Come on Eddie, give us a show to lift the soul
The Six Nations Championship is the annual backdrop to the changing of the seasons. Save when its flow is rudely interrupted by a pandemic, it begins in the deep chill of winter and finishes with the first warming rays of spring in the air.
This year the marking of time will be balm to the soul.
By the championship’s conclusion the vaccine rollout will have touched half the population. Optimism as well as AstraZeneca’s magic juice may at last be starting to permeate the nation’s veins.
What, though, of these coming seven weeks themselves? Will Test rugby bring cheer when it is most needed? It is a question the teams – and in particular England – need to ask themselves 24 hours out from the big kick-off.
Go around each of them and you hear the desire to “put smiles on faces during a difficult time” parroted endlessly. But that was the same line spouted ahead of the Autumn Nations Cup, which turned out to be one of the most dreary tournaments in any sport in recent memory.
Not even a final between England and France’s 2nd XV that went to extra-time could save it from being sunk by its negativity.
England, with a Dementorlike approach, sucked the life out of their opponents and the spectacle. They won the tournament, but they also won first prize for boredom.
Trapped in an eternal loop, George Ford put boot to ball and sent it repeatedly to the skies.
It was a reversion to rugby union’s worst face, the game rugby league fans label ‘kick and clap’. Except with no crowds it was just kick.
In professional sport the ends always justify the means. If England play the same way in the Six Nations and win backto-back titles Eddie Jones’ straitjacket tactics will be vindicated. Except, just for once, in this Six Nations of all Six Nations, there should be more to it than simply the outcome.
The 2021 championship should be about Grand Slams and wooden spoons, yes, but more importantly, joy.
Of late, weekends have been hard to pinpoint in the calendar. The interminable trudge through the longest lockdown serves to make one day seem the same as the next. The Six Nations will provide some concrete staging posts, some moments to look forward to. The teams have a responsibility to what will be a massive captive audience. The armchair millions need to be entertained.
Rugby players do not like to see themselves as entertainers – even Jonny May, who provided the brightest moment of the autumn with his spectacular solo try against Ireland, blanched at the description this week – but they are, and the Six Nations is their stage. We need a show.
Jones was defiant in the autumn, claiming that England had little choice but to play their strategy with breakdown law interpretations set against running rugby. But that argument was exposed by some of the Premiership games that followed.
The free-spirited rugby Pat Lam’s Bristol play is almost unrecognisable as the same sport. The game can still be invigorating with the right mindset and buy-in.
It’s not as if England are short on firepower. May, Anthony Watson and Elliot Daly are great runners. So free them up, Eddie. Let’s see them run. Lockdown rugby should refer to the times we live in, not the way the game
is played.