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Before crying foul, don't forget what international rugby is
By Ben Smith
Is it the job of tier one nations to develop and support tier two countries into genuine threats to their own competitiveness?
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They all would quietly decline to answer that whilst probably thinking no, it isn’t. Their interests lie in their own jurisdiction where they set out to grow and further the game for the betterment of their national interests.
That is because international rugby is not a professional league that aims to level out parity between teams with oversight and intervention.
There are no salary caps to level the playing field, or measures to distribute players around fairly. This is about largely free and unbridled competition to find the best in the world.
Without intervention natural laws of power take over and we get concentration of power with the few. This is nothing new in sport, the English premier league has the big clubs and then everyone else. In society at large, distribution of wealth across the world is fiercely uneven between the top and the bottom.
The question at Rugby World Cups always gets raised, how can tier two countries be more competitive? Well, the only answer is to add more tier two or tier three level countries into the mix.
‘Closing the gap’ with tier one is an unattainable and near-impossible task when the tier one countries are advancing forward all the time with self-sustaining resources, financial and non-financial.
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Based on one-sided score lines the ‘more must be done’ rhetoric is trotted out, but what must be done exactly?
More fixtures is a common answer but is an unproven solution. Take Italy for example, who receive plenty of tier one fixtures as a member of the Six Nations. They host top Southern Hemisphere teams in the November window. They number in their W column barely moves while the losses pile up.
Despite being categorised as tier one they are perform as well, or in this case as poorly, as any tier two nation would.
Georgia’s pool at this World Cup included Australia, Fiji, Portugal, and Wales. They haven’t been able to win a game and this schedule is friendlier than what they would face in the Six Nations.
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Replacing Italy with Georgia would not make the Six Nations more competitive. Georgia might get better with Six Nations competition but you won’t see it on the scoreboard. They would go well to win a few games over a decade.
Conversely, Fiji beat Australia in pool play. They did so with far less tier one fixtures over the last four years. It wasn’t playing more or less internationals that proved a difference.
Simply put, more fixtures against tier one alone won’t do anything for tier two nations in terms of improving score lines and competitiveness. It will only highlight the natural gap between the strong and the weak rugby nations.
A lot is being done already, a number of the tier two teams receive significant funding from World Rugby to grow and further the game.
The success of those initiatives can’t be measured solely on results against powerhouse rugby nations.
In a way, the nations that need help and funding from an external source are destined to remain at the bottom. More help and more funding only anchors them to where they are with inflexibility and dependence, because it is a sign that progress in building a self-sustaining system is not being made.
Nothing can ever be force-fed to success if you aspire to reach the upper echelons of the market. A poor business can’t just succeed because it has unlimited financial backing. At some point, it has to turn a profit on its own.
This doesn’t mean that World Rugby should turn the taps off, but that ultimately the game has to become self-sustaining in whatever territory it aspires to be in.
Not every emerging nation is in the same place either and it is folly to bucket Fiji in the same category as Romania.
The results of Japan and Fiji over the last two World Cups justify discussion of inclusion into an expanded Rugby Championship.
Fiji’s playing base is spread between France and Super Rugby Pacific. The players are exposed to a high level of competition and they produce natural athletes. They are well supported at home. Fiji hosting the Rugby Championship teams would be a worthy blockbuster.
If big broadcasting money rolls into Fiji, they have to be equipped to manage it and a fair share has to make it to the players.
Japan hasn’t been able to maintain the on-field success it achieved at the 2019 Rugby World Cup, but they bring a large audience, capable infrastructure, and a domestic professional league to underpin their continued growth.
The Brave Blossoms will be well supported in Japan and sell out stadiums regardless of how competitive they are. The cultural diversity adds a unique flavour that the Rugby Championship could benefit from.
There have been some standout showings at this Rugby World Cup from others. Uruguay have been competitive, Portugal too.
But the international game isn’t supposed to be interfered with to manufacture close results. It is by design about natural selection.
When there are no regulations in place to even the playing field, power will always accumulate with the few. That is human nature, it is present everywhere and you would have to heavily regulate and upend the international game to fight against it.
You would have to hamstring the top nations from moving forward, further dilute national representation by allowing more player movement. Is that really desired?
Even so, at the top we have more teams that can win it than ever before. Progress has been made to close the gap between tier ones.
Ireland and France both went out in the quarter-finals last time and have powered through to become the top two men’s sides in the world. This is backed by tangible results at junior and senior levels.
New Zealand and South Africa who have six World Cups between them have both lost pool games for the first time ever.
Wales and England aren’t favoured but are traditional rugby nations who are tailored to knockout rugby. They are both undefeated in Pools C and D.
For 16 years the Rugby World Cup has been won by two countries. If there is a new winner in 2023, how is that not progress as a more competitive game?
I have to agree with Ben. See, he can write decent articles if he stops writing clickbait trash about the Boks.
Both lost pool have for the 1st time ever? Ignoring the boks loss in Japan? This world cup is the best ever at unresearched articles.
So NZ and SA lose a pool games to France and Ireland whilst England and Wales look okay (no mention of Australia) and this is the example of a healthy sport that is developing competitively?
No one wants to say it, but the biggest factor determining who wins the World Cup is the draw.
Genuinely don't know how this piece got published. Is the author reading Darwin currently?
How can you look at how professional rugby has developed and say this is "natural laws of power" at work? Or that competitive imbalances are "laws of nature"?
The laws and regulations that govern international rugby are written by men and they are written to benefit the big nations. They did not crawl out of the ocean and through competition develop naturally.
How can we even entertain this idea when it is plain to see that so much talent comes out of the Pacific Islands but we see those players wearing the uniforms of NZ, Aus, Engl, and Ire?
I just hope the author quickly moves on from Darwin and we see a Kropotkin influenced article about how mutual aid is the future.
ahhh - I think it is South Africa's THIRD pool loss... but it might be 4. It happens so often for them I've kind of forgotten.
Ben your argument defeats itself. For the game to grow and become self sustaining it needs money as you say and what better way to earn money than play against big teams with wide TV audiences. You need to raise awareness in these countries so it can spread to the masses and become the sport of choice over other codes or at least attract sponsorship and new athletes in these nations to make it self sustaining. How can you do this without exposure to powerful global forces. In order to democratise rugby you need to get more people involved in different markets. You need a more open system. Openness leads to growth and growth leads to profits. Lets open up the game to grow it for the betterment of the game as a whole.
Ben Smith at his best. No doubt that he would not want any of the Island teams improve to such an extent that they rival teams such as All Blacks and Australia as this would seriously weaken the above two rugby nations.
Can you imagine the effect a viable option, financially, of having Samoa, Fiji and Tonga keeping their own players would have on the All Blacks and Wallabies
Easily one of the worst pieces I have ever read on this site. This neoliberal argument conveniently forgets that several of the tier 1 countries are what they are not because of some invisible high performance hand but because they can attract foreign players with professional contracts and naturalize them via WR's absurd eligibility laws. Take Scotland for example, an ensemble of players born and raised outside of Scotland with a bias towards saffas. Or Ireland, with three kiwis in their starting backline. Or see how the "Home Nations" have exploited the ridiculous grandparent rule to their benefit, in a sport sp anglocentric where plenty of aussies and kiwis can claim british heritage and jump ship. Meanwhile, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, South Africa and Georgia try their best to compete with their own players. U20s rugby is a better example of meritocracy, where Scotland can't rely on foreigners and are duly beaten by the likes of Spain and Uruguay. I am truly sick of this dumb rhetoric, it only serves to maintain tha statu quo
I did not see strong logic behind author's arguments. The cases of Italy and Fiji show that more fixtures against tier one might go either way. Therefore, there is no universal solution of the problem. However, the author conclusions are dubious, even stupid. The last sentence is a prefect example of alogism.
I’m so glad BS ventured to write this, confirms he not only has the rationality of a crustacean anent SA.