Not broke, but needs fixing

It always happens just as we’re about to enter the fourth round of each RBS 6 Nations, as regular as the appearance of snowdrops or the Budget. It’s at this time that Super Rugby is in its second or third week, and there’s a succession of articles about how the Southern Hemisphere regional competition is a festival of thrills and exciting, daring rugby in the sunshine while the 6N is a boring slugfest under grey skies if they’re not already shedding tumults of rain.

It’s a compelling narrative. I like Super Rugby as much as the next fan, it’s undeniably entertaining. At a push, I’d even like all rugby to be played that way if possible.

I’d like us in the North, in a perfect world, even to structure our season to match the South. It would make so much more sense to play our different levels of the game in order, culminating in a 6N played in decent late summer weather on good, fast grounds made for running rugby.

Other than a few tight forwards, who really wants to see European Rugby’s diet of endless scrum engagements and tiresome, unstoppable (legally at least) rolling mauls? We’d all love to see the ball spinning and shooting down the backline like it does in Super Rugby.

But lacking my own nuclear threat or several spare millions to pay off the mega-rich club owners of France and England, this is not going to happen.

And comparing Super Rugby to the 6 Nations is a spurious exercise anyway.

The Rugby World Cup showed the dominance of the Southern Hemisphere nations; with all four in the quarter-finals, there was no denying it.

But it doesn’t necessary follow, as some fanciful people suggest, that Super Rugby teams are the equal or comparable to the Six Nations teams. I’d still take Italy to beat the Brumbies in Rome; they’d probably maul them off the park.

Yes, you see better skills in Super Rugby, but context is all. There is room to gamble in that competition there just isn’t in the Six Nations, with its constricted schedule and one defeat potentially adding up to a season’s failure.

I think that there’s plenty of skilful players in Northern Hemisphere rugby to match those in the South, but less scope for them to express it. Yes, that’s a question of attitude – specifically in the club game, where demands of economics have stifled creativity, in France and to a lesser degree in England.

But if it were just down to attitudes then why do we have four Southern Hemisphere coaches at the Home Nations at present but precious little of the more open play of the South? Warren Gatland has been here for nearly 10 years and is probably the least inventive coach in the championship.

Also, if the attitude and skills level was that much greater from players in the South every one of them who came to the North for fat contracts would blatantly outshine their team mates and opponents. It simply doesn’t happen.

Are the coaches and players from the South “converted” to the less expressive Northern style? You’d have to say yes but it’s down to expediency.

The weather is a huge factor, even more so during this sodden winter where every ground appears to be quagmire.

The South is not immune to bad weather, of course, but neither is Super Rugby immune to mundane, dull games with lots of mistakes; the Highlanders-Hurricanes, Sharks-Jaguars and the Reds-Force games I watched last week were all pretty poor fare, although not as teeth-clenchingly dreadful as Wales-France or France-Ireland, to be fair.

But although both those 6N games were pretty awful, the tension involved for those with a commitment far outweighed anything you’d see in Super Rugby, save maybe for the play-off stages.

It matters in a way Super Rugby just doesn’t.

Also, there are actually far fewer structural and technical mistakes in those Northern games.

There’s nothing so radical or inventive in Super Rugby other than the sheer force of the likes of the Crusaders’ Nemani Nadolo. But there’s plenty of defensive misalignments and many, many more missed tackles.

This is not meant as a defence of the Six Nations style, more its context. The championship still needs a shake-up – as I noted in a column the other week, it’s become almost as much an “occasion” as a sports event, and that is not a good thing at all.

What to do? Realignment of the season to “summer rugby” isn’t going to happen, sadly. But more hybrid or 3G/4G pitches is absolutely necessary and will at least encourage a faster game in the North.

Rules tweaks, as being trialled in Super Rugby this season, can help. Make the maul more defendable, make refs be a lot less accommodating to time-wasters at the scrum.

Outlaw wholly negative and sometimes dangerous defensive tactics like the chop tackle and the choke tackle. Look to empower the attack rather than the defence.

Bonus points, why not? Give a Grand Slam winner an automatic fourpoint bonus and we won’t get any mathematical anomalies as some fear.

The 6N is not exactly broke, but it could still do with some fixing.

There is room to gamble in Super Rugby that there just isn’t in the 6 Nations

Wales against France in the third round of the 6 Nations last week in Cardiff: “Teeth-clenchingly dull”.