LONG READ 'The Rugby Championship is in danger of becoming an unlevel playing field'

It won’t be often, if indeed if it ever happens again, the Springboks come into a Test match against the All Blacks with their players fresher and better rested.

This was the scenario in their Rugby Championship clash on 15^th July when 13 players who started that game had been sent to New Zealand early to get over their jet lag.

It was a risky decision by the Boks as it meant they had to face the Wallabies the week before in Pretoria without those players – many of whom would be considered first choice.

But head coach Jacques Nienaber was happy to take that risk, rightly believing his second stringers could take care of Australia while the heavy artillery rested up in Auckland – knowing that they would have a better preparation schedule than the All Blacks, whose 36-man squad all travelled to Argentina and only returned home five days before the Test at Mt Smart Stadium.

Yet, while it was seemingly advantage South Africa, it didn’t play out that way, as the All Blacks produced a blistering opening 20 minutes, taking a 17-0 lead which set them up to go on to win 35-20.

Asked whether he had made the right call sending the advanced party over early, Nienaber said: “I think the first 15 or 20 [minutes] we gave away four consecutive penalties, we made a lot of mistakes.

“I thought the guys who played last week actually came on in the second half and you could see they were a little bit more battle-hardened and a little bit more exposed to rugby.

“In 2019 a similar thing happened, [with] the guys who weren’t exposed to Australia at Ellis Park. I think in 2019 we had 15 guys here [NZ], and that’s why we decided to not go with a full 15 fresh guys staying here, we wanted to mix it up a little bit. So we knew that there was the pros and the cons there.”

What makes this strategising so interesting is that this issue of managing the workload of South African, and indeed Argentinian, players is now something both nations are doing on a permanent basis. For all the consequences of dismantling Super Rugby in 2020 are only now being felt.

It may have appeared as if South Africa seamlessly handled the break-out by transitioning its four Super Rugby franchises into the United Rugby Championship and that the Argentinians shrugged off the axing of the Jaguares by finding contracts for their top players across the UK and Europe.

The only real upshot seemed to be that it left New Zealand’s best players underexposed to the more brutal, bigger athletes of South Africa.

It’s not sustainable for either nation to continue like this – to have their club affiliation with the north and international presence in the south – as the risks to their players are growing unacceptably high.

But now the world has returned to post-pandemic normality, a big problem has become apparent. An untenable new world where the South Africans and Argentinians have one foot in each hemisphere and because of this, are barely afforded any kind of rest period in a 12-month season.

It’s not sustainable for either nation to continue like this – to have their club affiliation with the north and international presence in the south – as the risks to their players are growing unacceptably high.

They need more rest and the best way for them to get it, maybe the only way, is to shift the Rugby Championship from its current August-September window and play it instead in March-April.

It would be a dramatic shift that would cause significant upheaval in Australia and New Zealand, but it would solve the problem South Africa and Argentina are facing and avert the looming existential player welfare crisis.

The issue has been discussed at length among the four SANZAAR partners and it seems that three of them – South Africa, Argentina and Australia – share the view they should make the switch.

New Zealand, on the other hand, isn’t so keen, fearing it will kill its national provincial competition as it would force Super Rugby to move to a May-September window and be played at the same time.

But it is going to be tough for NZR to resist the change according to Rugby Australia and SANZAAR chair, Hamish McLennan, who told the New Zealand Herald: “This is probably one area where we differ from New Zealand.

“I understand New Zealand’s position because it creates a lot of difficulty at provincial level but for the greater good that’s probably where it is heading.

“When South Africa were forced north it wasn’t as elegantly handled as it could’ve been. They’ve put all their eggs into going north. If we can move the global calendar around so it’s all in sync we can preserve the Rugby Championship.

“I worry South Africa will migrate north completely. That would be a disaster for NZR and RA.

“Ultimately it’s going to come down to New Zealand in this instance. We understand the complexities around shifting the provincial competitions. It’s not ideal for us, either, but if it keeps the whole ecosystem together and we build assets globally then we’re open to it.

“It’s going to land on NZR’s doorstep, and they’ve got to decide what they’re going to do.”

Changing dates would create other challenges for NZR and indeed Rugby Australia. Both countries would have to work out how to prepare their Test players without necessarily having access to competitive matches before the Rugby Championship began.

Currently, the season starts in late February with Super Rugby, which is played uninterrupted through to mid-June.

The Rugby Championship is in danger of being an unlevel playing field.

The players take a couple of weeks off, play three July tests and then begin the Rugby Championship in early August, before they have another month off between mid-September to mid-October and then start their end-of-year northern tours.

The system makes perfect high-performance sense, and so if it changes, NZR would have to find a way to condition the All Blacks to be ready at a tricky time, which is why they have looked at the possibility of building a national training centre where the players could work together over the summer.

But perhaps the real problem for NZR in all this is that they feel they are being blamed for a problem which was not of their making.

While it’s true NZR was the instigator of the Super Rugby fragmentation, it contends that South Africa was going to pull its teams out anyway as part of a plan to align with the north and attempt to solicit an invitation for the Springboks to join the Six Nations.

New Zealand appears to believe that South Africa gambled on being able to force the Springboks into the Six Nations, and now that that they have been rebuffed, are scrambling to find a long-term solution to a Rugby Championship problem they never thought they would have.

South Africa, however, insist they aligned their clubs with the URC not as a deliberate strategy to pave the way for the Boks, but because it was the only realistic option available to them.

Whether or not this is all political shenanigans, it doesn’t change the fact that the nettle must be grasped. The Rugby Championship is in danger of being an unlevel playing field, with the Boks and Pumas having to constantly consider ways to manage fatigue and lessen workloads.