CANADA

Logistically the USA may suffer from the tyranny of distance but in addition to this Canada suffers from the tyranny of climate. Distance has prevented the union from having an interprovincial championship until recently settling for tournaments in a compressed time frame. A championship is aggravated by two thirds of the country being unable to play the game during the 4 winter months. This results in a split season.

Reflect on Canada and Australia and the severity of their climates. Heat and drought would seem to be less detrimental that cold and snow. Could the boundary be moved to the 40^th parallel to make the country less trapped by its climate and less limited sporting options?

In both the USA and Canada rugby suffers from the game’s inability to compete with the professional codes, who guard their territory jealously.

Pragmatically, the Canadians have concentrated their efforts in British Columbia around Vancouver and on the island around Victoria. Climatically it makes sense and the logistics are not too expensive.

Like the Pacific Islands there is every likelihood that investment in high-performance players will result in Canada producing players for export. The cheapest high performance programme for these unions is recruitment into a professional club offshore.

Over the last 10years Canada has had its share of players playing professionally usually in Europe. This is no problem so long as access is not denied when they are selecting for national team games that affect international team rankings and, now, Olympic funding.

While many of us will applaud Olympic inclusion, funding based on ranking and team size can have a detrimental effect on funding if only because previous funding was based on 15 –a-side and now it is based on Seven. This is the case in Canada.

The most vulnerable are the unions on the margin of Rugby World Cup and Olympic inclusion. A change in ranking can greatly affect funding.

National funding in Canada with the inclusion of Sevens and the subsequent reduction in squad numbers greatly affected funding immediately Sevens became an Olympic sport. Given the status of Rugby in Canada, the deficit will have to be made up by the IRB.

In the past the focus on B.C. has led to considerable success as the Canadians have a natural aptitude for physical sports.

The most contradictory aspect of Canadian Rugby is the appointment of ex-patriots to coaching positions. Rick Suggate did a good job in his native land in Sevens and Fifteens but why has a country that has been to the forefront of coach education had to go elsewhere so often.

Underneath it all do they lack confidence or is the talent just not there? Maybe the domination of ex-pats from the UK has prevented them from tapping onto colonial pragmatism that is key to success elsewhere. This pragmatism can have rough edges to get the job done. Does Canada’s political correctness, a great instinct to create a point of difference from the USA, have detrimental effects to their approach to rugby? Canada’s stagnation can be due to all these and more.

Under Keiran Crowley they have maintained their position and Sevens seems to have improved under Gierant John.

The solution is in framing a strategic plan that realistically identifies the optimum mode of play and drives the coaching and playing fraternity to it. They are very decent people which makes this lack of success frustrating.

FRANCE AND EUROPE

Villepreux’s heritage, Laporte’s legacy, France’s current style of play, knee jerk selections, sugar daddy’s dominating club ownership and the influx of ex-pats make France a confused situation.

During my time in Dublin, Europe was for the French to control. Courses would be held in French. Each country had to attend and each had to make a presentation as to the best way for rugby to be played.

This bore no relation to the standard of play in the union and the expertise of the presenter. Each had their time on the podium but most were forgettable. What stood out was the Italian challenge. If the French said “ white” the Italians said “black.”

The Italians case was hampered by their appointment of technical staff through the Italian Olympic movement. They were usually sport general scientists with limited rugby ability. The Italian philosophy was that a deep and extensive knowledge of the principles sport is based on was at the core and that applying this to the range of sports was the best method for sport development. While this hasn’t produced results in Rugby yet, it has in other sports.

There are far more variables than just this that determines success. Playing numbers and access to the best talent come to mind.

In Europe my role was to be a non-threatening IRB presence. In time I was given up to 45 minutes to say what the IRB was doing in development. The delegates sidled up to me when they thought no one from the FFR was watching as they were keen on an alternative approach. My answer had to be in the negative as politically we didn’t want the adversity if the French thought it was an IRB takeover. It was only after a few years that I allowed my French-speaking secretary to make her language ability known. By then I had accumulated enough credit to get a gold medal from FIRA for services to rugby as well as knowing what was really going on. More than I have ever received from the NZRU and IRB.

In the affluent countries of Western Europe Denmark, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal rugby is never going to compete professionally with a code of football’s status.

Just a word about Germany. While I was conducting a course at the rugby centre in Heidelberg I was made aware of the history of the game there. Around the walls were photos of full stadiums attending internationals against France pre-War. The crowd was mainly of men and all seemed to be dressed uniformly, in overcoats and hats. France apparently won the game 14-9 but results during the 1930’s were not one sided. Apparently Hanover was also a stronghold as was Leipzig. Given the nature of Germans rugby it would seem to fit but post-War, no rugby. Just maybe it was associated with the war time regime and became politically incorrect afterwards.

In these countries the universities and clubs of graduates are the basis of the local competitions. The middle class plays the game. This makes it impossible to establish the game professionally as rugby cannot compete with the salaries the players get in their everyday jobs. The working class finds its opportunities predominately in football, as swell as some other sports where they are paid more than rugby can afford. The cost of living means that payments for rugby cannot compete. For this reason it will always be difficult for these countries to raise a real challenge. What could change it is Olympic Sevens.

I guess “doing well at their own level” should be the criteria and anyone with outstanding ability can find a contract in one of the Six Nations unions.

PLAYING THE FRENCH WAY

French coaching is a contradiction in terms. In attack they have had under Antonin, Villepreux and Skrela, the Toulouse philosophy of spreading it when they are bunched and going up the guts when the opposition is spread. Recognizing mismatches, overlaps, misalignment and the use of the extra man comes sub consciously from practices that create real game situations enhancing the player’s ability to read the situation.

In this they are dogmatically laissez faire playing to what is taking place ahead.

The contradiction is in the French not recognizing any other way to play and they are hostile in their insecurity when an alternative is suggested. I first saw Pierre coach in this way in an RFU video and this performance was repeated at Bishem Abbey at the RWC Congress in 1991. It was the same in Portugal some years later and when he conducted sessions as part of the IRB team. No one questions his ability and the effectiveness of the method in developing attack. My only criticism is that one model doesn’t fit all.

La Porte changed this and his legacy has been to remove it so that the French are playing safety-first rugby, like many of the others, not like the French we knew. Indeed, the French development staff for Europe were not in support of La Porte’s methods and they would sooner have France lose than play so differently, contrary to the Toulouse philosophy that had served them so well. The French no longer have a point of difference but it will be there in their sub-conscious, latent, waiting to be tapped.

I have said that all the Toulouse based practices I have seen were always the same. I’m told that the complementary staff were there to get the ball and if they don’t get it to coach defence. Maybe we just don’t see this or they just didn’t bother telling you about this or we see what we want to see. After all their attack is based on getting the ball and the French scrum is seldom bettered. Phase play is not for the faint of heart.

Unlike some countries they would appear to lack attention to detail and the pragmatism to get the job done. It is not fearful of failure but “that’s life – c’est la vie.”

What is happening now, maybe because of overseas coaches and players in the professional league, is a more structured approach, but with little flair.

It is ironic that the same thing threatens the Pacific Island team’s. There is a likelihood that they are losing their rugby identity, with so many playing offshore, especially in the northern hemisphere. Their optimum mode of play needs to be reinstated to establish their point of difference to develop a soundly based style that taps their strengths and is not copying others.

The other characteristic of French rugby, which is also a contradiction, is the amount of foul play.

“But that’s the way we play the game in France.”

Upon expressing a wish to watch a few weeks of rugby in South West France, Pierre Camus, now president of the French Federation and part of a strong Basque influence on the game, told me I may see the best, I may see some of the worst, but I would definitely see some of the dirtiest.

Anecdotes such as lights going out in the tunnel and by the time they were turned on, the key players in the opposition had been flattened, proving your manhood by gouging and testicle pulling seem all to be part of the French game. The number of cameras filming at the top level have provided a deterrent.

This was brought home by the frequency with which French players were in front of the European Cup judiciary.

The incident I remember most was the actions of the Pau halfback, who was celebrated in the city after a head-butt on Frano Botica’s jaw, as he was tied up in a maul in possession. The intent was to encourage him to let the ball go. The real irony was Francois Palmier’s defence as a member of the judiciary.

“But that’s the way we play the game in France.”

The Super 14, European Cup, Six Nations and other games that are televised have cleaned their act up. But remember Cheng Chou Ping’s comment on the impact of the French Revolution on French society

“It’s too early to tell.”

It’s too early to tell if the game in France has really cleaned its act up at all levels.

For me, this is both hypocritical and unnecessary as the nation has been able to express its way of playing in a unique and entertaining way – laissez faire, saviour faire, joie de vivre along with c’est la vie haven’t been borrowed by unions elsewhere for nothing. They are the verbal expression of a truly unique attitude towards the game followed by

“Voulez vous couche avec moi ce soir”.

Other advantages they have are playing numbers, strong local parochial support, especially in the South West and state help with the government funding 55 development officers.

They now have backers that are offering salaries incomparable elsewhere.

Why has the game flourished in the South West in particular? It appears to be a combination of the south west being where wounded POWs convalesced during World War I and the Brits holidaying in Biarritz as a cheaper version of the Mediterranean Riviera.

So what do the French contribute? They contribute inconsistency and, when they are “on” they are capable of beating anyone. When they are not “on” they demonstrate alarming disinterest.

They contribute a philosophy that looks at the big picture, the overall concept of the game and its dynamicism. They recognize the need to have a vision and a shared philosophy that will achieve the vision. And the philosophy is a dynamic one related to the ball in motion.

As a result, they start at the “why we are playing this game” and the “what do we have to do to express ourselves in this way” while elsewhere the focus is on the “how” the nuts and bolts. The focus is empowering allowing the players to play in context so that having defined why and what they offer options as to how. Their failing is lack of attention to detail.

Other major unions focusing on “how” provide the detail but not the context. This has prevented players having input into why and what, these being assumed. What now seems to be occurring is those who have been used to the didactic approach are moving towards the laissez faire while in France and Italy the game is becoming more prescriptive.

It is hoped that things don’t become doctrinaire and that the game is played to make optimum use of the bundle of talent available. This has to be built on a national approach using local talent and will not be achieved by division, by autonomous clubs owned by philanthropists using offshore players and coaches. The French have to decide if the national team is the pinnacle of French rugby with all contributing and sacrificing to this end.

An adjunct to this is the need to make the Labour Laws of the European Union compatible with international rugby being the pinnacle of the game and not club affiliation with the free movement of labour to and from wherever that may be. The situation is aggravated elsewhere in the game with the free entry of players from less developed regions of the world to play in European rugby. These regions include the Caribbean, the Pacific Islands and Africa including South Africa. When economic criteria are all encompassing and include other aspects of life it can lead to distortions.

Included in this is the modification of Regulation 8 that would allow players from the very top unions to play for unions with which the players have ethnicity, once they have passed their sell by date. Conformity to European Law has been used by the threatened unions, the Celts, to prevent this. Will Olympic eligibility overcome this?

Of the other European unions with which I am familiar the game cannot be separated from the 20th century history of the continent.

The university middle-class, the professions and tradition are characteristics of the game throughout Western Europe. And of course the amateur ethos that didn’t encourage the athletes of the great unwashed to play the game.

It may not have happened in other countries in White Russia but history did have an impact on the game in Latvia. What you may ask did happen that affected the development of rugby?

Once the Soviets took over, their paranoia resulting in them using forced migration to dump Russians in Latvia and transport ethnic Latvians elsewhere probably far to the east and north.

In 1937 and 1946 Stalin put Russians on trains and took them to Latvia. In order to have a full return trip Latvians were put on these trains and taken to Russia, maybe Siberia. So, if you had not been disturbed overnight, you woke up the next morning with new neighbours who spoke differently. The impact on rugby was to create a divided sport based on which group you were part of.

I’m told that the game in Romania is effected by division between the army and the police. They make up the national team, but they don’t want to have anything to do with each other otherwise. When I was there they were getting over the legacy of communism and the cadres of informers who made it impossible to talk indoors without being bugged. Ross Cooper struck this many years earlier, they would talk to him on the field but not elsewhere.

The other legacy was that of the team that toured New Zealand in the 1980s, and who got reasonably close to New Zealand “A” in the final game. Since that time these players have assumed dominance in the union creating negativity towards the current crop of players.

There was also a period under the captaincy of Viorel Morariu in which they were very successful against France and Italy. As often happens in unions who have who have had glory days that are difficult to duplicate succeeding teams suffer from this negativity.

 

 

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