The Goode, the Bad & the Ugly of 2018 - Andy Goode
The coming year is going to be a huge one for rugby with the World Cup taking place in Japan and there is a lot for rugby fans to look forward to.
But, New Year is a time to look back and assess the 12 months just gone, as well as to look ahead, so here’s my take on what’s been Goode, what’s been Bad and what’s been Ugly in 2018.
The Goode
There has been no shortage of highlights over the course of the past year with New Zealand winning the Rugby Championship again, South Africa’s resurgence, the Crusaders winning a second straight Super Rugby title, Exeter dominating in the Premiership for the most part during the regular season and Saracens showing their might when it came to the play-offs.
However, the Goode is a foregone conclusion. It has been the ultimate annus mirabilis for Irish rugby and that has stood out above everything else this year.
Leinster swept all before them in European rugby, becoming the first team ever to win the PRO14 and European Cup double. Johnny Sexton was rightly named World Player of the Year and Leo Cullen and Stuart Lancaster have worked wonders with a very talented squad but one that hadn’t won anything since 2014.
The conveyor belt of young talent that we’ve seen come through and make enormous strides over the past 12 months is remarkable and, whilst they’ll face a tough test from the likes of Saracens and Racing in the latter stages of the Champions Cup this season, they’ve firmly established themselves as the best club side in Europe.
And, while Leinster have been dominating domestically and continentally, most of those players have also been contributing to Ireland’s greatest ever year on the international stage.
Ireland had won just one Six Nations title in 28 years when Joe Schmidt took over as head coach back in 2013 but they’ve now won two in a row and the Grand Slam in 2018 was just the third in their history.
A series victory in Australia and a win at home over the All Blacks for the first time ever were perhaps even greater achievements and 11 wins from 12 Tests in 2018 sets them apart as the dominant force in World Rugby going into a World Cup year…no pressure!
The Bad
There have been plenty of teams who will be looking back on 2018 and viewing it as a year to forget. The Dragons have ended the year on a high but it has been a real struggle for them and the Southern Kings in the PRO14. London Irish were a major disappointment on their return to the Premiership in 2017/18 and England suffered a disastrous Six Nations campaign before bouncing back in the autumn.
But, it is the fallen giants who get the Bad for 2018. Toulon have finished the year in 10th place in the Top 14 and look a shadow of the team that won three European Cups in a row between 2013 and 2015.
And, it has been a real year to forget for one of my old clubs Leicester as well. They failed to make the play-offs in the Premiership for the first time since 2004 back in May and are now languishing in ninth place in the table.
They’ll be looking forward and hoping that 2019 will bring a change in fortunes now that Geordan Murphy has finally been confirmed as their permanent boss after months spent in limbo but it has been a year that they won’t look back on with a great deal of fondness.
The Ugly
It’s been a good year for rugby and it’s never nice to dwell on the negatives but the disciplinary process has been the one major blight on sport this year in my opinion.
There doesn’t seem to be a lot of joined-up thinking going on and World Rugby really need to take a long, hard look at their role in it all and see if they can bring some consistency to the decisions being made.
Certain countries need to be brought into line with others in terms of the way they operate and the severity of punishments being handed out and I think we also need to question what should merit a two-game ban and what should warrant a two-month suspension. It should be a transparent conversation as well.
Toulon captain and France international Mathieu Bastareaud was given a five-week ban for striking an opponent against Castres in the Top 14 in September but that description doesn’t do the act justice at all.
It was a full-on attack with his forearm to the head of Christophe Samson, who was lying defenceless on the floor. His offence was labelled ‘mid-range’ in nature by the Ligue Nationale de Rugby and he also had two weeks shaved off the ban because of his guilty plea and conduct before and during the hearing. He was back in time for the autumn internationals.
Meanwhile, Chris Ashton missed a huge chunk of action at the start of this season after receiving a seven-week ban for a tip tackle on Castres scrum half Rory Kockott. His poor disciplinary record cost him an extra week but we have to question both the process and the lengths of some of these bans.
Dave Ward has reportedly escaped a citing for his actions against Wasps at the weekend, despite video clips appearing to show him both treading on Thomas Young’s ankle and then spitting on him, all that after a neck roll as well.
Harlequins moved quickly in an attempt to quell the situation by handing him a one-game ban themselves but decided he has “no case to answer” with regard to spitting. There’s no place for spitting in sport and people can make their own minds up but if an internal one-game ban is the only punishment he receives, then the disciplinary process will face even more questions.
There are always going to be negatives over the course of a 12-month period but it was great to see one of the sport’s true greats Doddie Weir getting an OBE in the New Year’s Honours List (along with Bill Beaumont being knighted and Willie John McBride being awarded a CBE).
All in all it’s been a great year for rugby, with an even greater one on the horizon, but when we look back on 2018 in the years and decades to come there will just one thing that stands out…2018 has belonged to Irish rugby.
Comments on RugbyPass
He is right , the Crusaders will be a threat. Scott Barrett, ( particularly), Fergus Burke , Codie Taylor, ( from sabbatical) etc due back soon for the Crusaders. There are others like Zach Gallagher too. People can right the Crusaders off, Top 8 , here we come !!
1 Go to commentsWe will always struggle for money to match the other sides but the least the WRU can do is invest properly in Welsh rugby. Too much has been squandered on vanity projects like the hotel and roof walk amongst others which will never see a massive return. Hanging the 4 pro sides out to dry over the last decade is now coming back to bite the WRU financially as well as on the pitch. You reap what you sow.
1 Go to commentsWhat do you get if you cross a doctor with a fish? A plastic sturgeon
14 Go to commentsWhat happened to feleti Kaitu’u? Hasnt played in a while right?
1 Go to commentsGregor I just can’t agree with you. You are trying to find something that just isn’t there. Jordie Barrett has signed until 2028. By the end of that he would have spent probably 11-12 years on Super Rugby and you say he can’t possibly have one season playing somewhere else. It is absurd. What about this scenario, the NZR play hard ball and he decides to leave and play overseas. How would that affect the competition. There seems to be an agenda by certain journalists to push certain agendas and don’t like it when it’s not to their liking. I fully support the NZR on this. Gregor needs to get a life.
2 Go to commentsHope he stays as believe he can do a great job.
1 Go to commentsMake what step up? Manie has a World Cup winner’s medal around his neck and changed the way the Springboks can play. He doesn’t have anything to prove to anyone. The win record of the Boks with him in the team is tremendous. Sacha can be wonderful and I hope he has a very succesful Bok career, but comparing him to Manie in terms of the next Bok flyhalf is very strange. Manie is the incumbent (not the next) and doing pretty incredibly.
1 Go to comments00 😍 U
1 Go to commentsSabbaticals have helped keep NZ’s very best talent in the country on long term deals - this fact has been left out of this article. Much like the articles calling to allow overseas players to be selected, yet can only name one player currently not signed to NZR who would be selected for the ABs. And in the entire history of NZ players leaving to play overseas, literally only 4 or 5 have left in their prime as current ABs. (Piatau, Evans, Hayman, Mo’unga,?) Yes Carter got an injury while playing in France 16 years ago, but he also got a tournament ending injury at the 2011 World Cup while taking mid-week practice kicks at goal. Maybe Jordie gets a season-ending injury while playing in Ireland, maybe he gets one next week against the Brumbies. NZR have many shortcomings, but keeping the very best players in the country and/or available for ABs selection is not one of them. Likewise for workload management - players missing 2 games out of 14 is hardly a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Again let’s use some facts - did it stop the Crusaders winning SR so many times consecutively when during any given week they would be missing 2 of their best players? The whole idea of the sabbatical is to reward your best players who are willing to sign very long term deals with some time to do whatever they want. They are not handed out willy-nilly, and at nowhere near the levels that would somehow devalue Super Rugby. In this particular example JB is locked in with NZR for what will probably (hopefully) be the best years of his career, hard to imagine him not sticking around for a couple more after for a Lions tour and one more world cup. He has the potential to become the most capped AB of all time. A much better outcome than him leaving NZ for a minimum of 3 years at the age of 27, unlikely to ever play for the ABs again, which would be the likely alternative.
2 Go to commentsJake White talks more sense than anything I've read in the last 5 years. Hope someone's listening.
9 Go to commentsThe Springboks tried going down the road of only picking home-based players and it was an unmitigated disaster in 2016 and 2017. Picking overseas-based players has been one of the main reason the Boks have done so well since 2018, not only because of the quality Rassie could call on, but because of the knowledge and experience those players brought into camp from England, France and Japan. With some of the big names playing abroad it also gave younger players in SA the chance to break through at franchise level. Would we have seen the emergence of a Ruan Nortje if RG and Lood were still at the Bulls? Not so sure. I understand why Jake would want to block players leaving since his job depends on good results but it’s an approach that would take Bok rugby back to the bad old days and no South African wants to see that.
9 Go to commentsExeter were thumped by 38 points. And they only had to hop on a train.
39 Go to commentsI am De Groot.
1 Go to commentsHad hoped you might write an article on this game, Nick. It’s a good one. Things have not gone as smoothly for ROG since beating Leinster last year at the Aviva in the CC final. LAR had the Top 14 Final won till Raymond Rhule missed a simple tackle on the excellent Ntamack, and Toulouse reaped the rewards of just staying in the fight till the death. Then the disruption of the RWC this season. LAR have not handled that well, but they were not alone, and we saw Pau heading the Top 14 table at one stage early season. I would think one of the reasons for the poor showing would have to be that the younger players coming through, and the more mature amongst the group outside the top 25/30, are not as strong as would be hoped for. I note that Romain Sazy retired at the end of last season. He had been with LAR since 2010, and was thus one of their foundation players when they were promoted to Top 14. Records show he ended up with 336 games played with LAR. That is some experience, some rock in the team. He has been replaced for the most part by Ultan Dillane. At 30, Dillane is not young, but given the chances, he may be a fair enough replacement for Sazy. But that won’be for more than a few years. I honestly know little of the pathways into the LAR setup from within France. I did read somewhere a couple of years ago that on the way up to Top 14, the club very successfully picked up players from the academies of other French teams who were not offered places by those teams. These guys were often great signings…can’t find the article right now, so can’t name any….but the Tadgh Beirne type players. So all in all, it will be interesting to see where the replacements for all the older players come from. Only Lleyd’s and Rhule from SA currently, both backs. So maybe a few SA forwards ?? By contrast, Leinster have a pretty clear line of good players coming through in the majority of positions. Props maybe a weak spot ? And they are very fleet footed and shrewd in appointing very good coaches. Or maybe it is also true that very good coaches do very well in the Leinster setup. So, Nick, I would fully concurr that “On the evidence of Saturday’s semi-final between the two clubs, the rebuild in the Bay of Biscay is going to take longer than it is on the east coast of Ireland”
11 Go to commentsWhat was the excuse for the other knockout blowouts then? Does the result not prove the Saints were just so much better? Wise call to put your eggs in one basket when you’ve got 2 comps simultaneously finishing.
39 Go to commentsReally hope Kuruvoli and his partner rock the Canes.
1 Go to commentsI wonder what impact Samson has had on their attack, as the team seems less prone to trundle it up the middle, take the tackle and then trundle it up again. I lost faith in the coach last year as the Rebelss looked like a 2nd/3rd rate South African team. I also disliked Gordon standing back, often ignored as the forward battle went on and on. Maybe its our Aussie way of not getting off our A***’s until the enemy is at the gate.
86 Go to commentsThanks for the write up. Great to see the Rebs winning, I am a little interested in how they will go against the remaining kiwi teams, I think they’ve only played Hurricanes and Highlanders but how great to see these players performing!! I also see Parling has a job beyond June 30! A good move by RA? Also how do you fix the Rebels previously scratchy defence?
86 Go to commentsbe smart - go black
14 Go to commentsNext week the Crusaders hopefully have Scott Barrett back. Will be great to have the captain back. Hopefully he will be the All Black captain as well.
12 Go to comments