Helpful thoughts to save rugby
Rugby is in decline. Fewer and fewer people watch it or play it. Some weeks ago I was at a social function attended by one of the rugby union bosses, and though he made a point of not speaking to me or even looking my way, I could sense that here was a man in mourning for his love. So with a view to coming up with helpful thoughts to revive rugby’s popularity and to cheer him up, I have just watched a game on television.
Helpful Thought No 1: Where have all the spectators gone?
Helpful Thought No 2: Terry Wright. Let’s take these in order.
Helpful Thought No 1: Where have all the spectators gone? Well, close analysis reveals that large numbers of them have migrated into the coaching box to become second assistant defensive scrum coach or tattoo-and-hairstyle co-ordination coach. This requires them to watch the game in front of them via a laptop that is also in front of them. Most of the other spectators have gone into the sports hydration and medication business, which requires them to run onto the field every time the whistle blows, to water and bandage the livestock.
Helpful Thought No 2. Terry Wright. Thirty-five years ago when rugby was officially the Game for All New Zealanders (excluding women), Terry Wright was an All Black winger. He was fast, skilful and scored tries. But his most distinctive feature was, well, you know those plastic wallets of coloured pencils that include every possible colour and end in a white one? Terry Wright was built like that white one. Plus a moustache. Terry Wright made the corner flag look plump.
My point is that in today’s rugby there is no one built like Terry Wright. Terry had thighs like matchsticks. Today’s wingers have thighs like hot-water cylinders. Rugby has morphed into the Game for All New Zealanders Who Weigh More Than a Toyota Landcruiser (though now including women).
Spectators could identify with players like Terry Wright. When not playing for the All Blacks, he looked as if he worked for one of the more calculator intensive sections of the Department of Inland Revenue – though, of course, I have nothing but admiration for the Department of Inland Revenue. Indeed I used to play rugby alongside one of its employees whom I’ll call Pete.
Pete was tall and skinny like Terry Wright, but unlike Terry he had an ungovernable urge to fight with the opposition. On the rugby paddock this was often amusing, but not at work, where Pete held, and I quote, “a public-facing position”. He was sacked in the end for seizing a serially-delinquent motelier by the tie and hauling him across an IRD desk.
So, it is clear from the foregoing that the problem facing rugby is how to attract skinny but skilful players like Terry Wright back to the game in order to bring the crowds back to the terraces. And thus we arrive at …
Helpful Thought No 3 (which I offer to the Rugby Union gratis): instead of limiting the number of players in a team, why not limit their aggregate tonnage? In other words, allow both teams a maximum weight of flesh on the paddock, which they may divide among as many players as they wish. Thus a coach would have a choice between fielding, say, a 130kg behemoth on the wing or two Terry Wrights. The tactical permutations would be limitless. A South African XV might find itself playing XXIII of Japan. It would be like several Gullivers against a horde of Lilliputians. And who wouldn’t want to watch that?
No, no need to thank me, rugby boss. It’s simple when you think clearly.