Calendar change has appeal
Ian Foster favours change. All Blacks assistant coach for now, Foster looms as an obvious candidate for the top job, assuming incumbent Steve Hansen does walk away when his contract expires in February 2020.
That’s also when test rugby might take on a rather different look, with tweaks to tournament windows and the apparent potential for a 12-team world league among the initiatives already being discussed in high places.
Those talks were conducted in Sydney yesterday, with World Rugby’s various committees meeting to discuss the global future of the game, alongside the Rugby World Cup board.
Foster certainly applauds the efforts of all concerned, having read reports about a world league from Buenos Aires.
The June test window has made life difficult for the All Blacks coaches, and in turn their New Zealand colleagues in Super Rugby. Test revenue is also a big deal for New Zealand Rugby who have a drawcard team in the All Blacks, but don’t get rich from taking them on tour.
World Rugby vice-chairman Agustin Pichot has been particularly vocal about how the international game must evolve, and pay its way, or face the likelihood of ‘‘ruin’’.
No-one wants that, least of all the man who might be the next All Blacks head coach.
‘‘We’ve been reasonably busy doing something else, so I haven’t put a lot of thought into it, but I do know there’s a lot of thought going into post-2020 and I think it’s great that World Rugby, and people within World Rugby, are tossing some ideas out there about how to re-shape our international game. Everyone’s got a clean slate after 2020 and I know from our perspective, we’re pretty keen to look at any different ideas out there,’’ Foster said.
National pride, and the fear of failure, tend to be enough to inspire the All Blacks most weeks, but World Rugby chief executive Brett Gosper has talked about having more test matches that matter.
‘‘At the moment 56 per cent of the games in international rugby in the world are friendlies. That’s what we’re looking at and maybe swinging it back towards more meaningful, competitive games and that may be with interaction between north and south,’’ he said. ‘‘There’s a number of models out there but ultimately [a north vs south competition] would help add more meaning to a Six Nations or a [Rugby] Championship.’’
Few sports are as passionate as rugby league and Slater’s reprieve has split the code.
New South Wales State of Origin coach Brad Fittler felt Slater should have banned – as did the brother of former Queensland Cup player James Ackerman, who died in 2015 after an on-field shoulder charge.
Other observers have agreed with Slater’s defence that the first point of contact came from the pectoral muscle in his upper chest.
No-one – the odd neanderthal apart – wants a return to the bad old days when blokes were knocked into kingdom come by rivals taking aim with a brawny shoulder.
There is too much sensitivity – and solid science – around now about the damaging short and long-term effects of concussion in contact sports.
Shoulder charges were legal in rugby league until 2013 when the Australian Rugby League Commission outlawed the practice and the International Rugby League Federation promptly followed suit.
There was bellyaching about the ban from traditionalists, including Sonny Bill Williams, Paul Gallen and Sam Burgess, past masters of the dark art.
Other people could see it from a safety pinpoint. Modern-day players are bigger, stronger, fitter and faster than in yesteryear.
Does the game really need a 120kg behemoth using his shoulder to smash a similarsized opponent?
The NRL pointed to scientific studies to prove shoulder charges were becoming more dangerous. It claimed the average G-force from a shoulder charge was 10.682 compared to 6.056 from a head-on tackle where the defender led with his arms.
The NRL banned the shoulder charge after evidence showed the average G-force from one is 10.682 compared to 6.056 from the conventional front-on tackle. Shoulder charges, it said, were 76 per cent greater in impact.
Clearly, the ban was introduced to stop the front-on tackle where a defender, often running at full speed, used his shoulder for a high hit on a ball carrier. The veto was aimed at protecting players’ heads.
As a general rule, the shoulder charge ban has been effective with a zero tolerance policy invoked.
There are still shoulder charges in the heat of the moment – remember Ben Te’o’s on Sonny Bill Williams in the 2014 NRL elimination final?
But the number of offences has declined. In 2014, 11 shoulder chargers were carpeted. A year later there were three.
The Canberra Raiders’ Kiwi forward Joe Tapine was banned for two games this year for a grade one shoulder charge.
Offenders generally get short shrift from the judiciary. Until now.
It’s easy to say, as Fittler and other have, that a shoulder charge is a shoulder charge and Slater should have been suspended because clearing him
‘‘At the moment 56 per cent of the games in international rugby in the world are friendlies.’’ World Rugby chief executive Brett Gosper