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Rugby should ditch the culture woo-woo

(Photo credit should read DIBYANGSHU SARKAR/AFP via Getty Images)

In times of plenty, strange things happen. During the Dot-com boom, thrusting young creatives started laying waste to business orthodoxy. Employees became “team members” or “rockstars” and whole new lexicons emerged. Companies no longer delivered anything nearly as dull as a product – they now provided their customers with nebulous concepts like “delightification”.

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There became an obsession with culture above all else. As one account goes, a CEO brought a toy bear into the office to represent customers. When decisions were made, they were made with the bear in the room because he represented the end consumer.

Astonishingly it was not just the eulogizing founders that believed their own hype but hard-nosed investors. Successful men that understood business poured billions into organizations that never made a penny.

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France assistant coach Shaun Edwards joins us to discuss where the recent win over the All Blacks ranks in the list of special days he’s had as a coach, what it’s like working with Fabien Galthie, the need to win something, overcoming the language barrier, Gael Fickou’s role as defensive captain, Antoine Dupont’s freakish ability, the recent law changes and eligibility ruling and much more. Plus, we look ahead to the start of the Champions Cup this weekend and we pick our MEATER Moment of the Week…
Use the code FRENCHPOD10 at checkout for 10% off any full price item at Meater.com

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We got to speak to the man behind the resurgence of France rugby | Le French Rugby Podcast | Episode 9

France assistant coach Shaun Edwards joins us to discuss where the recent win over the All Blacks ranks in the list of special days he’s had as a coach, what it’s like working with Fabien Galthie, the need to win something, overcoming the language barrier, Gael Fickou’s role as defensive captain, Antoine Dupont’s freakish ability, the recent law changes and eligibility ruling and much more. Plus, we look ahead to the start of the Champions Cup this weekend and we pick our MEATER Moment of the Week…
Use the code FRENCHPOD10 at checkout for 10% off any full price item at Meater.com

Some of the more astute readers of this article may already be making the link between bringing bears to work, obsessing about culture and reinventing names (‘game changers’ anyone?) and rugby.

These swashbuckling venture capitalists were not the first wealthy men to get drawn in by the hubris of chasing a dream, many Gallagher Premiership owners might be getting sweaty palms upon realizing the parallels.

As the tides of money receded in the tech world, common sense was restored. Unsurprisingly most businesses didn’t break any paradigms and the ones that did were extremely rare. So, what to make of the paradigm breakers in rugby?

Covid forced Premier Rugby Ltd to reduce its salary cap by a whopping 25 per cent in 2020 but it is only this year its effects are really being felt.

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Historically clubs that spent up to the salary cap, and in some cases beyond, were most likely to make the top four and the low spending clubs had a readymade excuse.

This distortion of the competition made it easier for directors of rugby to focus on the things that did not necessarily make their team better. In other words, was it the wolves at training that won all the trophies or was it the money Saracens lavished on a squad of megastars via the improper use of property deals and image rights? We will never know.

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Harlequins Lam” width=”1200″ height=”676″ /> (Photo by Dan Mullan/Getty Images)

The cultural pathogen let loose into the Premiership has infected almost all before them.

Alex Sanderson constantly talks about emotion and culture, it’s not that either of these things are unimportant but how do you measure them?

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Pat Lam has decided writing the word ‘Love’ everywhere will somehow make you push harder and scrum better or something.

Stuart Hooper, bless him, is available to give management talks to senior business executives and sees some elements of the game of rugby as ‘globally important’.

Jonathan Thomas talks about the ‘Warrior spirit’, which from what I can tell is nothing more than a cute play on words.

And how can anyone forget Paul Gustard’s stint at Harlequins. Introducing a bear to the training ground and landing two multimillion-pound attack helicopters on one of the pitches. One has to wonder if only he arranged for three helicopters rather than two would he also be a Premiership champion now?

It’s not that this stuff is bad – sport is often more than just about winning. Journalists and writers lap up quotes about vulnerability or some new trendy fad because it gets people engaged and talking. The real question is how much do you need to give up focusing on these things?

Rugby is an unusual game in the sense that no team can master every aspect of the sport. In the spirit of the fish producer John West, it’s not what they put in the tin, it’s what they leave out.

The reason there is almost no perfectly rounded team is not that the players do not exist. It’s because there are simply not enough hours in the week to coach every aspect of the game so what are your priorities?

Would you like to be a superb defensive team? Or just a good defensive team so you have time to work on your lineouts?

Deciding which blocks of time get dedicated to which aspects of the game really is the art of being a director of rugby and now that the league it’s so competitive, how many blocks of time would you like to give up to pilates or negotiating with the local zoo to get some wolves to the training ground?

Chris Boyd the director of rugby at Northampton credits a lot of his team success in New Zealand to constantly prioritizing doing basic skills under pressure every training session. Now in the Premiership, he acknowledges having a world class set piece is essential in northern hemisphere rugby. Balancing these priorities will, to a large extent, decide how successful his reign at The Gardens will be.

As it stands, the Premiership’s culture vultures are pecking around for scraps at the bottom of the table this season. So, if non-tangible, esoteric, rugby adjacent activities don’t work, why on earth do such well-qualified men persist with them?

16 May 1999: Graham Rowntree, Richard Cockerill and Darren Garforth of Leicester celebrates with the trophy after Leicester won the Allied Dunbar Premiership One match against West Hartlepool played at Welford in Leicester, England. Leicester won the game 72-37. Credit: David Rogers /Allsport

Firstly, directors of rugby are well-paid men doing a dream job. So best show up with a point of difference. Besides, gurus need some sort of mystique, right?

This might not be a bad idea, particularly, if all of your players believe it but what happens when some suspect that rugby Santa isn’t real?

How do you give up on the thing that you said is most important to your team and not look like a fraud?

The guru mentality is not limited to pro rugby, it’s pervasive at grassroots level too. Coaches sagely counsel that having fun “drives participation”. They invent games with only the slightest relevance to winning games or indeed rugby itself.

You might play a game involving a tennis ball, six players a side and a complex scoring system involving throwing the ball forward. It can be reasonably fun but afterward sat in your car, you question “did I really get better at rugby today?”

Like a diet of processed white carbs, it’s satiating at the time but what the soul of a player really wants is the substantial nourishing meat of rugby.

Teaching something as dull as ball placement or latching holds no real kudos for a “trailblazing” coach. The basics are too boring, and the details are too difficult.

Of course, all this nonsense is exposed under the white-hot weekend heat of competition and this is no different in professional rugby. So why is it being exposed this year rather than in previous years?

At the height of the pandemic Premier Rugby decided to cut the salary cap by 25 per cent.

The argument was to make rugby sustainable. This is a valid reason but the real consequence, which very few people, including myself saw, was the increase in competitiveness across the league.

As teams chipped away and sculpted a leaner squad to meet the new leaner salary cap regulations, the maximum spend started to look a little bit more like the minimum spend with more and more teams getting closer to the salary cap limit. In other words, there is more parity across the competition.

Like a state-owned monopoly exposed to free-market competition for the first time or an indigenous species meeting an invasive predator, competition is exposing what works and what doesn’t.

Coaches that focus relentlessly on details have been the stars of this season. Steve Borthwick of Leicester Tigers openly says he concentrates on “breakdown defense and set-piece”. It might be boring but how boring is being unbeaten really? George Skivington is another relentlessly focusing on lineouts and defense.

Exeter have known it’s all about the rugby for a long time, when they introduce a gimmick it’s always rugby-based: the running exit, opting for the kick to corner rather than the kick to posts, the 5m tap and go.

Culture should be a by-product not a target. If your cultural leader talks about culture, do you really have it? It’s sort of like exclaiming that the atmosphere at a party is good, hoping people will believe it.

Will culture disappear? No, but certainly some of the gloss was removed after the Saracens salary cap scandal and looking at the table this year no doubt it will be less of a priority.

The Premiership is a copy and paste league: if it works in one club then expect the next club to try it until the concept is exhausted. At that point expect novelty handshakes, zoo animals, wall slogans and attack helicopters to all come back with a vengeance.

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2 Comments
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gefitz 1057 days ago

This is fair...but focus upon "culture" (real or not, and that's another article altogether so I won't comment on that eh?) is one differentiating factor that rugby has to offer to fans of other sports. In countries where competition for eyes is rough (looking in your direction, North America), any differentiation helps.

e
eric 1057 days ago

This is like the Anti-Ted Lasso article. Don't get me wrong, I love Ted Lasso, but I agree with what they're saying. Having been in the Army, it's akin to when we get a new commander. Almost every time, they'd come in and have to assert their "way of doing things", just like culture in the above article, and invariably, it changed nothing.

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Oh no, not him again? 2 hours ago
England internationals disagree on final play execution vs All Blacks

Okay, so we blew it big time on Saturday. So rather than repeating what most people have all ready said, what do I want to see from Borthwick going forward?


Let's keep Marcus Smith on the pitch if he's fit and playing well. I was really pleased with his goal kicking. It used to be his weakness. I feel sympathy for George Ford who hadn't kicked all match and then had a kick to win the game. You hear pundits and commentators commend kickers who have come off the bench and pulled that off. Its not easy. If Steve B continues to substitute players with no clear reason then he is going to get criticised.


On paper I thought England would beat NZ if they played to their potential and didn't show NZ too much respect. Okay, the off the ball tackles certainly stopped England scoring tries, but I would have liked to see more smashing over gainlines and less kicking for position. Yes, I also know it's the Springbok endorsed world cup double winning formula but the Kiwi defence isn't the Bok defence, is it. If you have the power to put Smith on the front foot then why muzzle him? I guess what I'm saying is back, yourself. Why give the momentum to a team like NZ? Why feed the beast? Don't give the ball to NZ. Well d'uh.


Our scrum is a long term weakness. If you are going to play Itoje then he needs an ogre next door and a decent front row. Where is our third world class lock? Where are are realible front row bench replacements? The England scrum has been flakey for a while now. It blows hot and cold. Our front five bench is not world class.


On the positive side I love our starting backrow right now. I'd like to see them stick together through to the next world cup.


Anyway, there is always another Saturday.

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C
CO 2 hours ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Robertson is more a manager of coaches than a coach so it comes down to intent of outcomes at a high level. I like his intent, I like the fact his Allblacks are really driving the outcomes however as he's pointed out the high error rates are not test level and their control of the game is driving both wins and losses. England didn't have to play a lot of rugby, they made far fewer mistakes and were extremely unlucky not to win.


In fact the English team were very early in their season and should've been comfortably beaten by an Allblacks team that had played multiple tests together.


Razor has himself recognised that to be the best they'll have to sort out the crisis levels of mistakes that have really increased since the first two tests against England.


Early tackles were a classic example of hyper enthusiasm to not give an inch, that passion that Razor has achieved is going to be formidable once the unforced errors are eliminated.


That's his secret, he's already rebuilt the passion and that's the most important aspect, its inevitable that he'll now eradicate the unforced errors. When that happens a fellow tier one nation is going to get thrashed. I don't think it will be until 2025 though.


The Allblacks will lose both tests against Ireland and France if they play high error rates rugby like they did against England.


To get the unforced errors under control he's going to be needing to handover the number eight role to Sititi and reset expectations of what loose forwards do. Establish a clear distinction with a large, swarthy lineout jumper at six that is a feared runner and dominant tackler and a turnover specialist at seven that is abrasive in contact. He'll then need to build depth behind the three starters and ruthlessly select for that group to be peaking in 2027 in hit Australian conditions on firm, dry grounds.


It's going to help him that Savea is shifting to the worst super rugby franchise where he's going to struggle behind a beaten pack every week.


The under performing loose forward trio is the key driver of the high error rates and unacceptable turn overs due to awol link work. Sititi is looking like he's superman compared to his openside and eight.


At this late stage in the season they shouldn't be operating with just the one outstanding loose forward out of four selected for the English test. That's an abject failure but I think Robertson's sacrificing link quality on purpose to build passion amongst the junior Allblacks as they see the reverential treatment the old warhorses are receiving for their long term hard graft.


It's unfortunately losing test matches and making what should be comfortable wins into nail biters but it's early in the world cup cycle so perhaps it's a sacrifice worth making.


However if this was F1 then Sam Cane would be Riccardo and Ardie would be heading into Perez territory so the loose forwards desperately need revitalisation through a rebuild over the next season to complement the formidable tight five.

28 Go to comments
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