Eddie Butler : Rugby
For all its reputation of being the dearest, dearest institution never to have been added to the government’s sacred “listed events”, the Five Nations Championship has a decidedly murky history. There may not have been much that even the home unions committee could do about the world wars that interrupted the flow of the game, nor about the odd smallpox epidemic, nor the troubles in Northern Ireland, but there have been times when rugby has done everything possible to merit a bad name.
At the turn of the century the crowds in south Wales made it a bit of a habit to invade the pitch and threaten to lynch the ref. Or, if they stayed on the bob bank, to have a whip-round to buy Arthur “Monkey” Gould a house, which rather contravened the amateur spirit of the age.
Violence and corruption have always been room-mates. In the 1930s the French were expelled for hiding stiletto knives down their right sock, which in itself might have been forgiveable had not they failed to hide bulging envelopes in their left.
Somehow the championship has survived all this. Indeed, it has prospered on its high- wire, keeping its balance and remaining upright. You could get away with near- murder as long as you did the decent thing at the final whistle and shook hands. Reconciliation through rugby, dining out on a chap’s ear.
The wire is wobbling again. Money is no longer a moral issue, which cuts through one layer of cant — although amateurism was a safety net of sorts: “Oh well, at least they’re booting each other for nothing”. The moral debate has been silenced by the clamour for cash, and the championship, as the treasure store of the northern hemisphere, is vulnerable as never before.
A quick whip-round of opinion among the five nations suggests that the present is murkier than the past. England, for starters, have taken to the barricades yet again. The clubs are threatening to boycott next season’s European competitions, the elite teams are engaged in another blazing row with the administrators.
In France there is even greater confusion, because rugby is directly linked to the government. Twickenham, by comparison, is still a gentleman’s club; the French federation, the FFR in Paris, is a bikers’ warehouse rave; the latest crisis, hot on the heels of the debate on the shape of their own club championship and the legality of the last round of committee elections, concerns the brand-new Stade de France.
They have just discovered that the private consortium running the £310-million stadium are not so much into consorting as extorting. A Five Nations that generates no profit — use of the stadium is swallowing everything bar a few sous — is a whole new ball game, say the bikers as they lick their lips and spoil for another fight in the Boulevard du Baseball Bat.
Ireland cannot win a game — or rather, they can only beat Wales and Canada. This may seem the least critical of all rugby- related diseases, but it appears that the Irish are finally unhappy with their lot. Changing times, indeed.
Wales have a club vs union battle of their own. Cardiff are refusing to sign a 10-year loyalty agreement with the Welsh Rugby Union. There have been individual scrapes too, with Scott Quinnell of Richmond championing the cause of the freelance exile players, who have a rougher deal than the home-based players on contract.
Cardiff and Quinnell are perceived as being anti-Welsh in all this, but they deserve sympathy. The word “loyalty” and the time span of 10 years go together as well as lava bread and semolina. Ten years ago, rugby had only just found the World Cup, it was amateur, Will Carling was but a twinkle in Geoff Cooke’s eye. People were saying Jonathan Davies wasn’t very good. Talk about backward times. Who knows what rugby will be like a decade from now?
In Scotland, there is woe upon woe. The playing side of things is so bad that there is scarcely any space left for politics, although the club-or-district debate potters on. Defeat against Italy recently brought calls for the heads of everyone, especially coach Ritchie Dixon’s and director of rugby Jim Telfer’s.
In Dixon’s case, the hounds have pulled down their man. Six months ago, Telfer was assistant coach to the Lions. His personal tightrope seems to be bouncing as well as swaying, from beating the Springboks to this deep trough, and back up to the coach again.
So, the setting of the 1998 Five Nations Championship is a right mess. Not to worry, such has often been the case. But how often have there been spare tickets for games at Murrayfield or Lansdowne Road? People apparently are only too happy to stay at home and watch on television.
Such misery, such foreboding. Such nonsense. There are parentheses around the Five Nations, brackets that hold in place a safety net that is softer than the tatty mattress of amateurism the game could always fall back on.
The Lions gave the championship of ’98 a reassuring context that defies even the hottest of political scandals off the field. Their series win over the world champions was a joint effort by the best of the four home teams, hastily assembled but locked tight by a special brand of superglue.
Rereleased for the annual tribal drama, the Lions carry with them a different outlook on the game. Once, the Five Nations was a dog-fight full of intensity but gummed up with anxiety. Nowadays, the players are used to performing open rugby week in, week out at club level.
They took it to South Africa and added a defence, which may be the model for triumph by England at the next World Cup. Passing and tackling have at last combined naturally, with kick-and-rush reduced to a variation that breaks up the rhythm of the new game. The empty spaces at Murrayfield will soon fill up.
The other bracket is provided by the near future. Scotland and Ireland may rage against defeat by Italy, but these were losses at the hands of a worthy member of the European game. The Five Nations is menaced, but only by the Six Nations.
Italy will have to wait a little longer before they make their grand entrance. In the meantime, the old format goes about its business, threatened by one last danger. Last season Scotland, Ireland and Wales managed one win apiece. England and France were way ahead of the Celts.
A championship dominated by the big two is of no value at all. It becomes little more than a rehearsal room for more important engagements, which in themselves only serve as build-up fixtures to the World Cup. The unique cultural blend of the championship has already been diluted by the presence of so many Welsh, Scottish, Irish and French players in the English club game. To see a good Welshman you may as well go and watch Richmond. The imports to England now have to do something special in their national colours.
Can, then, the Five Nations conjure up the surprises necessary to make it a lottery of expectation? The answer lies in the hands of the players of the new age, and the coaches and selectors who have survived the politics of the old. The clarity of the new game may yet dispel the murkiness of the dearest, dearest institution.
ENDS