WRW #18: RIP SCOOP
RUGBY ON TV THIS WEEKEND
Six Nations
Saturday:
Scotland v Italy, 2.15pm, BBC1
Ireland v England, 4.45pm, ITV
France v Wales, 8.00pm, BBC1
Gallagher Premiership
Friday:
Newcastle v Wasps, 7.45pm BT Sport 1
Saturday:
Harlequins v Gloucester, 2.00pm, BT Sport Extra
Bath v Worcester, 2.00pm, BT Sport Extra
Exeter v TIGERS, 2.30pm, BT Sport Extra
Sunday:
Sale v London Irish, 3.00pm, BT Sport Extra
Northampton v Bristol, 3.00pm, BT Sport 1
Pro 14
Friday:
Munster v Benetton, 6.00pm, Premier Sports
Ulster v Zebre, 8.15pm, Premier Sports
Leinster v Ospreys, 8.15pm, Premier Sports
Saturday:
Dragons v Glasgow, 3.00pm, Premier Sports
Scarlets v Connacht, 8.00pm, Premier Sports
Monday:
Scarlets v Connacht, 8.00pm, Premier Sports
Cardiff Blues v Edinburgh, 8.00pm, Premier Sports
KEEP GOING AS YOU ARE
Saturday’s win over Gloucester is a ringing endorsement of everything the coaches and their predecessors had in mind when they spoke about bringing back the hard, gnarly edge back to Tigers.
As nervy as those last 10 minutes proved to be, the striped line held out and after showing this improved form consistently now home and away, Leicester can approach the post-Six Nations gallop to the finish with confidence.
Two reasons give me hope as we survey the scene before the run-in begins in earnest.
Leicester rotated more than anyone else during the truncated lockdown period of last season, trying different combinations and seeing how combinations stuck or didn’t. At the time, some of the scorelines hurt but the process will have been especially useful in defensive situation, such as that period at Kingsholm. If the coaches trusted them after that period, now standards are beginning to rise among the squad.
We shouldn’t be hugely surprised. A lot of this was evident in the defeat to Bristol but with the emergence of Kelly especially at centre, there are now different options in every single position on the park - with little drop-off in performance. We don’t know how injuries stack up (well, some of them) but the building blocks for this win were surely built in midweeks across August and September last year.
What a difference a sharp and fit Hanro Liebenberg makes in Tigers colours. Less direct perhaps than his countryman Wiese - though not much -there is an all-round quality to his game that adds so much to the steel of the Tigers pack. There has been so much more consistency to forwards displays in the last six months, with Wells also to the fore. (Incidentally, you never hear Wells mentioned in any England context in spite of his relentless consistency, even in this white-hot competitive department.)
Even without the likes to Cowan-Dickie, Hill, Gray and Sam Skinner, Exeter provide the ultimate test and especially so after their near-miss to Harlequins last weekend, the highlights of which are well worth watching. Bar one minor knock-on from Dombrandt, Exeter would surely have lost.
It’s not unknown for Exeter to suffer a defeat or two during the Six Nations. Sale won in Devon at the end of January, during the rest week before the Championship began. Both Sale and Worcester beat Exeter at home in 2019, while the Warriors claimed the spoils at Sandy Park a year previously.
Exeter may be able to shake off a defeat now as they build towards another place in the playoffs, but if Leicester were to come out with an upset, that could be invaluable to their own aspirations.
DARE TO DREAM
These are the three busiest people in the rugby media at the moment.
Nick Mullins combining ITV and BT Sport duties, Eddie Jones’ harassed and overworked PR flack and Bobby Bridge.
The Leicester Mercury’s main rugby man not only has to cover Leicester, but also Wasps as well. And he’s made a fascinating comparison on Tigers now …
Tigers are indeed moving forward. Their return of seven wins so far this campaign is equal to their total wins from the 2018/19 season and one better than last term already.
The last time they achieved seven wins from their opening 13 rounds, they missed out on the 2017/18 play-offs by virtue of winning one fewer game than Newcastle Falcons with the pair tied on 63 points.
I appreciate that my view is more optimistic than most, but are we under-appreciating how good this Leicester squad can be before the end of the season and leaving next season for next season?
Frankly, given Leicester’s form - four wins from their last six - and the run-in to come, we should be reassessing them urgently. 7th should be the least of Leicester’s ambitions this season which is likely to earn a Champions Cup place anyway. (No decision has been taken yet on whether to broadly continue with this season’s format.)
After Exeter, two wins over Newcastle and an increasingly in-form Bath (four wins in five) would keep Leicester in touch with the pack chasing a top four place with Bristol or the champions. Successive games over Northampton, Sale and Harlequins interspersed with any involvement in the latter stages of the Challenge Cup would produce a very interesting May.
Leicester are by no means the finished article, but a top 6 place is on, with one word of warning, though. To achieved the same 63 points that Leicester tallied in 2017-18, Tigers would need another 31 points from 9 games.
Assume 3 bonus points, that’s seven wins from nine. Personally, I could see them winning six, but I’m not sure I see Sale, Saints or Irish winning 6 from 9 either …thoughts?
IS THIS WHERE CHANGE BEGINS IN ITALY?
Two hours before Wales thrashed Italy in Rome last night, white smoke emerged from the Italian Federation’s AGM and their presidential elections in the Stadio Olimpico.
Sitting FIR president Alfredo Gavazzi was humiliated in his re-election bid, after he received just 4% (!) of the vote, trailing in third. Replacing him will be Marzio Innocenti, who as a backrower, was Italy’s captain at the first World Cup in 1987. He comes with a reputation as a disrupter, but don’t expect John Kirwan to return as the Azzuri’s Head Coach…
The 62 year-old Venetian ran as an opposition candidate to the Calvisano pairing of Gavazzi and his protege, the ex-international winger Paolo Vaccari. After pushing Gavazzi hard in the last election four years ago, Innocenti won on the first ballot this time around, winning 56% to Vaccari’s 40% with Gavazzi way behind.
Two weeks before the vote in an interview with Il Gazzettino (£), Innocenti outlined his thoughts on how to make rugby the second team sport in Italy behind football, but there may be some pain ahead.
Italian rugby has long mourned the sacrifices made to both pool its resources centrally at the expense of its League system, similar perhaps to Welsh ambivalence to its regions. For a time prior around the launch of professionalism, the Italian league had any number of big companies funding teams, with Silvio Berlusconi investing in Amatori Milano, before concentrating on football and AC Milan. Cam
Soon afterwards, the FIR sought a place in the then Pro-12, with two franchises involved and certainly latterly, both Benettton and Zebre have produced impressive results. This goes with the understanding that no-one, let alone the Italians, can get near Leinster or Munster. However, it took them some time to settle and even now, the suspicion is that not every bright new thing ends up at the two franchises. So are they about to shake things up under Innocenti?
The Top 10 Italian league still exists, where familiar teams from Northern Italy from old European trips reside such as Calvisano, Rovigo and Colorno (John Wells a coach there) are drawn to play in the Challenge Cup and it feels as if this is where Innocenti intends to make his mark:
“The basic concept is to return to work in the territories (regions) with the clubs, as this doesn’t happen anymore, but without abandoning the highest level which provides the resources, and aim towards an ambitious objective.”
(In what way?) “Empowering the regional committees from a financial point of view and in terms of human resources: they are the operating organs in the territories (regions).
And then maximising the Pro 14 and the championships underneath. “The two franchises must represent the very best of the territory (region) and they must involve more clubs. “Optimising their management in this way will save 4 million euros to invest in the rest of the movement, that is comprised of almost 600 clubs.
Nobody is talking about Italy exiting the Pro 14 any time soon, but you do wonder especially with nations such as Argentina being cut adrift by all and sundry. Budget cuts are certainly on the way, but you do wonder how the franchises will act under new management.
“They need to stop at 9. The rest must be found by the franchises’ own resources., just as they manage to do so at Benetton. Alternatively they can look for other investors. The FIR already has two offers on the table from Petrarca and from an English group with interests in the Premiership, to enter into the Pro 14.”
Who are the English group, exactly?
At the risk of sounding like James Richardson, Innocenti in in Gazzetta Dello Sport sounds the alarm that Italy aren’t guaranteed a Six Nations place forever and change has to come following two Gavazzi terms, where performances have only got worse:
With two franchises in Pro 14, the top league goes into anonymity: how to relaunch it?
"Who knows that the Pro 14 exists in Italy? We need an exciting domestic tournament, which attracts the public, media and investors. We need a radical change".
What are you thinking about?
"To an NBA model professional super league, without relegation, in which you have the right of citizenship not for sporting merits, but by corresponding to precise economic, structural and organizational criteria. Few of the current clubs will be up to it? united and new territorial realities ".
About the franchises: will it move the rights of the Zebras to Padua?
"If the Zebras do not prove sustainable it is a possibility. Alessandro Banzato, president of Petrarca, has put pen to paper: he is available to take over the license".
So that’s Zebre being urged to get on or move to Padua from Parma, much more emphasis on a Italian domestic league based on geographic franchises (developing in the South of Italy is Italy’s rugby version of the Holy Grail) and a serious doubt about their long-term Pro-14 future. Let’s see how that goes..
Italy may be safe with its CVC money for now, but it knows it has to deliver. But with more registered players than Wales, Italy really should be doing better.
QUICK HITS
Don’t blame me when you click on the link and wince at those stitches…
Top-class commentary from our Georgian friends in their narrower win than expected over Spain. Just ignore the obstruction though…
And one ex-Tiger gets back into professional rugby:
RIP SCOOP
Martin Johnson’s passing at the age of 70 means a fine Leicester journalist, is no more.
His writing was pungent and if some writers’ prose resembles a scalpel and others a blunderbuss, his was more like a top-level Olympic champion biathlete - deadly accurate every time and delivered as cold as the deepest of winter snow.
Johnson was the Mercury’s cricket and Tigers reporter, in the days when the reporter (and Van Hopkins) would travel with the team. To prove it, Johnson had the bruises and the bills for lost clothing.
When he moved to London, he became the Independent’s rugby reporter - but a late switch got him to Australia and Gatting’s 86/87 all-conquering England cricket tour, which started off in less heralded circumstances as explained by his sports editor at the time:
That first tour produced perhaps his best-known quote, that there were only three things wrong with the English team: “They can’t bat, they can’t bowl and they can’t field.” This was just before the Ashes series began and we in the office were amazed he dared be so bold. Of course England went on to beat the Aussies soundly. Martin ended his summation of the tour with a reference to his earlier opinion: “Right quote, wrong team.”
He was also rather clever..
Enjoy some of his highlights below:
I did similar to this.
And only Scoop could help write his own obituary.
RUNNING FROM DEEP
Ben Youngs had an excellent game against France and will be back within Tigers ranks from Monday. But there are plenty challenging for his England place according to the Telegraph’s Charlie Morgan, including Jack Van Poortvliet:
As we know, Jones is more interested in players that are capable of managing matches for long periods. Hollywood moments are less important. Quirke’s coaches with England Under-18 regarded him as an astute “problem-solver”, which sounds promising.
Van Poortvliet, who idolised Youngs growing up and is also from Norfolk farming stock, cannot help but to improve under the wing of Wigglesworth. Youngs may well be granted some extra rest weekends when he returns from Six Nations duty.
Robert Kitson once again highlights the agenda ahead after the Six Nations’ deal with CVC, in The Guardian:
Rugby union, you might well argue, could never be that big. Maybe that is its achilles heel: it thinks it is bigger than it is. Then again, almost everyone in rugby feels the same way: the sport has been woefully underpromoted and is still wrongly perceived by too many people as a middle-class game aimed at middle-aged white men who enjoy a pie and a pint.
….
Let us set aside for a moment, though, the gizmos, the jazzed-up match-day “experience” and the free-to-air versus paywall argument and concentrate on the basic product. Morel makes no secret of the fact that one of the priorities will be to create “a real wrap-up story around the autumn internationals” that works for players, broadcasters and fans alike. Then there is CVC’s investment in both the Pro14/Pro16 and the Premiership, which would suggest that, one day, the two leagues will become more closely aligned. Again, there is a certain logic there.
You wonder whether they might eventually fancy the really big one, the Rugby World Cup, with World Rugby already twitchy about the “influence” that CVC may wield. For now, though, it is any tweaks made to the Six Nations that will define whether the swell folks from private equity are really shining white knights or, ultimately, something else. Will they advise sticking one game in every round (answer: probably) behind a paywall? Or will they be smarter and try to boost the global audience by other means?
World Rugby twitchy, you say, Rob? Maybe not…
World Rugby though are launching a new global women’s competition, the WXV. From the BBC Sport page:
The WXV competition will be played in a global window from September to October, except in World Cup years.
World Rugby says the aim of the tournament is to help teams prepare for a 2025 World Cup that will feature 16 teams - an expansion on the usual 12.
Thanks for your company once more. See you on Friday for one last Six Nations update…but I will have news about the future of WRW then.
Have a good week
Chris
THe Gloucester game and result would not have happened last year , your analysis of why Tigers are improving and building is both insightful and encouraging , whilst not expecting a win against Exeter on Saturday , equally I am not expecting a drubbing , which is refreshing in itself. Keep up the good work.