Ex Tank Laning on Supersport
The advent of rugby as a professional sport has not been without its negativity, and despite the swathes of cash being floated about, a serious question must be asked whether or not the game is in danger of losing its soul?
Call me alarmist if you must, or out of touch.
But there is no doubt that the game is in danger of becoming a farce, a professional hodgepodge of passport-buying players who have little inclination nor heritage to play for but will get a ticket to the World Cup through some or other dubious means.
And it all comes down to one thing: Money.
There is a ruling body. One that concerns itself with top drawer stuff like changing its name. The International Rugby Board is no more. World Rugby is their new name.
But when it comes to ensuring a level playing field for all the rugby-playing nations, cash still rules the roost. (Bent down undr refs still abound!!!!!!!!!)
The IRB turned a blind eye all those years ago when New Zealand employed a mass recruitment drive from the Pacific Islands, so much so that the social exodus became entrenched. (Hear hear tank I have siad as much myslef although with few plaudits from the KBBS!)
Now New Zealanders scoff about those remarks, forgetting the influx of rugby playing talent in search of economic opportunities in the past. (Exactly so!!)
While almost all the current All Black team is born and bred in New Zealand, last year’s sensation Malakai Fekitoa was “imported” from Tonga at the age of 17.
The real problem today, however, is in Europe. With cash-rich clubs, fuelled by millionaires with too much desire for success and money to burn, the Southern Hemisphere has been a shopping centre for European clubs for a while now.(I call them paraites and the English are as much to blame as anybody dispite Becs protesting and trying to blame our players for this!!)
However, when rugby nations start employing these tactics, World Rugby should step in.
Just this week we’ve seen Gareth Anscombe, who won an IRB Junior World Championship with New Zealand, selected for Wales. Kiwi flanker Hugh Blake has been selected for Scotland.
In both cases, both players have been in the country less than six months, with Blake in Scotland a little more than a week. Rugby ancestry is their key, but it still leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.
About three years ago we reported about the case of CJ Stander, Josh Strauss, Quinn Roux, WP Nel and Danie Poolman.
All of these players were offered lucrative contracts in either the UK or Ireland, with promises of making the national squad.
Most of them will qualify just before the World Cup in September, and are likely to be called up into their respective national squads.
And with the promises came other incentives. The Irish rugby union, for instance, offers all tax to be exempt if a player completes his career in Ireland.
I don’t blame some of the players. The chance to earn Euros or Pounds, play your game and make it to the World Cup. Then, when you leave, you are given your earnings tax-free. How could anyone say no? (Tank its nice to read some sound common sense for a change. here we have some hopless idealists ho have no clue about reality. the late great Biltoing Bek got this hopelessly wrong!!)
And that isn’t mentioning the likes of Bernard le Roux, Rory Kockott, Scott Spedding, Antonie Claassen etc who are doing the same in France.
The real question is just how far will these nations go for rugby success, and in the process when will World Rugby actually step in to protect the sanctity of the game? (No chance of that happening Tank too many NH parasites on the board?)
Already we have noises from Toulon about taking World Rugby to court to ensure players aren’t released for international duty.
June and November tours are simply continually pushed through, flogging an already dead horse just to make a quick buck. Yet the Northern Hemisphere clubs oppose a global season, as it wouldn’t suit them.
And as such World Rugby is a lame duck, unable to move the game forward, unable to stop those who exploit kinks in the system.
Ask yourself, while it may be good for players to earn a living, would you truly want a world game where the Home nations look more like a Barbarians squad than the best a country can offer? (Of course not Tank but what can these NH types do if they cant compete with the SH giants?)
If financial incentive is all you need, what value has test rugby still got on it, when a country can handpick players to bolster positions from anywhere in the world, and then give them a test cap as incentive? (Yes indeed and we can trace it all back to NZ first exploiting PI talent. They developed the principle. Oh these kbbs have so much to answer for!!!!! )
Surely test rugby is still a test between nations? One country produces its best and pits its skills against another who does the same.(One would hopeso - you could add under the auspices of a fair competent ref.)
In football the club system is bigger than the country, but still Fifa, for all its faults, manages to mostly stop a wholesale exodus and put on a grand showpiece event where nations do battle.
Rugby cannot allow itself to be held ransom by those with selfish interests at heart. It cannot become the plaything for the Home Unions to exploit the game as they see fit.(Expel Nz with a severe warning to stop corrupting the game. Give them a year off to contemplate the error of their ways and to watch how the noble boks do it. Honestly and hard. Waht an excellent rle model for the kiwis and even some bent Ozzies! Lets get to the root of the problem I say!))
There is a real danger, seeing as their plans have worked perfectly up to now, that after the World Cup the Home Unions will scout out more foreigners under the guise of qualifying to play, make huge offers and hope for a more cosmopolitan line-up at the next World Cup.
All the while the base of the game is being eroded. All the while the system of nationhood is being torn apart.
So I ask you again, is rugby in danger of losing its soul?
Tank the bigger picture is rugby is not the only entity loosing its soul.
