RORY KEANE ON WHY THE GLOBAL CALENDAR NEEDS A SHAKE-UP
Covid-19 crisis has presented rugby’s power brokers with a golden opportunity to fix the global calendar... but it remains a tricky task
JUNE, 23, 2012 is a date that is seared into the memory banks. Eight years on, that harrowing night at Waikato Stadium in Hamilton remains as vivid as ever. Declan Kidney’s Ireland would be pummelled 60-0 by the All Blacks, a week after pushing the world champions all the way in Christchurch before succumbing to a late, match-winning drop goal from Dan Carter.
There were many problems for the visitors that night. Injuries to key players and poor preparation played their part, but there was a prevailing sense that this third Test against New Zealand was a game too far.
Players, coaches and reporters alike look back at 2012 as the ‘never-ending season’. It lasted just about a year, in fact. Ireland faced the All Blacks in the 52nd week of that arduous campaign and once Sonny Bill Williams starting waltzing through tired Irish defenders to the chorus of cow bells from the stands, it became obvious that this game – and the entire three-Test tour of New Zealand for that matter – was the final straw for a group of players who were mentally and physically exhausted from a campaign that had began the previous June to gear up for the 2011 World Cup in, where else but New Zealand.
Irish rugby has made huge strides since that dark night in Hamilton. The player management system – often the bane of the provinces – ensures that the top players are not burned out during the season while David Nucifora, the IRFU’s performance director, has not always proven the most popular but there is no doubting that the Australian has done sterling work in increasingly the depth of Ireland’s playing pool. Still, there remains a feeling that there is simply too much rugby and that the current fixture list has become worryingly congested.
Free slots are few and far between in the global calendar. The sheer logjam of games was laid bare back in March when the Six Nations postponed the final four games of the championship when the seriousness of Covid-19 became apparent.
Rescheduling those games – including Ireland’s postponed fourth and fifth-round meetings with Italy and France – could be accommodated in October at the earliest we were subsequently informed. Even prior to the global sporting lockdown, it was made clear that April, May, June, July, August, September and October were fully booked up.
That’s quite a frightening occurrence when you consider that World Rugby, the global game’s governing body, are trying to make the game safer at a time when rugby has never been more physical and dangerous.It feels like players are out on the field at every available opportunity. The major issue, of course, is the complicated nature of the season.
An Irish player typically rocks up for pre-season training in late summer in order to prepare for the beginning of the Pro14 season, which kicks off in September, and sometimes later in World Cup years.
Four rounds of European actions are accommodated in two-week blocks across October and December, with the autumn internationals taking up residence in November. Following Christmas and the annual block of interprovincial fixtures, it’s straight into the final two rounds of the European pool stages before the Six Nations takes centre stage for February and March.
There follows the business end of the Pro14 and Europe – as well as the English Premiership and Top14 – before the summer tours, which have now been pushed back until July. It’s a relentless schedule. The other major issue is that the southern hemisphere giants are singing off a completely different hymn sheet.
New Zealand’s players, for example, tend to report for pre-season duty in January ahead of the Super Rugby tournament before a short break to accommodate the summer tours and the visits of their European opponents. There follows the Rugby Championship before they head north for the autumn internationals. Therein lies the problem in recent years. Whether it’s the likes of Ireland heading south in July or the All Blacks arriving on these shores in November, the travelling side is on the last lap of a gruelling season and are virtually running on empty by the time they arrive.
With the season at a standstill, World Rugby, the unions, the clubs, stakeholders and broadcasters have a glorious opportunity to create a new global calendar that is fit for purpose.
And there have been reports of the Six Nations moving from its traditional February window to April so the championship can run alongside the Rugby Championship at the same time. Recently re-elected World Rugby chief Bill Beaumont is also pushing for the current July Test window to be moved to October which would mean a seven or eight-game block of international games with nations touring in October before welcoming teams to their neck of the woods the following month.
World Rugby argue that condensing and aligning these international blocks across the globe will allow long periods for the clubs to contest their domestic and European games uninterrupted.
It all sounds very logical. Unfortunately, these plans have been mooted for years and there are many stumbling blocks, mainly the English and French clubs who have already been vocal about large swathes of the season being set aside for Test rugby.
If Beaumont does manage to create some sense of synergy and harmony across the global calendar, it will be quite the achievement. Nights like Hamilton should serve as a warning from history.
‘The English and French are stumbling blocks’