Fan's Voice "Why The Brisbane Tens Was A Success" A Response to Tyson Otto

At Rugby Pass we like to give fans a voice. If you want to have a rant or get something off your chest, send us your thoughts. This piece was sent to us by a rugby fan based in Singapore who has a bone to pick with the naysayers. 

In the build-up to the inaugural Brisbane Global Rugby Tens last week, any genuine rugby fan would have easily been sucked into the negativity and naysayer mentality that is becoming so common in our game.

According to most media outlets, armchair critics and keyboard warriors, the tournament seemed to have everything wrong with it: an unproven format; a lack of star players and above all else, the cynical stench of foolhardy entrepreneurship by Duco Entertainment (how dare they try to innovate our steady-as-she-goes rugby viewing experience!).

If you had landed on planet rugby last week, it was not a positive place to be.

Usually the optimist, I was slowly dragged into this negative sentiment. I had no interest in making time to watch any of the tournament and, after witnessing the slow death of the Sevens format in Wellington, I felt as though I should focus my weekend rugby viewing on the Six Nations. Yet, on a different time-zone and with an hour to kill on my Saturday morning, I switched on RugbyPass and tried out a couple of games.

It would be fair to say that Day One was all a bit of a mess. As Tyson Otto (@tottodtsport) at News.com.au pointed out in his Saturday evening article “Brisbane Rugby Tens concept fizzes out in spectacular failure”, the play was a bit of a car crash between Sevens and that of the XV format.

With five forwards and five backs, teams seemed to struggle with committing too many or too few players at the breakdown. Gaps in the backline that usually open up with a Sevens game were glaringly absent. Additionally, it seemed that tactical kicking was erased from the playbook in the early games and players tried to run the game in what was a near-forty degree Brisbane cauldron.

So, finishing my Saturday viewing and having read Tyson’s article, I felt as though the Naysayers had a win under their belt. I even WhatsApp’d a few other expat mates just to ensure that any positivity they might have held would be properly quashed. Hooray for negativity and being right about something failing “spectacularly”. After all, it is surely our right as loyal (or long-suffering, depending on your mindset) rugby fans to have every new event work perfectly from its inception!

Thankfully, but probably too late to help ticket sales and viewership, the criticism was all a bit premature because what I (and a very jovial 20,000+ live fans) watched on Sunday afternoon was an entertaining display of footy that suddenly seemed to click.

Overnight, the teams (mainly the Kiwis, but also some nice surprise packages from the Panasonic Wild Knights and the Bulls from South Africa) re-wrote their approach to the format and battled the intense heat to find ways to move the ball more freely. The rucks became more competitive and turnovers started flowing. Players started to connect on the field after their Summer breaks. Putting the ball on the foot also gained traction as a good way of moving around the paddock and moving the opposition.

The Sunday afternoon viewing was very entertaining. The lack of big names became acceptable because some relative no-names stepped up to showcase amazing speed, huge hits (some legal, others not so much) and tough endurance in the heat. The audience was ultimately given a hard-fought, yet highly entertaining final, where a Chiefs outfit reeling from the overnight passing of a former team-mate and close friend, beat the until-then tournament standouts from Canterbury.

What also became apparent for those who paid any attention to the coverage (here’s looking at you Tyson!), is that the big empty stand on one side of the ground was literally the result of a scorching day and no available shade. The crowd continued to grow as the tournament went on and those who made the effort to dress up and get into the swing of things clearly had a great time.

Remember that only 3,000 people attended the first Hong Kong Sevens!

We know that rugby can feel a bit stale at times. The Southern Hemisphere crowds seem to be more and more apathetic toward the live experience and the only response from administrators is to give us more of the same (I mean, how many more teams will they ram into Super Rugby?). But I also think the media has a role to play in driving excitement and interest in the game through more positive and factual analysis rather than negative click-bait that only serves to fuel our apathy.

So when a company like Duco comes along trying to make things more interesting – a different format where our same-same SANZAR teams can play against the French and Japanese clubs, who we only really hear of when they poach our near-retirement players – we should all stand up and applaud, rather than pounce on every small detail.

Tyson should have waited another 24 hours to write his article and I should have given myself a stiff uppercut as a reminder that the glass is very much half-full and rugby can be still be fresh and full of great stories.

As for Duco Entertainment, thank-you. I’m sorry for doubting you and I sincerely hope that you make enough money from this event that you can continue to innovate and improve our glorious game.