I ‘m currently reading
the 2013 Wisden, which is the 150th volume of this most
quintessential collection of cricket writing, scores, analysis and commentary.
I was introduced to the glories of the
yellow-jacket compendium by my father when I was a teenager and ever since have
regularly dipped into them over the following 30 years. What always interests
me is the way cricket writing extends the conversation into all aspects of
life. Cricket writing, like the writing on baseball in America, manages to
extend its discussion into a wider discussion of society, character, history,
culture and identity. Football also manages to extend itself from the pitch
into the wider society- most often to discuss class, tribalism and
increasingly, geo-capitalism. Rugby writing however, is too often mired in game
reports and the type of analysis that has dominates talkback radio. Is this due
to the game itself, the player and the fans- or has, most often in New Zealand,
the type of writing and analysis excluded those who may seek more? As I stated
last year when I started this blog, I wanted to take the writing and thinking
about rugby in different types of discussion.
I am pleased to see the types of
discussion now occurring the New Zealand herald rugby columns, and there are
occasional glimpses of home on the rugby heaven, the roar and Espn sites. But
more could be done, and done better…
Therefore in this blog I will continue
to try to think and write on more than just the game on the field.
So what has occurred in Super Rugby
recently.
The most interesting thing is the way we
are suddenly confronted with the possibility of a 17-team Super Rugby season,
now to involve another South African team and one from Argentina. There has
been understandable reaction against such an expansion often with calls to support
Pacific Island rugby by including a team representing that region. But is the issue
actually something bigger that hasn’t really been engaged with: the expansion
is because Super Rugby actually isn’t working- and can’t work because it
involves 3 conferences and 3 countries.
There is a central
tension emerging in super rugby: the fans like the local derbies but the
players don’t, especially the New Zealand teams, because of their physical
intensity. The games against Australian and South African teams generally lack
interest and meaning except for what impact they have on the points table.
Super Rugby is faced with a crisis- what is the pay-off between capitalism and
meaning? What we don’t want to see is the equivalent of that sorry spectacle of
cricket matches played primarily for a television audience in front of
half-empty or emptier stadiums. Yet super rugby is increasingly heading that
way, especially outside of South Africa. In New Zealand and Australia the local
derbies do bring out the fans, for these matches do still create and sustain
meaning. But once Australian and South African teams come to New Zealand the
stadiums start to empty and the game as televised contest takes precedence. To
try and halt this we see a desperate push for pre-match and half-time
entertainment in which live rugby at the ground becomes part of a wider
entertainment package and spectacle.
Is the issue therefore
one of Super Rugby which has expanded itself to the point of dilution? What makes
sports meaningful is the contest involved and what it means to the supporters
and players, and the quality of the players on view.
Super Rugby may have quality players,
but most of the games are increasingly meaningless to most supporters. The joy
of a local derby is that it is meaningful on a tribal, contextual and visceral
level. In short, it is a type of war of regional identity increasingly played
by mercenaries. But the fans too
are increasingly mercenary. Consider the way Taranaki has relocated its Super Rugby identity into the Chiefs, not
only because the Chiefs are successful in a way the Hurricanes can never hope
to achieve, but also because of the financial windfalls they believe, as a
region, are associated with such a shift in identity. To be able to cheer
against your old team in the name of financial windfalls, as Taranaki
supporters are now urged to do, exposes the financial basis of Super Rugby in a
very stark way. In a similar way we see players stating loyalty to their
provincial union in the ITM cup but deciding to play against their super rugby
franchise by signing for a team outside that which their province feeds into.
Some might say this is professionalism, but is it is a very strange type of
professionalism that Super Rugby has created in New Zealand. The problem with Super Rugby here is
that it is not city-based, rather attempting to carry over a notion of
representing a region that supplants traditional regional and city identities.
The franchises attempt to claim
they represent a collection of regions and occasionally take games to their
provincial outposts. Yet most of the games are played in a central location
that is meant to somehow represent not only the collective regions but also the
players and fans. But the players can and do come from all over the country for
the Super Rugby season and then many return to other regions, often outside of
their super rugby region, to live the rest of the year and play in the ITM Cup.
This is perhaps seen most clearly in the perpetual problem of the Hurricanes
who attempt to cover and represent locations that traditionally opposed each other.
Likewise it could be argued that the Highlanders were most successful when they
were a Dunedin team composed primarily of local players and those who came to
Dunedin to study and play rugby. They were then the Dunedin team in its truest
sense. The Blues as a team and as a franchise suffer an on-going crisis of
identity and meaning. They are the face of a New Zealand rugby professionalism
whereby the game itself seems increasingly secondary to the notion and identity
of playing professional rugby.
As for the Crusaders
and the Chiefs, they expose the crucial difference played by coaching and
management in the modern game. The
players are, in professional team sport, mostly only as good as the coaches and
management both get them and allow them to be. Coaches choose teams and manage them and on the field the
true results of that coaching and management come into stark relief. This was
very clear in the Crusaders- Chiefs game. Yes the difference was evident on the
field, but this represented the differences made by the coaching and management
staff. What players were chosen and who they chose and were instructed to play-
and to what degree could they play was starkly evident.
It was not, in the end about the
kicking, it was about the coaching and the players chosen and the type of team
culture that develops within the abilities and limitations of the players. Most
of the Chiefs team over the past 2 years would, as individuals, never have made
a list of the top players- nor have played for the All Blacks. But as a unit
expressing the coaching philosophy and team management they are superb as a
professional team. The Crusaders on the other had expose a central limitation
in the coaching and management of the franchise.
Already the signs are
there that the Crusaders need a new coach and management team.
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