
Unassuming, charismatic and highly approachable, Hogg has the skills to forge a happy band of brothers out of a traditionally disparate set of tourists.
He is also perhaps the most naturally-gifted footballer of the group, which would engender internal respect and should go a long way toward disarming the famously hard-to-impress local press.
If he proves himself on New Zealand soil, no one would begrudge him the chance to lead the Lions proper. If he doesn’t make it, the Lions could find advantage in a late change of leadership tack, switching abruptly from brain to brawn.
Sir Ian McGeechan famously opted for the untested leadership of Martin Johnson in 1997 largely by dint of his size, later recalling: “I really loved was the idea that when the South African captain came to toss up, he had to look up at the Lions captain.”
Could the class of 2017 follow suit? Do they possess a physical specimen capable of causing Kieran Read to cock his head skyward at Eden Park on June 24 and win the all-important man-off?
Yes, they do. His name is Maro Itoje.
Wrong call
A few days short of April Fool’s comes news that rugby referees have begun to brandish blue cards. It’s not a joke, it’s deadly serious – almost literally so.
The initiative is being trialled by the Australian Rugby Union and is aimed at better managing the effects of concussion at the amateur end of the game. Players showing signs of concussion will be shown blue card and sent off by the main official.
Whilst Loose Pass readily applauds all efforts to combat head injury, this one is surely misguided.
What training do amateur referees have in assessing brain injuries? What training will they be offered? Do they not have enough on their plates as it is?
What if they get it wrong and fail to show a blue card to a player who later keels over? Isn’t it hard enough to attract referees to the game without the added spectre of medical malpractice?
This needs to be thrown back to coaches. They need to get a little perspective. This is amateur rugby for crying out loud! Their one overriding responsibility lies not in getting a win but in ensuing that their players return home to their families after the game and are able to report to work come Monday morning.
Amateur coaches who are found to have knowingly returned concussed players to the field should be barred for life. That threat alone would go a long way towards seeing this stain lifted from our game.
Loose Pass is compiled by former Planet Rugby editor Andy Jackson
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