If you want a better prouct, just reduce subs
I LOVE innovation, and clever ideas which are groundbreaking – without them we would never have gone to the moon. Coming back down to Earth, and the future of Rugby Union, the idea behind the 12s conAs cept announced recently is above all about making money.
I don’t decry capitalism, or innovation, in sport, but it should be remembered that everyone goes out to win in this game, whether amateur or pro, and that entertainment is a byeproduct.
One of the the biggest entertainment innovations in sport has been the IPL in cricket, which has been a huge success and moneyspinner. It is a great concept but it is very hard to replicate in other sports.
If rugby wants to be more entertaining the only thing that World Rugby needs to do is to reduce the tactical substitutions. The remedy has been staring it in the face for ten years.
a concept 12s is attractive enough. For the players and coaches coming to the end of their careers, the financial rewards will be appealing, as will the idea of having all the great players alongside each other.
The problem is finding a place for it in a heavily congested season, and competing with international and club rugby for players, and the conflict that could bring.
A 30-minute game format will inevitably ramp-up intensity, and even with fewer players on the pitch you will get more and bigger collisions.
The message to World Rugby is to sort out the subs issue quickly, and the game will be reborn.
Te new World 12s proposal has been the talk of rugby and while we must reserve a bit of judgement until we learn more detail, I don’t mind being honest about my initial reaction. I was first made aware of the news on social media because a lot of people tagged me in and said I was the perfect fit for a shorter format of our great game.
They must be unaware I retired from Test rugby in 2011! Maybe 12s might have suited me a decade ago, but it certainly wouldn’t now even though I have stayed fit in my old age!
The World 12s strikes me as a money-making business first of all. I’m not sure they have rugby’s greater good at heart and that is what I have a problem with. Like I said, we need to know more about how the format could work before being too critical.
But there are so many unanswered questions.
I see the organisers believe they could inject up to £250m into rugby through the World 12s, but where is that money going to come from? Who is going to play in the tournament?
How do we find room in an already-congested calendar for it to take place?
There are not easy answers to those questions because rugby is already fighting a long and painful battle between club and country.
A classic example of this is the Wales against New Zealand match in Cardiff at the end of October. More on that later.
I think the idea of 12s would have come from those who have seen tena-side rugby and noted how open and entertaining it is.
Don’t get me wrong, if someone had offered me the option of playing Tens or 12s when I was at the height of my career, I’d definitely have been intrigued by the opportunity.
I’m sure a lot of players will be tempted by it, especially if the pay cheque is big enough.
But I am a traditionalist and fully believe rugby should be 15-a-side while, of course, there should still be a place for Sevens which has been hugely popular for so many years.
The Sevens circuit has been hit hard by Covid-19 which has been a shame. Before the pandemic, it definitely had its place in the rugby calendar but many more would watch it if the best players were involved. That is my fear for the 12s.
Will people watch it if the creme de la crème is absent? I doubt it.
I do understand the need for rugby to continue to look for innovation and attract new supporters. I’ve seen Steve Hansen throw his support behind the 12s and people have cited how cricket has evolved with the Indian Premier League and The Hundred which began this summer.
I went to some of Welsh Fire’s Hundred matches in Cardiff and enjoyed them, but I honestly believe rugby should focus on improving the 15-a-side game first before lookalso ing elsewhere. That is rugby’s bread and butter. Cricket evolved with Twenty20 and The Hundred from a solid base.
Rugby is not there yet because we have so many problems at the moment.
The players will ultimately decide how successful the game is because they are its product. They are the men and women people pay to go and watch.
At the moment, rugby’s best players are spending half their time with their club or region and the other half with their national side.
Can you imagine someone like Alun Wyn Jones playing a season with the Ospreys, all his yearly international commitments with Wales, and then being involved in the 12s?
It just seems too much to me and we already have enough rugby in the calendar. We have to look after the players. By protecting them, you protect the product.
I haven’t seen too many players out there supporting the idea. I did see Louis Rees-Zammit and Marcus Smith both mention the competition on their Instagram stories. These are two incredibly talented young players making their way in the game who will no doubt be targeted by the 12s. It would suit their skills down to the ground.
These two young guys, and lots of others like them, need saving from themselves.
They need to know the consequences of what they are signing up to. At the moment they are full of beans and probably attracted by the money and prestige new opportunities bring.
Do they know what impact playing so much rugby at a young age will have on them further down the line? Probably not, I would argue.
I can also see the 12s encountering problems in terms of trying to get the best players from both hemispheres on board. That sounds like a logistical nightmare to me.
How on earth are they going to get both the clubs and Unions on side when those two differing viewpoints clash so regularly already?
When Wales face New Zealand in Cardiff on October 30 they will have to do without their English-based players. That means Wayne Pivac will have to plot how to beat the All Blacks for the first time since 1953 without guys like Dan Biggar, Taulupe Faletau and Louis.
It is a very frustrating situation with no easy solution.
I saw Jonathan ‘Jiffy’ Davies argue this week the English clubs should just release their Welsh players for that game, but I’m sorry Jiff, it’s just not that simple.
Northampton pay handsomely for the services of Dan and it’s the same with the other Premiership players. Why should they release them to work for someone else when they need them?
Bath are under pressure to win games this season and they host Wasps the day Wales meet New Zealand. Stuart Hooper will want Taulupe available for that match and rightly so.
This is the tricky situation Wales players get into when they move to England and they know what will happen if they make that choice.
This is the politics of rugby which is already difficult. The 12s could make this situation even worse in my opinion.
Ultimately, it is my concern that money talks too often in our sport at the expense of the rugby.
The Wales-New Zealand match is a good example. There is no way Wayne will be happy with that game being played outside of the World Rugby Test window which is why he’ll be without his England-based players. But at the same time, the Welsh Rugby Union need the money from four Autumn Tests and we all know the All Blacks will be a soldout game at Principality Stadium.
The New Zealand game will make money, but rugby should be about more than that and I fear the 12s could be allowed to come in purely for financial reasons.
We are already on a slippery slope with money talking and rugby walking.
That situation must not be allowed to get any worse than it already is.
“It just seems too much to me; we already have enough rugby in the calendar”