Players finally find their voice
Welcome to the serious new competitors on the global stage – the players. For too long, the game has been in the hands of men in suits, Will Carling’s ‘‘old farts’’, the power brokers who make decisions with only passing regard for those who are out there where bodies are crunching and bones are splintering.
Last week the game woke up to a different reality, one in which the players had made a stand through the power of their off-field words rather than the thunder of their on-field actions. Usually defined by the manner in which they perform under the gaze of millions, the likes of Johnny Sexton, Owen Farrell and Kieran Read showed that they are just as articulate when it comes to laying down powerful markers about player welfare.
This was player power at its most impressive. For all the burblings from World Rugby about the consultations it has done with fans around the globe as to the putative world league structure, about how enthusiastically received a new format has been, the voices that truly matter are those that belong to the players in the middle.
This was a seminal moment in the running of the sport. No more will players be ridden roughshod over. No more will they be considered fodder, hired hands to do the bidding of the men who control the money. Here is the dosh, do as you are told. One player gets crocked from playing too much? Next, please – a variation of General Melchett in Blackadder Goes
Forth, whistling up the next recruit.
If you think this was a one-off gesture of solidarity, an isolated cri de coeur, then think again. Rugby is a nascent professional sport, a mere stripling at 24 years old. Yet when you see the power invested in the players’ voices in American sport you realise just how significant a part of any deal the athletes are, and, indeed, should be. There have been strikes and lockouts in baseball, basketball and American football down the years. The right to withdraw labour is a powerful tool.
Of course the authorities have often consulted with player representatives, and will pledge that their concerns are also the governing bodies’ concerns. Fair enough. It is true, too, that the various player associations do enjoy part funding from unions. And yet, there is scarcely a shred of evidence that their views have been truly heard, let alone respected.
The season stretches out longer, the matches accumulate, the intensity ratchets up, the hits get bigger, the fallout gets more acute, episodes of concussion grow more alarming and tales of depression and early retirement become the norm.
Yes, yes, there have been advances, medical vigilance is better as regards head injuries and there are good people in there doing their best to behave responsibly and for the greater good. Let us not damn them all by any means.
But let us not gloss over the player protest. More can be done on so many fronts.
Players of the status of The Three Amigos – Sexton, Farrell and Read – had cause to go public with concern. Let us rejoice.
And let us state clearly that this should be the first such intervention, not the last. Add to that trio the heartfelt (again) pleas of the Pacific Islanders who have reacted furiously and rightly to the possibility that they might be excluded from any world league.
That the report published in New Zealand was something of a dud – as World Rugby vicechairman Gus Pichot told The
Daily Telegraph on Friday – should not detract from the fact that the players’ response to these new ventures was swift and decisive.
The players have been mobilised and they will not easily go back into their box. There is a gathering in Paris in mid-March of influential former players, who are sure to focus on these issues. These are serious people and, of course, they recognise the need for the sport to generate revenue.
But there comes a point where players ask themselves: ‘‘At what cost?’’
They do not want to trade their future wellbeing for yet more games, yet another competition, yet one more grand final which will bring in so many TV eyeballs and riches for all.
The heartening news is that the players have come out from behind the mask.
They are mute no longer and that can only be good for the game.
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