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Europe perfect destination to bring Rugby Championship back into spotlight

By Tom Vinicombe
(Photo by Dan Mullan/Getty Images)

Yesterday, RugbyPass broke the news that Sanzaar are seriously considering relocating The Rugby Championship to Europe on the back of Covid flare-ups in New Zealand and Australia – and it’s a move that makes perfect sense.

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It’s been three years since the Southern Hemisphere’s premier international rugby competition was staged in its full glory.

In 2019, a compressed tournament was played out to accommodate for the World Cup while last year, South Africa withdrew from the competition and all six matches of the Tri-Nations were played in Australia.

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The Aotearoa Rugby Pod panel have a look back at the week that was.

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The Aotearoa Rugby Pod panel have a look back at the week that was.

Already, the integrity of the 2021 competition is on shaky ground. The Pumas won’t play a match in Argentina, the Springboks’ two home matches will bring in zero stadium-goers while until earlier this week, the rest of the matches were set to take place in under-optimised, under-attended Australian stadiums, bar one game played in front of a half-packed crowd in Auckland.

The latest developments in New Zealand, where the population is currently set to be locked down for seven days, has forced Australia to re-think their one-way travel bubble with NZ, which means the All Blacks won’t travel to Western Australia for their next Bledisloe Cup match, originally scheduled to take place at Optus Stadium on September 28.

Unless the Australia Government were to make an allowance for the All Blacks, that match in Perth wouldn’t have been able to go ahead as planned – and now it’s been indefinitely called off.

One mooted alternative would see the remainder of the Rugby Championship shifted to Queensland – but the NRL has currently commandeered the major stadiums in the Sunshine State, which would force some of the best matches in the rugby union calendar to be played in front of paltry mobs in smaller arenas.

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That includes the 100th game between the All Blacks and Springboks – an historic match more than deserving of a sold-out, passionate crowd.

That won’t happen in the doldrums of Australia. But it could in Europe.

Twickenham, Stade de France and the Principality Stadium all loom as perfect venues for the match that could be the most important on the test calendar, the battle that will see the current World Cup holders and successful hosts of the most recent Lions tour clash against the only team that’s had the wood over them in the past decade.

 

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And then there’s the nine other huge encounters between the Southern Hemisphere’s top sides to add to the agenda – games that would otherwise be forgotten about in the annuals of time, but which could become unforgettable if staged on the other side of the world.

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Some have raised concerns that the games will be played at times unsuitable to an Australasian audience but with the bulk of Rugby Australia and New Zealand Rugby’s income for the year expected to come through their broadcast deals, it’s hard to envisage the games won’t be played at Southern Hemisphere-appropriate hours.

And with hundreds of thousands of Antipodeans, South Africans and Argentinians living in the UK and Ireland, there’ll be a massive fanbase interested in getting along to watch their home-sides play – but they may struggle to get tickets with the native populations also clamouring for some high-intensity, high-paced rugby.

While the British and Irish Lions series with the Springboks was a closely fought affair, it wasn’t the enthralling calendar event that many were hoping for – but a Euro-based Rugby Championship would have something for everyone.

It also ensures relative parity going into matches.

By the end of the weekend, Argentina will have played two matches in South Africa – where they’ve won just once before. The Wallabies, meanwhile, have had to play their opening two Bledisloe Cup matches (only one of which was a Rugby Championship game) at Eden Park, a ground where they’ve not tasted success since 1986.

In Europe, however, there’s no home advantage. Everyone is on an equal playing field.

In 2015, the four Rugby Championship sides contested the semi-finals of the Rugby World Cup and the world was treated to rugby of the highest order.

It was competitive, it was high-paced and it was a great advertisement for the game of rugby – and a Europe-based Rugby Championship promises similar potential.

There still remains a chance that Queensland or even South Africa could play host to the competition but from most conceivable angles, the UK and France appeal as the location with the greatest upside.

With all four Sanzaar unions poised to take a financial hit this year, packed-out stadiums in Europe will hold endless appeal – as will the promotional aspect of actually showcasing high quality rugby in front of roaring crowds.

It might be a left-field solution to the impact the global pandemic is having on the game, but that’s exactly what rugby needs right now.

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J
Jon 9 hours ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

This is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?

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