>> The Chris Hewett column
What have the Romans ever done for us?” asks Reg, the anti-imperialist Judean revolutionary, during one of the many quotable scenes in Monty Python’s Life of Brian.
His fellow conspirators are not exactly stuck for answers: sanitation, roads, irrigation, medicine, education, public order, wine and peace feature prominently among their responses. “Alright,” says an exasperated Reg. “But apart from that…”
There has been many a moment over the last couple of decades when Rugby Union followers have asked a similar question of Rugby League, without identifying anything like the same number of benefits. Crooked scrum feeds, chest-high tackling, identikit forwards, Sam Burgess? If these were plusses, the minuses must have been truly diabolical.
Defensive organisation is perhaps the one area where there is something close to consensus agreement over the 13-man game’s positive impact on the rival code. It has become the devil’s own job to break the line and score from distance – especially at the last knockings, as Ireland found against the French a week ago.
Shaun Edwards, a 24-carat Rugby League great as a player and similarly precious as a specialist Union coach, was the inspiration behind Les Bleus’ successful manning of the barricades in Dublin. He is not the first 13-a-sider from the north of England to earn his daily baguette across the water – Dave Ellis was doing it more than 20 years ago – but if France should win a first world title on home soil in 2023, he will certainly be the most venerated.
Importation from League has been one of Union’s growth industries. All but a couple of the current Premiership clubs and serious second-tier contenders have employed a 13-a-sider on their coaching staff, and a few – Bath, Leicester, London Irish, Wasps – have done so on multiple occasions.
From the starriest lights in the northern firmament – Edwards, Phil Larder, Andy Farrell, Ellery Hanley, Denis Betts – to the less celebrated like of Ellis, Mike Ford, Graham Steadman and Mike Forshaw, the cross-code recruitment policy has been up and running for decades. Throw in a few Australians, from Brad Davis and Les Kiss to John Muggleton and Phil Blake, and the full picture begins to emerge.
These blokes know what they’re doing. And why wouldn’t they? Leaving aside the weird and wonderful world of the breakdown, which has become almost as perilous to life and limb as it is confusing to player and spectator alike, Union is home from home for the Leaguies. The job of work Edwards performed so brilliantly with Wales under Warren Gatland and continues to do under Fabien Galthie in France could be executed just as easily in Wigan.
“Rugby is currently obsessed with the three Ps: power, physicality and preparation”
Once the governing class decided, in their infinite wisdom, to outlaw traditional rucking – one of the principal points of difference between the sports and, along with the set-pieces, the most crucial – the depopulation of the tackle area was inevitable.
As this made the two defensive systems indistinguishable from each other, what could have made more sense than for Union clubs to throw contracts in the direction of those they were trying to copy?
The consequences have been enormous every which way, from player welfare at one extreme to spectator satisfaction at the other. The fact that today’s broadcasters revel in the heavy tackle – “Wow!!! WHAT A HIT!” – in the way Cliff Morgan and Bill McLaren once purred over the sidestepping of Phil Bennett says all that needs saying about rugby’s obsession with the three Ps: power, physicality and preparation.
By no means all of the Union’s games top-end defence coaches have a Rugby League background, but it is barely possible to think of one who has not been influenced by the colonists.
Paul Gustard, a dyed-in-the-wool 15a-sider who answered the England call when Eddie Jones arrived at Twickenham, was at Saracens with Farrell; Gethin Jenkins, the new D-man in Wales, spent a significant chunk of his international career being drilled by Edwards.
Among the most interesting examples is Omar Mouneimne, who cut his teeth in the South African Sevens setup before landing in the Premiership via Italy.
His job description at Bristol is an interesting one. He is not merely a defence coach; he is, according to the club’s official website, a defence/collision coach. Yes, really.
Your columnist can hear his old friend Brian Ashton, who took England to the World Cup final in 2007, spluttering into his real ale at the very idea.
Ashton took his baby steps as a coach in the orbit of Carwyn James and Pierre Villepreux, neither of whom would have seen the need for a “collision” expert during their time in the front line because to them, the essence of Rugby Union was the avoidance of contact rather than the seeking of it.
How the mood has changed. To quote the Pythons once more: “Try telling that to the young people of today and they won’t believe you.”