WRW #7: GET WELL SOON EVERYBODY
RUGBY ON TV THIS CHRISTMAS*
*COVID ALLOWING
BOXING DAY (times listed are KO)
Pro 14 - Zebre v Benetton, 1300, Premier Sports
Premiership- Harlequins v Bristol, 1400, BT Sport 2
Currie Cup - Western Province v Griguas, 1430, Sky Sports Mix
Premiership - Exeter v Gloucester, 1500, BT Sport Extra
Pro 14 - Dragons v Cardiff Blues, 1500, Premier Sports
Premiership - Northampton v Worcester, 1630, BT Sport 2
Currie Cup - Blue Bulls v Lions, 1700, Sky Sports Mix
Pro 14 - Ospreys v Scarlets, 1715, Premier Sports
Pro 14 - Munster v Leinster, 1935, Premier Sports
SUNDAY 27TH
Premiership - Sale v Wasps, 1500, BT Sport 1
Currie Cup - Cheetahs v Sharks, 1500, Sky Sports Mix
Pro 14 - Connacht v Ulster, 1935, Premier Sports
COVID STRIKES AGAIN
So a trip to Newcastle on Boxing Day is off.
Living about an hour and half south of Leicester these days, I can’t say I’m unhappy to not have to make the drive to Kingston Park. But it is a great shame that two former Premiership champions who at their own speeds, are beginning to pick up some form - won’t lock horns.
The Daily Mail with its excellent sources within Oval Park, first pinpointed three positive cases among those players and coaches returning from Bayonne on Tuesday before the game was called off.
I understand all the players were sent home to isolate because of contact tracing concerns and they will not return until after Christmas.
Hopefully this gives the Bath game more likely to take place. Bath’s own Boxing Day fixture against London Irish is now off too, but not thanks to their well-documented problems during the European window but because there is now a small outbreak at Irish.
Let’s see if Exeter’s game is on too, after their trip to Toulouse was called off.
Then to the practicalities. A Premiership panel will now convene and award points. The hearing will go like this, in all probability:
So 2 points into Tigers’ tally and Newcastle are 4 from 4. The full regulations are available online and credit to Premiership Rugby for publishing them.
But the bigger question - which is easy in hindsight to argue - is whether the Premiership should have followed the other European leagues, cut last season to size and give themselves some flexibility.
Above all, get well soon everyone. This is such a cluster of a year.
A WORD OF WARNING
The arrival of vaccines and last week’s hoopla might have got people carried awaty however these fresh outbreaks - Tigers’ 2nd of the season, don’t forget - might bring people down to earth.
The wider truth is that this is going to get worse before it gets better, after all the first week’s vaccinations covered….137,000 people, out of over 66 million UK people. That’s good, but it shows you how long it will take to achieve true herd immunity.
One highly informed source suggests that even though we are probably 6 months ahead of expectations, production lines are still well short of the capacity we will need.
Now, the UK and the US are not entirely comparable but that gives you pause for thought. I wouldn’t imagine small crowds coming back much before Easter, especially with this new variant.
A recent article in the Atlantic highlights the issues ahead of us, whether in the States or here, even when we get the vaccines.
Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s project, claims it can get everyone vaccinated by June. I also heard a member of Biden’s transition team calmly suggesting they can’t guarantee getting vaccines to 75% of the population….by July. We’ll see.
Premiership clubs need spectators back in the grounds as soon as possible of course. There is another reason why too. There was widespread relief at the BT Sport extension announced last week, at just under the current rate. But remember, after the CVC deal, the private equity company now starts drawing around 30% of all commercial deals done at Premiership level. Collective belt-tightening will not stop just yet.
IT MAY YET BE A TURNING POINT..
I *bloody* hope so….though we will now have to wait for momemtum to build a little later than planned.
OK, let’s get the negatives out of the way first.
You won’t win many games with three yellow cards to your name. I’m not sure Leicester could have escaped that late first-half onslaught without conceding a yellow, but Bayonne were repelled for long periods when last season, they might have waltzed through.
Bayonne were a bit….merde. Backs looked like they’d barely seen each other before and forwards who were just out-muscled at every significant opportunity. Considering they were at (a half rebuilt) home, they produced an arguably poorer display than Brive at Welford Road eight days earlier. They certainly looked like a side who hadn’t won in nearly a month.
This is the second-tier European competition in a season, where there has never been less importance placed on it. So who cares?
Who cares? WHO CARES???? Those who have had to endure the thrashings in Paris and Castres over recent seasons and that’s just in Europe…
You rarely see such committed and yes, disciplined displays. What encourages you most is that this XV barely included an international. In contrast to the nation’s supermarket shelves, supplies in the second and back rows now look very well stocked indeed, with Cameron Henderson and Ollie Chessum giving those above them in the pecking order, a well-judged nudge. On Saturday night’s evidence, there will be plenty of shoulder behind it too.
A word too for Zack Henry who was composed at fly-half and Jack Van Poorvliet whose kicking late in the second half, revealed a ruthless, even cruel streak that oppositions will loathe.
As it stands, Leicester are on course for a home tie in both the last 16 and quarter-finals… it’s not impossible they could face both Richard Cockerill’s Edinburgh and Dean Richards’ Newcastle in successive April weekends.
Of course, the cancellation of the Boxing Day Premiership game means Steve Borthwick is no longer constrained in picking his England players - as in they will have had the mandatory two weeks off.
But if you want to keep everyone sharp as “every day is a selection day”, why not give the young turks another go? Realistically, few are likely to play much against Bath or Northampton, but on last weekend’s evidence, don’t rely too much on that assumption when we do resume.
LEICESTER GETTING CHILE
One of my hobbyhorses is growing the game globally, so with apologies for indulging myself, how did Leicester help Chile make a big leap in South American Rugby?
Outside of the Six Nations, the Rugby Championship countries and arguably Oceania (Japan, Tonga, Samoa and Fiji), there are two areas of the world which look the most promising for rapid growth and development of the wider sport.
The first is Europe outside the Six Nations. Not just Georgia who are close to Six Nations level but not quite there yet (remember Italy regularly beat the Five Nations before they were admitted, as did Romania in the 1980s), but Russia and possibly Spain, Germany and Belgium in time.
Further along the line though, are the nations from North and especially South America. In an annual Americas Rugby Championship, the USA and Canada are joined by an Argentina XV, Uruguay, Brazil and Chile.
The development has been increasingly impressive in South America, no doubt helped by Agustin Pichot’s presence within World Rugby until recently.
A new club tournament is being set up across South America. World Rugby has made a small but subtle change in the qualifying format for the next World Cup. (NB Argentina have already pre-qualified). Two countries will still qualify, with a third going forward to the repechage tournament.
This might well mean that two South American countries qualify alongside the Pumas and threatens the near-automatic places for the United States and Canada, which they’ve enjoyed ever since the formation of the World Cup in the mid-80s. Some of my age might well remember Canada reaching the quarter-finals in 1991 and giving the All Blacks a proper game too, a far cry from today.
Brazil could be one to benefit, improving rapidly either side of the Rio Olympics, in both 15s as well as 7s, but could another Chile? Prior to the autumn, they finished 2nd in a hurriedly arranged South American Four Nations involving an Argentina XV, Brazil and Uruguay.
The progress appears to stem from a new setup involving former Uruguay coach Pablo Lemoine. He's led the establishment of a series of high performance centres and are going professional with World Rugby backing.
A big improvement in fitness in Chile’s displays this summer came from the hard work of former Leicester and Wasps conditioning guru Craig White, alongside Lemoine and funded by World Rugby.
But our tale begins back in 2016 when three young lads from Santiago managed to land a trip to Oval Park to train with the Tigers Academy side for a fortnight.
The plan was that Clemente Saavedra (left), his brother Domingo (centre) and Santiago Videla would play for Chile in the World Rugby Trophy - the next youth tournament below that of the Junior World Championship.
They settled in more quickly than you might. All three learned their rugby and English at The Grange School, established in the 1920s by John Jackson who though born in Valparaiso, served in the Rifle Brigade during World War I and later played first-class cricket for Somerset. The Grange remains one of Chile’s best rugby-playing schools and the Old Grangonians club is part of the Chilean top division.
The trip was put together by teacher Nicolas Raab, who has a sports training business who got in contact with Academy Manager Dave Wilks at Tigers and the three got to play for Market Harborough RFC, alongside training with the likes of Ben White and Sam Lewis.
The three are seeing the benefits and are all now involved with the Chile national team. All three played in the recent narrow defeat to the Argentina XV and who knows if we will see them in a future World Cup?
The more forward-thinking clubs do now have relationships with partner clubs across the world but it’s true the Top 14 give more chances to players from countries outside the gilded elite.
Especially while the leading nations talk a good game in spreading the gospel, it’ll be up to the likes of others like Raab and Wilks to give more kids from nations beyond the Six Nations and the Southern Hemisphere 3 a fair crack.
BIG HITS (IN THE SCRUM)
Stand up and applaud…
RUNNING FROM DEEP
A few things slipped by while we took a deep breath before the last surge before Christmas and swore loudly at the Prime Minister.
Some very sensible thoughts on concussion here from below the Premiership.
But more pertinently…
If you think the current format for European competitions is just a one-off, don’t be too hasty, albeit with a World Club Cup being mooted for 2022.
It also appears in a blueprint for global rugby drawn up by the powerful French clubs, and seen by i, in which the planet’s putative best 16 teams – eight from the northern hemisphere, eight from the south – would play in a single five-week block starting in the middle of April 2022 through to a final on the weekend of 14 May.
And it isn’t just rugby who are having to deal with issues surrounding concussion.
Back for one last hit next week before the end of this accursed year…but in the meantime..
