'I genuinely didn't give a f***. That's the attitude players are going to have'
It will soon likely be the new norm, rugby matches eerily played behind closed doors. World Rugby paved the way the other day for the post-coronavirus comeback, releasing an in-depth 29-page document setting the framework for the sport’s return around the world.
It’s mostly a tentative step into the unknown, playing matches at empty stadiums, but it’s not unprecedented. Take the Heineken Champions Cup. It was ten years ago next December when the tournament broke new ground just five days before Christmas, Edinburgh edging a spectator-less Monday afternoon cracker with a converted 77th minute try versus Castres.
Snow and ice – not a virus – had been that weekend’s spoilsport but rather than the visiting French nipping away home that Sunday evening with intentions to return at some future date, plans were hastily made for a rendezvous the very next day, the catch being that not a soul who wasn’t playing, coaching, refereeing, administrating or broadcasting would be looking on.
World Rugby’s upcoming restart aims to cater for a maximum of 167 people, including the respective XVs, but there was way fewer on deck that baltic winter’s day in the Scottish capital when the attendance went into the European rugby history books as a big fat zero.
Murrayfield had never been a ground regularly bursting at the seams when the local club featured. Just short of 5,000 were there to watch their previous home European encounter, an October loss to Northampton. But all the same, having the 67,000 capacity stadium completely empty was quite a sight.
Tim Visser, who opened the try-scoring that weird 2010 day, remembers the surreal occasion and wonders how the players of today will now adjust at having to perform minus the atmosphere of a crowd and all the rest of the hype that goes hand in hand with any big match day.
“To get some revenue back into the game they need to start playing,” he told RugbyPass. “There are huge TV rights at every level nowadays so to get some value and revenue streams back, playing in front of empty stadiums is better than nothing. People will watch it on TV.
“The spectator experience at some of these big stadiums, even Quins on a Saturday afternoon, was just a wonderful family experience and people will miss that. But what is more important, watching a game of rugby or death? It’s just the way it is at the moment.
“It was just before Christmas,” he continued, harking back to his own experience of playing with not even two men and a dog watching on. “There was some really heavy snow and the game got called off. There were safety concerns about the roof and whatever else at Murrayfield.
“We had our Christmas party planned for that night after the game. We heard Castres were staying behind because the game had to be played if at all possible. We still had the Christmas party – obviously, we didn’t drink – but it was definitely harder for them than it was for us.
“We were still around our families close to Christmas, but they had to sit in the hotel for two days and then go into an empty Murrayfield and face us. We were really wanting to play that game, we loved having the French over and they don’t travel well in any case. They did not want to be there. It was still cold. There was still snow and ice.
“As a player, of course you want to be playing in sold-out stadiums, but as soon as the whistle went, whether there were ten or 10,000 people it didn’t make a difference to me because I was normally just so focused that you didn’t really notice it.
“Obviously after the game and if you score a try, it’s great to have people cheering, but for the game, for the players, I can’t see it making a huge difference looking ahead to what is going to happen. I might be wrong. Some people are more wound up when there are people watching. They thrive on that.
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“There is certainly big game players that love playing in front of people but I never really struggled with that, playing at a Murrayfield with 5,000 or 10,000 people when there could have been 67,000. I just thought, ‘Great pitch, love playing here’. I genuinely didn’t give a f***. That’s the attitude players are going to have going into these games. It’s better than nothing, I guess.”
It was around this time last year that Visser announced he would quit playing. He’d already called time on his 33-cap Scotland Test career in 2017 and although still only in his early 30s, he felt the end of the 2018/19 season with Harlequins was perfect to bow out altogether.
Twelve months on he has no regrets the boots were clinically slung to the side, never to be worn again. Lockdown has put his new career in property development on hold, but there are no ifs, buts and maybes about his sporting past. Set to turn 33 at the end of May, he is very much at peace with his decision to leave it all behind, to forge a different path on his terms.
“I was never too bothered with the rugby going on without me,” explained the Dutchman who made an October 2006 Premiership debut with Newcastle before moving north of the border to Edinburgh in 2009, the city where he is now living again following the four-season stint at Harlequins that brought the curtain down on a career where his nose for sniffing out tries was hugely coveted.
“I was always very aware that rugby is very much a business transaction. Clubs pay you because they need something from you and vice-versa, so when I finished I was very aware that players are a commodity and I was a commodity at the team I left and there would be someone else to fill my boots. That is just the nature of the work.
“In that regard, it has been no real issue. I expected that. What was tricky at the start was the lack of routine. As a rugby player you’re very institutionalised from getting in for breakfast to training to straight back home, it’s a very scheduled day. Suddenly waking up and not having that structure, being able to decide what you want to do sounds brilliant but very quickly it becomes quite tricky. It messes with your head a little bit.
“A lot of rugby players have a very high need to achieve and unless you get that every day that is tricky to work with. I realised that after six to eight weeks. I went to Holland for the summer, spent some time around my family. I took three months out. I thought I’m so sick of training, I don’t want to do any more weights, don’t want to do any more fitness, I’m not doing anything.
“I’m just going to chill and enjoy my time on my boat and whatever else. But I very quickly realised I do need fitness, I do need to train, I do need some structure to my day and I certainly do need something to achieve, so I set up a property development company with a good friend from London, an investor.
Thanks for giving me the honour of representing such an amazing country! See you in Edinburgh soon! https://t.co/0u8Asc3J6B
— Tim Visser (@timbovisser) May 17, 2019
“As soon as I moved back to Edinburgh we really hit the ground running. We’re on project four and five and five at the moment. Obviously completely hindered by coronavirus. Everything in building sites is on lockdown, so we can’t currently work but as soon as that is lifted we are back on it because we were in a real flow.
“That was really good for my perspective because we make awful apartments look beautiful again and sell them to very grateful owners and investors alike. It’s a really nice thing to be a part of and it gives me something to work on, to achieve every day which has been massively helpful for me. You still very frequently have beautiful city centre tenement flats in Edinburgh. People are genuinely dying in there and the estate being sold on. There are seven, eight layers of wallpaper, olive green bathrooms, that kind of stuff.
“They are just screaming to be upgraded and put back onto the market because there are first-time buyers everywhere looking for beautiful property but not having the means to covert them themselves. If you look at what we provide and for the value that we provide it for, it’s really a service and we have had some really lovely first-time buyers into our flats.”
Visser was always planning for the day rugby would stop providing a salary. He made sure he got his business degree and was constantly on the work experience carousel, building up the various experiences that have now helped him so successfully make the awkward transition from playing to quickly nailing an alternative career.
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With rugby around the world now in a state of flux, the ex-Scotland international’s phone has been buzzing regularly with numerous current players sounding him out for advice amid anxiety for their future. “I’ve had quite a lot of people contact me from the rugby world asking what I’m doing and how can they do it, how can they invest in property and be involved in that world.
“It’s been good fun speaking to other players and helping to educate them on what they want to do and how they can do it. It’s nice to pass my knowledge on, especially with what is happening at the moment.
“I always had a passion for property. I bought my first flat when I was 18 and still have that and have been building a portfolio ever since. What a lot of rugby players need to ask themselves is rather than what can I do, they need to think about what do I want to do.
“We have always been very fortunate and very passionate about rugby and if you just go into something after rugby because you can do it you very quickly lost that passion. Whereas if you find something that you want to do it won’t feel like a job and that is what I feel like every day.
Simply wonderful! https://t.co/wMOnmPExcA
— Tim Visser (@timbovisser) March 26, 2020
“I wake up and I go, ‘What do I need to do today? It’s ‘I need to go to this property and I need to get the contractors in there’. It just doesn’t feel like work, it feels like I’m arranging something that I love doing.”
For now, though, Visser quips that the focus is keeping the peace during the lockdown. “Finn is two, Josh is four – it’s pretty mental as you can imagine,” he said of his all-action sons. “Two boys just constantly fighting each other. I’m literally a police officer around here.
“At the start of the lockdown we [Visser and wife his Laura] kind of just free-wheeled it a bit but quickly realised we – and more importantly – the kids need some structure so it has been alright. We start every day with a bit of exercising, I do a HIIT (high-intensity interval training) class with some old Quins boys about three times a week, first thing in the garden, eight o’clock in the morning which is pretty good craic over Zoom.
“I’m able to get the kids out in the garden and I have been doing a lot of DIY, erecting fences, building decks and that kind of stuff. That keeps me sane. It feels like I’m achieving something every day, that I have made some something nice or built something from scratch.”
Comments on RugbyPass
Proctor Definitely inform again this year had a hell of a season last year and this year is looking even better. Still mixed feelings about Ioane tho.
4 Go to commentsDagg is still trying to get enough headlines to make himself relevant enough to get a job. The Crusaders went back to square one at all levels. Shelve this season and nail the next one.
4 Go to commentsHe was in such great form. Sad for him but only a short term injury and it will be great to see him back for the finals.
1 Go to commentsAfter their 5/0 start, I had the Crusaders to finish Top 4 only…they lost the plot in Perth but will reload and back themselves vs 4th placed Rebels…
4 Go to commentsBoth nations missed a great opportunity to book a game that would have had a lot of interest from around the world. I understand these games can’t be organised in 5 minutes but they should have found a way to make it happen. I don’t think Wales are ducking anyone but it’s a bad look haha.
3 Go to commentsIt will be fascinating to see the effect that Jo Yapp has. If they can compete with Canada and give BFs a run for their money that will be progress
1 Go to commentsFollowing his dream and putting in the work. Go well young fella!
3 Go to commentsPerhaps filling Twickenham is one of Mitchell’s KPIs. I doubt whether both September matches will be at Twickenham on consecutive weekends. I would take the BF one to a large provincial stadium so as not to give them the advantage and experience of playing at Twickenham before a large crowd prior to the RWC.
3 Go to commentsvery unfortunate for Kitshoff, but big opportunity potentially for Nché to prove he is genuinely the best loosehead in the world, rather than just a specialist finisher. Presuming that if Kitshoff is out, it will also give Steenekamp a chance to come into the 23? Or are others likely to be ahead of him?
1 Go to commentsA long held question in popular culture asks if art imitates life or does the latter influence the former? Over this 6 nations I can ask the same question of the media influencing the thoughts of its audience or vice versa. Nobody wants to see cricket scores in rugby, as a spectacle it is not sustainable. With so many articles about England’s procession and lack of competition it feeds the epicaricacy of many looking for an opportunity to pounce. England are not the first team to dominate nor does it happen only in rugby, think Federer, Nadal, Red Bull or Mercedes, Manchester Utd, Australia in tests and World Cups. Instead of celebrating the achievements why find reasons to falsify it pointing towards larger playing pool, professional for a longer period or mitigate with the lack of growth in other nations. Can we not enjoy it while it is here and know that it won’t last for ever, others coveting what England have will soon take the crown, ask the aforementioned?
6 Go to commentsShame he won’t turn out for the Netherlands now they’re improving. U20s are Euro champs and in the U20 Trophy this year. The senior sides gets better every year too.
3 Go to commentsWill rugbypass tv be showing these games?
1 Go to commentsWell where do you start, the fact that England have a professional domestic league and Ireland’s is fully amatuer, that they have fully seperated professional squads at Fifteens and Sevens (7’s thinly disguised as GB), and Ireland have fully pro Sevens squad who loan some players back to the Semi-Professional Fifteens squad (moved from amateur for only a year or so) for a few games at 6N & RWC’s. The Women’s games is a shambles, and is at risk of killing itself by pushing for professionalism when the market isn’t really there to support it outside one or two countnries..
6 Go to commentsWayne Smith's input didn't have as much impact on the last final as Davison's red card for Thompson. England were 14 points up and flying when that happened.
6 Go to commentsBilly's been playing consistently well for 2 - 3 seasons now and deserves a look in at the top level. Ioane and ALB are still first choice but there needs to be injury cover and succession. His partnership with Jordie gives him first dibs you'd think. Go the Hurricanes.
4 Go to commentsIt’s not up to Wales to support Georgian Rugby. That’s up to International Rugby and Georgia. I sympathise with Georgia’s decent attempt to create this fixture. But for Wales the proposed match up is just a potential stick to beat them with and a potential big psychological blow that young Welsh team doesn’t need. (I’m Irish BTW.)
3 Go to commentsCale certainly looks great in space, but as you say, he has struggled in contact. At 23 years old, turning 24 this year, he should be close to full physical maturity and yet there exists a considerable gap in the power and physicality required for international rugby. Weight doesn’t automatically equate to power and physicality either. Can he go from a player who’s being physically dominated in Super rugby to physically dominating in international rugby in 1 or 2 years? That’s a big ask but he may end up being a late bloomer.
38 Go to commentsIf rugby wants to remain interesting in the AI era then it will need to work on changing the rules. AI will reduce the tactical advantage of smart game plans, will neutralize primary attacking weapons, and will move rugby from a being a game of inches to a game of millimetres. It will be about sheer athleticism and technique,about avoiding mistakes, and about referees. Many fans will find that boring. The answer is to add creative degrees of freedom to the game. The 50-22 is an example. But we can have fun inventing others, like the right to add more players for X minutes per game, or the equivalent of the 2-point conversion in American football, the ability to call a 12-player scrum, etc. Not saying these are great ideas, but making the point that the more of these alternatives you allow, the less AI will be able to lock down high-probability strategies. This is not because AI does not have the compute power, but because it has more choices and has less data, or less-specific data. That will take time and debate, but big, positive and immediate impact could be in the area of ref/TMO assistance. The technology is easily good enough today to detect forward passes, not-straight lineouts, offside at breakdown/scrum/lineout, obstruction, early/late tackles, and a lot of other things. WR should be ultra aggressive in doing this, as it will really help in an area in which the game is really struggling. In the long run there needs to be substantial creativity applied to the rules. Without that AI (along with all of the pro innovations) will turn rugby into a bash fest.
24 Go to commentsSouth Africa rarely play Ireland and France on these tours. Mostly, England, Scotland and Wales. I wonder why
2 Go to commentsIt was a let’s-see-what-you're-made-of type of a game. The Bulls do look good when the opposition allows them to, but Munster shut them down, and they could not find a way through. Jake should be very worried about their chances in the competition.
2 Go to comments