Gatland swaps Six Nations for season of mediocrity
Life in shambolic Super Rugby will be a comedown from coaching Wales, writes James Corrigan
The effect of this mania of tinkering was an inevitable dilution in the quality
If it has seemed odd at the Vale of Glamorgan training camp this week with a Warren Gatland-size hole in Wales’s Six Nations build-up – and it truly has – then imagine how Gatland, himself, must have been feeling.
This is the first time in 14 years that the 56-yearold has not been pulling the strings and priming the wings in that hulking hotel on the edge of Cardiff. However, not only has he been minus the hype and intrigue that characterises the countdown to rugby union’s best annual championship, but he has found himself in the midst of a fresh Super Rugby season that already has shambles written all over it.
Tomorrow morning, Gatland’s Waikato Chiefs travel to Auckland in the competition’s opener and Eden Park is sure to provide a rousing reception for the returning Kiwi, who was last in the 50,000 capacity stadium as the British and Irons Lions coach for that 15-15 nail-biter against New Zealand in 2017. Yet below the commotion and emotion, it will be eminently possible to spot the huge cracks in a tournament that was once laughably referred to as the finest spectacle in the 15-man code.
It was called Super 12 back then and, although it was a bit “basketbally” for some of us – “we score up your end, before you score down ours” – there was no denying its appeal. It featured the superstars of the southern hemisphere, had a wonderfully simple format and ran only from February to May.
It aspired to be the NFL season without the padding and, for a while, it was on track. But then, as invariably happens in a pursuit that many forget is still relatively new to the professional world, the organisers hauled that goose laying the golden eggs on to the slab and thrust a cleaver in its nether regions. They expanded.
The Super 12 became the Super 14 and when they got away with that, they went to 15 and then 18. The fun need never end. Yes, at times, it seemed that the season would never end and something had to give.
That was the players’ welfare. Then they ransomed off the integrity of the contest as well, dividing it into three conferences that ensured that each of the Sanzaar nations would have at least one quarter-finalist.
Well, you need to spread the joy around and cannot possibly have a situation in which Australia and/or South Africa were not represented in the knockout stages. What would that do to the TV audiences and sponsorship contracts?
Of course, the effect of this mania of tinkering was an inevitable dilution in the quality. It reached the point last year when the falling attendances began to be caught by the fall in viewing figures and thus they pandered to the TV corporations yet again and told the Sunwolves – in midcampaign – that they would be closed at the end of this season.
Putting a sports team on death row is never the best for morale, but in their desperation to reclaim the good times they panicked. And what happened next? Japan, the host country, became the story of the 2019 World Cup, beating Ireland and Scotland to reach the quarter-finals and the union world pledged to build on the success of the “Brave Blossoms” and establish Japan as a rugby hothouse.
Except the problem was that the Sunwolves are a Japanese franchise based in Tokyo. Sanzaar had already set the guillotine into motion.
So, this season, the Sunwolves do not boast a single member of Japan’s World Cup heroes. Because, to be frank, what is the point?
Meanwhile, with the big names ageing and interest dwindling, two-thirds of the squad who won South Africa the Webb Ellis Cup are playing in leagues elsewhere and a powerhouse such as the Crusaders have lost the likes of Kieran Read, Owen Franks, Matt Todd and Sam Whitelock.
Mediocrity abounds and still they have to play in this daft conference system until the TV deal concludes in June. It is a pitiful, palpable mess.
Poor Gatland. Out the frying pan, into the dire.