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NZ Rugby World column, August 2007
A couple of weeks back I caught up with Magnus Lund, a twenty-four year old flanker who's been in professional rugby with Sale Sharks since he left school at the age of eighteen. Magnus was England's star player in the second test against the Springboks a couple of months back and made a big impact in the Six Nations. He had just been dropped by Brian Ashton from the World Cup squad in what was a surprise to him, to his teammates and to the English public. Magnus is a ball playing, marauding, athletic no. 7; England has reverted back to type and are going to France with heavy old spoilers adept at killing the ball, not freeing it. Magnus and I are both Lancastrians and both benefited from a long established outstanding rugby program at Lancaster Royal Grammar School (Brian Ashton went there too but that didn't save Magnus either). Magnus is a leader of the new generation; the first generation of professional rugby players to go straight from school into the game. We were discussing staleness, burnout, boredom with training, lack of mental challenge, etc., and the difficulties this generation of players will face. (One bright spot though is the influx of All Blacks into the domestic UK game and Magnus was certainly looking forward to seeing Luke McAllister line up at 12 next to Charlie Hodgson for the Sale Sharks. Pretty exciting stuff for a pacey ball playing flanker.) That aside though (as our showcase RWC '07 approaches), he got me to thinking about this whole professionalism issue. The club versus country debate in England and now France is becoming very difficult. There is a real risk of international rugby being throttled and the game they play in heaven going down the path of soccer where clubs rule. This would be traumatic to New Zealand the Nation. A tragedy. When coupled with the obsession with the World Cup at the expense of true international contests, this is something I hope the IRB and all constituents will seriously address at their post-RWC November top-to-top. Whilst this is a real problem, I believe rugby has the least problems of all sports currently. (Let's hope the World Cup passes without incident; just a celebration of our great game.) I was in France for the Tour de France, which has evolved into a drug-ridden farce. Institutionalized doping has ripped the sport apart and sponsors, media and spectators are all voting with their feet. Who cares now who wins the Tour de France. All the favorites and leaders are inevitably kicked out when drug tested, so it's really only about the spectacle not who wins. And once that occurs, how long can the sport exist? I can't see how the Tour de France can continue and I was horrified to read an article in The Times where a professor was arguing that drugs in sport should now be legalized. This seems to me like anti-sport, not sport. Cycling has sold out to money. |
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And, as I sit here in Europe waiting for the soccer season to start, I'm dismayed by the news that John Terry, the Chelsea center back, has now moved on to wages of £135,000 per week. More than an All Black earns in a year. And my club, Manchester City, has hired the most boring, unsuccessful, charismaless manager in the game, Sven-Goran Eriksson, better know for sexual dalliances than winning football games, at a salary of £2.5MM per year. The game is awash with Sky-TV money and is failing to deliver any kind of spectator excitement. The Premiership is dominated by four clubs, Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, and Liverpool; no one else can sustainably compete. And the clubs are all moving away from community local ownership to the US (Manchester United and Liverpool), or in my club's case, to a disgraced, corrupt ex Thai Prime Minister. And the football is becoming progressively worse. Most Premiership teams are looking not to lose and play totally defensively so as to maintain their position in the lucrative money making Premier League. The past two World Cups have been tedious and the recent European Championship was completely irrelevant. And as mentioned earlier, the international game has become irrelevant as dominance has been ceded to the clubs. That dominance is now going even further down the line to individual players. Look at the David Beckham shirt saga at Real Madrid and now LA Galaxy (135,000 replica shirts sold in one week). And the story doesn't end there. The most disappointing event on the sporting calendar this year was the Cricket World Cup. Who actually won it anyway? I can't remember any other greater debacle in the history of the game or indeed in the history of sport. Great countries destroyed once again by a headlong rush into short-term money. I hope Rugby Union can learn its lessons fast and not follow the examples of cycling, soccer, and cricket. I'm glad that rugby has a professional top tier. I'm also glad that we have very strong grass roots. It is vital now that we see leadership from all constituents for the common good of the game and that we continue to focus on the game and the sport, not just the money. (I reckon the best thing that could happen to the game would be for Jock Hobbs to take over from Syd Millar and run the IRB. He gets all elements of the game; from top to bottom.) So here's to a great festival of World Cup Rugby in France. Not just for the rugby world, but to bring back some joy for all sports lovers everywhere. |
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