Are World 12s a good idea for the game?
JOE Launchbury has strong reservations about the newly-proposed World 12s tournament and insists: “They would have to make more weeks in the year!”
The Wasps and England man says he fully understand why the powers that be are exploring new ways to increase the sports’ popularity and finances. But the 30-year-old lock feels it will be almost impossible to shoehorn the competition into what is already an overloaded fixture schedule without putting players’ welfare on the line.
Launchbury said: “If it grows the sport then I am interested in it .... but the big question is at what cost?
“If it is the best players in the world being released to play in a short, well run tournament then I see it could generatye a fair bit of excitement.
“My concern is how are they going to fit it into what is already a really packed calendar?
“There is definitely a push in the game to try and make it more exciting, quicker and attract a slightly different audience. I want rugby to be as successful as it can be.
“So if that’s the sort of direction people feel it has to go in order to become a more popular sport and the game will benefit from it, then it is our duty as players to put our minds to it. But I would certainly have questions around release times for players, player load and all the health matters.
“There aren’t many free weekends in our year so trying to pigeon hole a new tournament means something will have to give.”
He adds: “In cricket it creates a different sport because of the totally different lengths of Test cricket to T20. In rugby it will be shorter but if they are going to play a few games in one session that will then equate to a similar length of normal games.
“Rugby is more physical than it has ever been. Clubs have a head of performance role whose job it is to make sure players are not being over-worked.
“But I do like some of the rules being put forward including not having too many scrum resets. Even though I have spent the last ten years just six inches away from the action I still don’t know 100 per cent what happens in there!”
The announcement of a new idea is always something to look forward to but if it is just another rehash of something that has gone before, it’s a bit of a let down.
The idea of a potential World 12’s competition taking off next year should have raised the pulse rates of everyone at the potential of an innovation to look forward to and showcase our game. Personally, I don’t think it will.
I wonder how many people out there will remember a shortened version of the game that was played usually before the Hong Kong Sevens?
Teams from all over the world competed on the Hong Kong club’s pitches in the middle of the Happy Valley race course. The game was then introduced over here between the clubs of the four Home Unions with contests staged at Bath and Gloucester among other places.
There was a slight difference to the ‘new’ World 12s as there were only ten players in each team with five forwards and five backs, but other than that it’s the same game.
Taking the extra players off the field opens up space, but unlike Sevens, the addition of extra forwards creates a number of different tactical ways of playing the game.
I played in a number of Tens competitions, (I still have the tankards that were given to me) which were enjoyable and quite physical back in the 90s and you can still see some of the competitions on You Tube.
There is no doubt that it is a more open game than the standard XV player game. It was the decision to showcase the Sevens in the Olympics that finally ended the Tens variant.
However, Tens was mainly played in the dying stages of the amateur game as a bit of fun but there were still some serious contests between the top clubs and countries. This was when there were no concerns about player welfare or the numbers of games players could play in a season.
Times are different now, with players contracted by Premiership clubs who can and will dictate when they are released to play games outside of the club calendar.
Player release is the most expensive part of the PGA as it impacts on the number of games per season that the players can play in the league.
World 12’s chairman Ian Ritchie knows this and so will be offering substantial sums to everyone with promises of a prosperous new competition for all.
However, the idea of a player auction would create the worrying possibility of mixed teams with players not knowing or experiencing beforehand who they will be playing with.
Part of any team game is the familiarity of playing regularly within a group and knowing each other, so the risks associated with franchise teams coming together for just a short periods of time does not inspire me and could result in a number of injuries.
Then there is the money, which according to the stated figure of £250m over the next five years amounts to just £50m a year. By the time it is split between all parties involved: World Rugby, the Unions, the clubs and the players, it will not amount to much.
One thing about this potential new adventure is it relies on trust, the trust that all parties involved will deliver what has been promised.
Unfortunately, Ritchie, left, has history with two of the main potential partners, the RFU and the Premiership. While CEO of the RFU he failed to deliver the financial stability to the game he promised when agreeing to more than double payments to over £220m to the Premiership,who then became his next employers.
There were rumours circulating in the Premiership at the time that he had been canvasing them for a job before signing the deal.
If there is really a call in the game for another variation, why not go back to Tens, a game that has already proved its worth and would save the cost of instigating World 12s?