>> The Chris Hewett column
If Italy are not all washed up as a permanent member of the Six Nations elite – a sporting society so exclusive, it makes the Hurlingham Club look like a welfare institute – they are surely drifting in on the tide. The last time the Azzurri tasted victory in a tournament that never tires of labelling itself the “greatest in the world”, England’s top brass were still united in the belief that Sam Burgess was the answer to all their prayers. Yes, it was that long ago.
Since their 2015 win at Murrayfield, the Italians have lost 32 straight by an average score of 41-13, and have harvested the grand total of one bonus point: a losing credit for finishing within a score of the Scots (them again) three years ago. More damningly still, they are almost always involved in the curtain-raiser when it comes to the “Super Saturday” finale.
We, the people, are deemed unworthy of explanations when it comes to television scheduling, but we hardly need someone dressed in a deerstalker hat to solve this particular mystery. Broadcasters crave the dramatic rush of unpredictability, and there is very little of that commodity to be had from a two-horse race in which only one is likely to find its way out of the stalls.
Below international level, the story is every bit as bleak. There will be no Italian presence in next season’s Champions Cup, for the third time in four years, and even had one of Italy’s two professional teams managed to qualify, no one would have noticed. Three victories in 54 outings since 2012? On those figures, Benetton should consider a rebranding exercise. Topshop Treviso sounds about right.
Yet just last month, a £365m investment deal with the private equity group CVC secured Italy’s position as a Six Nations “stakeholder” until 2026 or thereabouts. Five more years of carefree under-performance beckons, free of all jeopardy for the movers and shakers in Rome. When you cannot lose off the field, why worry about defeat on it?
Meanwhile, the more vibrant rugby nations of Eastern Europe remain on the outside looking in, unable to break down the barriers of privilege and status raised against them by a sport still entangled in its own feudalism.
A week ago, Georgia played Romania in a “Six Nations B” match before a socially distanced but wildly enthusiastic crowd in Tbilisi. The home side were expected to prevail – they lose annual tournament games as often as Italy win them – and sure enough, they made it over the line despite the early red card shown to their hooker, Shalva Mamukashvili, for a collector’s item of a high tackle.
But that was not the half of it. The rugby was as entertaining and bitterly contested as anything seen in the France-Wales and France-Scotland games at the back end of the Six Nations proper, and was far more
“Fair-mindedness dictates that Georgia deserve at least a shot at promotion”
vivid than the grey Ireland-England game in Dublin.
Certainly, it changed the mind of this columnist, who has spent years supporting Italy’s place in the Six Nations through thin and thinner. Basic fair-mindedness dictates that Georgia deserve at least a shot at promotion.
It is now four years since they lost in the “B” competition and they are three places ahead of Italy in the latest world rankings. When they stood in for Japan at last year’s Autumn Nations Cup, their three defeats against Six Nations opposition were by an average score of 27-3, which said something for their defensive attributes, if not for their attacking capabilities.
In addition, they have a bunch of players on the rosters of such ambitious Top 14 clubs as Racing 92, Stade Francais, Toulon, Montpellier and Bordeaux-Begles and have established a presence at Gloucester, Leicester and Wasps. Put all this together and their treatment by rugby’s governing class is impossible to justify.
But that’s the problem, right there. The Six Nations is to all intents and purposes privately owned by its membership, who run it as and how they like.
If the “stakeholders” want to keep Italy in the huddle and Georgia on the touchline because they prefer long weekends in Rome to short ones in Tbilisi – joking aside, there are influential rugby folk who really do see the argument in these reductive terms – there is next to nothing the sport’s wider administration can do about it.
Which is wrong. Flat-earth wrong. As the two-time Lions captain Sam Warburton, among the most fluent and enlightening of the new generation of television pundits, could be heard arguing after a 50-point blowout against the French, the case for a continuation of the closed shop can no longer be made.
“Enough is enough,” he said. “They’re just not good enough at this level. How do we know what the growth in Europe will be like if we constantly have a glass ceiling?”
Warburton’s plea for an open doorway, in the form of a play-off between bottom of “A” and top of “B”, struck a chord. Who knows? The idea might have grown some legs, but for CVC and their money.
Sadly, we are where we are. And Georgia are where they are. Which is nowhere.