New-fangled PRO14 is disaster waiting to happen
There is no shortage of top-class rugby players, but my goodness the game seems to be very light on worldclass administrators. You would think that the lessons of Super Rugby would have resonated across the globe – too much travel, the madness of not playing every team in the league home and away – but apparently not, and the PRO12 is now the PRO14, with a structure that is desperately flawed before it even begins.
With 12 teams, two of which were Italian basket cases, and travel already a problem for players and fans, now they’ve stuck in two South African teams – it may not involve crossing time zones, but it’s at least 12 hours flying time!
It’s when it comes to the structure of the league that the real weirdness becomes apparent. PRO12 attendance figures were heavily influenced by the derbies in Ireland, Wales and Scotland. So with a proper league structure impossible to manage with 14 teams, two pools of seven was the solution, but, of course, that would have meant fewer lucrative encounters.
Not to be deterred, the organisers have found a fudge: every team will play the other teams in their pool home AND away, and then they’ll play the teams in the other pool home OR away! If that’s not daft enough, there will then be two more local derbies chucked in to make up the requisite 21 fixtures – never mind if that means that some clubs will meet three times during the season, because the derbies are ‘sacrosanct to the tournament’. If a team play two derbies at home next season, then they’ll play two away in the following campaign.
Whatever spin the organisers try to put on this, it is barking mad. In any league the aim has to be to find the best team. That works when everyone plays everyone else home and away, but such is the home advantage in rugby, that the moment you mess with that formula the integrity of the competition is tarnished. That’s what Super Rugby bosses found, and it beggars belief the PRO14 has headed down the same road.
Money is, of course, the reason. The PRO12 was on its uppers, and the introduction of the two Saffer teams means loads of extra dosh, rumoured to be in excess of £6m – money needed for the Celts to compete with the Top 14 and Premiership clubs.
This is going to have ramifications for Super Rugby. The Aussies and New Zealanders hate having to flog their way to South Africa, and the logical conclusion, even if it’s a few years away, is that the PRO14 becomes the PRO18 with the remaining four Saffer franchises also jumping ship, leaving the antipodeans to try to decide whether Argentina and Japan are worth the hassle.
The new-style Singha 7s brightened up a rugby-free period, but if the competition is to prosper, surely some serious thought needs to be given to the format?
Positioned as it is, in the middle of clubs’ preseason programme, different coaches will take differing views on how to select their squad. Most will opt for giving their Academy lads a run-out, reluctant to take the risk of senior squad players picking up an injury. However, Dai Young at Wasps took a different approach, fielding Christian Wade, Dan Robson and Marcus Watson – he wanted to win it, and he did. The question is, was that approach good for the competition, and does anyone care?
Are the 7s Premiership rugby’s equivalent of cricket’s T20 Big Bash, an excuse for getting together for a few pints, or is it meant to be taken seriously? If it’s the former then leave well alone, on the basis that mismatches don’t matter, but if the competition has aspirations to become one that’s worth winning then let’s have some guidelines.
It should either be an academy tournament, with restrictions on senior players taking part, or the clubs should be told to take it seriously and field a given number of players who have a defined level of Premiership experience.
One way of livening things up would be to invite four guest teams to join the competition, making the field up to 16. Those visitors would also provide a benchmark as to the quality of the clubs’ 7s squads.
The news that Sonny Boy Williams is free to play in the first Bledisloe Cup game didn’t come as a surprise. New Zealand always seem to get what they want in such matters, and it stinks. Richie McCaw may have retired, but the All Blacks ‘Invisibility Cloak’ lives on!