Eddie Butler Five Nations
It remains the ironic charm of rugby. After months of the bitterest infighting possible without anyone resorting to blows – apparently it’s been apoplectically touch and go in several antechambers – a structure has been triumphantly unveiled that will give European rugby a sub- international springboard to international excellence: the English are back in the European Cup, Cardiff and Swansea are back in the fold. The pyramid is taking shape at last.
And yet, this Saturday, Scotland will stake a claim to be champions of the Five Nations. If they win in Paris, all they have to do is sit back for the Sunday game at Wembley and raise an even louder cheer than normal in support of the Welsh against the English. Easier said than done. Raising the louder cheer than normal, that is.
The point is that Scotland’s rugby structure is not so much pyramidal as reduced to rubble. The super districts have been successful only in fuelling indifference. The crowds have stayed away from all competitions and now Tennent’s, the sponsors of the Scottish domestic game, have joined them. Gone.
It suggests that if Scotland had had a proper set of competitions this season, not only would their sponsors have remained on board, but they would right now be favourites for the World Cup. If you can challenge for the Five Nations on building blocks of strewn boulders, think what you could do on dressed Portland stone.
With all due respect to the coaching skills of Jim Telfer, I suspect that there are a couple of southern hemisphere teams who might always edge out the Scots as the bookies’ favourites for the big prize. European games and Tennent’s club cliffhangers are all very well but Scotland have done well in the Five Nations because, for the past couple of months, they have been a very nifty outfit specifically honed for the peculiarities of the old championship.
Take Gregor Townsend and John Leslie. The outside half and inside centre have a natural chemistry and it doesn’t matter if the one plays in France and the other is about to wing off to Japan. They play well together almost because they seem to cherish the rarity value of their partnership. Overexposure in a pyramid structure would probably dull their improvisations.
The theory of excellence out of chaos is dashed by the situation in France. French domestics are in as much turmoil as Scottish. During protracted debates last year their elite clubs wanted to shrink their internal championship to 16 sides. Instead, it grew to 24, and French club rugby has had a tepid season. The few occasions of intensity – games against Ulster in the European Cup – have seen both Stade Franais and Colomiers fail to hold themselves together in the face of good, old-fashioned crowd pressure.
French club rugby has struggled; the national team has subsequently been just as lacklustre. They were lucky to beat Ireland, lost at home to Wales and were flattened by England, only to be flattered by their last opponents’ failure to score a try.
Late-season meetings between France and Scotland in Paris used to be bankers on the prediction market. As safe as saying that Wales at home would always beat England. But as surely as Wembley is hardly the most arduous away trip in the world for the side going for the Grand Slam, so Scotland will now travel to Paris knowing that if their rapid-response forwards can drag France’s lumbering pack out of shape, then Townsend and Leslie J will do the rest. And if the pair’s powers of imagination are not enough, Alan Tait can always bang a few holes.
But you may have noticed that this has not been an easy Five Nations to call. Take this final weekend of the Five Nations one game at a time. What we have to work out is this: when will France be startled out of their sloth and kick-started into scoring by the imminence of the World Cup? Fear of disgrace in six months’ time far outweighs any apathy that has set in over the past half-year. France must play well soon.
But not on Saturday against Scotland. They have one more backward step to take before revolution. Townsend-Leslie to take Paris. Scott Murray to confirm his rise as the John Eales of the North. The crowd will shower the Stade de France with cabbage.
And that will set up Wales-England. Grand Slam or title for Scotland? And a definitive answer to the question: is a national team the image of the structure beneath it? Are England just Leicester plus a funny cross-kick?