Why modern rugby is in a serious state of decline
Roar Rookie By Chris Laidlaw, 2 Jul 2010 Chris Laidlaw is a Roar Rookie
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- All Blacks, chris laidlaw, Rugby Union
all blacks Vs France. AAP Images
Rugby has a problem. It’s now more than a decade since the game went professional and there are growing signs that it isn’t sustainable. Everywhere it is played, there is a growing sense of unease about this, and it is becoming more and more obvious that some fairly radical changes are needed.
It is not the first time I have had that feeling.
I last wrote a book about the game in the early 1970s as a thoroughly disgruntled ex-player, when rugby had run into another crisis.
Unlike the present runaway pace of change, what happened back in the 1960s and 70s was a crisis of inactivity.
Rugby had become stuck in the mud.
I wrote “Mud in Your Eye” for the very reason that to do so as an amateur was considered an act of rebellion. Anyone who appeared in print was treated much the same way as a member of Al Qaeda or, equally treasonous, a defector to rugby league.
Any suggestion of commercial gain from amateurism immediately defined you a professional, an outcast, on the wrong side of a very forbidding fence. Ironically, if you’re not on the professional side of the fence today you’re a loser.
Rugby has meant a lot to me. I played it at every level and in several countries. I owe it a huge debt. It took me round the world, opening new horizons and awakening a personal awareness of politics and the meaning of democracy and discrimination.
The friends I made then – among club, provincial and All Black teams, at Oxford and in France or Fiji where I played and coached in the early 1970s – are friends for life.
Many of them are as anxious about the game as I am. Most are realists.
They know that the professional game is here to stay but they wonder what sort of game it will be if the amateur dimension – its heart and its soul – just withers away and dies. They have reservations about letting market forces completely determine every aspect of the game’s future.
Those reservations are justified.
With professionalism has come a cloying bureaucracy, a suffocating mass of red tape, the stunting of player lifestyles and a hundred other challenges that threaten to drown rugby in its own politically correct pea soup.
A few years ago, fascinated and at times horrified by the new professional revolution, I found myself getting involved with my old game again.
I started writing about it, talking about it on television, and became a director of the Hurricanes professional franchise. I discovered that it wasn’t just a game anymore. It was a business, too.
A business like many others in an unforgiving world in which costs rise inexorably and income is very uncertain.
Every crisis has its particular motif. For me, the most compelling hint that rugby had a problem was the extraordinarily crass attempt by the New Zealand Rugby Union to persuade its fans to pick up part of the new professional tab in the late 1990s via a television commercial featuring All Black Justin Marshall asking for donations.
This was trickle up economics, the same madness we saw a decade later that brought the world economy to its knees. It was the first ominous hint of unsustainability in the new commercialised game.
That hint has now turned into a loud scream.
This is an exclusive excerpt from Chris Laidlaw’s new book, Somebody Stole My Game, out now. Buy a copy through Mighty Ape.
Recommend this story.
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July 2nd 2010 @ 10:45am
counterruck said | July 2nd 2010 @ 10:45am | Report comment
this is how i would envisage the future for rugby over the next few decades:
for a variety of reasons , the game will probably continue to struggle in aus&nz, salaries will eventually decline, more top players will head to europe where the game is profitable and fondations for future growth are in place
eventually the aru & nzru will be forced into selecting overseas players for the 4N, along the lines of argentina’s situation now. but, the 4N might actually grow in popularity as the general rugby public will be starved of seeing the top stars.
eventually, the 4N will end up being played in the june window so players can be available for the whole northern season and the superfluous inter-heisphere freindlies will be abolished.
super rugby will fold. I dont know what will happen to domestic rugby in aus & nz. many high salaried administrators would be out of work but if the ones who stay are smart they will reconnect with the grassroots.
the currie cup in SA will continue to be viable as a breeding ground for future talent and veterans (as it already is in world cup years) – along the lines of the football leagues in brazil and argentina (which remain popular depsite the top stars playing in europe) .
it probably wont pan out as smoothly as i have outlined above, with a lot more trial and error. but this is how i see it going based on the experiences of the worlds most popular game – football.
and i have no problem with this scenario, its just the free market at work, and the end result – fewer meaningless tests and a return to focusing on the grassroots and the domestic game – is my preferred one, even if it would take a roundabout way to get there.
July 2nd 2010 @ 11:44am
The Link said | July 2nd 2010 @ 11:44am | Report comment
Good summary, wonder how long the ARU can hang on selecting domestic players only?
As Rachael Hunter said it won’t happen overnight but it will happen.
If you want to embrace being an international sport then it comes with some pain for your domestic product.
July 2nd 2010 @ 10:46am
Crashy said | July 2nd 2010 @ 10:46am | Report comment
I think the author is referring to the amateur game that was played for the game itself and nothing else. ( well maybe a couple of frosties afterwards).
I will continue my stance in that if rugby didnt turn pro, league would have eaten it up. ( and was just about to).
Pro sport in any code has its drawbacks and I agree we have too many tests which O’Neil has openly stated. With more S15 games and a test less or so we could keep a nice balance but need to be careful we dont saturate the market like the A league where we have seen crowds commonly below 5000.
get involved with a subbies club in any state and the amateur ethos is still very much present. ( well perhaps not in Kentwell cup).
July 2nd 2010 @ 1:13pm
James D said | July 2nd 2010 @ 1:13pm | Report comment
In Aus yes your right Crashy League would have def eaten up Union – another thing to note though with regards to the A league is people cbf turning up because they play the same dudes every 6 weeks or so. At least with super rugby there are 15 teams with the future looking like 18 teams so the fans should keep turning up to super games where there is a different opposition each week. I am in favour of less tests (esp bledisloe) and more s14. I mean i love playing the Kiwi’s but geez 4 times a year is a bit much.
As a side note and totally unrelated to this article i think that the argies next year should during the June test window play the Wallabies NZ and SA once over the four weeks. A big travel ask yes but it would be good for them to have an introduction of sorts into the 4N to make it more competitive.
July 2nd 2010 @ 1:24pm
Working Class Rugger said | July 2nd 2010 @ 1:24pm | Report comment
I too would like to see more Super Rugby with fewer Test matches. And I agree with your sentiment with getting Argentina to Tour its future partners next season to gain a taste of there future.
July 2nd 2010 @ 11:06am
Rin said | July 2nd 2010 @ 11:06am | Report comment
Declining, i am not so sure about that, maybe in Australia it is stagnating but in the traditional powerhouses of SA, England, France, NZ, Wales and Ireland its doing well, particularly in France where the Top 14 is becoming the ‘english premier league’ of rugby. Australia has its own issues i think due to so many sports spread over such a small population???
Rin
July 2nd 2010 @ 4:50pm
True Tah said | July 2nd 2010 @ 4:50pm | Report comment
Rin
the Top 14 becoming the english premier league of rugby is not a good thing…France as a competitive nation has dropped significantly, probably because their league is dominated by hasbeens from South Africa and NZ
July 2nd 2010 @ 11:14am
Crashy said | July 2nd 2010 @ 11:14am | Report comment
disappointing Chris.You have now admitted the game is not in decline, rather has some challenges to retain its amateur ethos in a pro era.
You clearlyhave used the headline as bait to sell your book.
crass……
July 2nd 2010 @ 11:50am
Pete said | July 2nd 2010 @ 11:50am | Report comment
No Crashy, not crass… just professionalism
July 2nd 2010 @ 11:52am
Atawhai Drive said | July 2nd 2010 @ 11:52am | Report comment
I read Mud In Your Eye when it first came out but haven’t caught up with anything more than this extract from Somebody Stole My Game.
Yesterday’s angry young man becomes today’s crusty old conservative. Happens to us all, Chris, in varying degrees.
July 2nd 2010 @ 11:54am
Tim Reardon said | July 2nd 2010 @ 11:54am | Report comment
Interesting article! You established your credentials, enlisted nameless others to support your view, you state you supported profesionalism but now recognise that it is causing problems and you managed to get a ‘plug’ in for your book.
I was waiting to hear your solution to the problem you have articulated.
I guess the byline could be “Be careful what you wish for.”
Business people are strong advocates of competition but continually rue its effects on their business.
As an amateur sport, Rugby was able to fill a niche role in entertainment/sport. Without payment, the adminsitration of the sport was low cost (do not confuse low cost to mean adminsitratively simple) and operated on very socialistic principles of individual reward.
As a professional game rugby has struggle with the need to provide financial reward to all involved whist maining the more agrarian socialst concepts to individual reward.
Moreover, rather than engaging professional business people to run the game they (the collective body politic) continue to promote ex-players into high paying positions well beyond their level of expetise.
Other Australian codes have suffered similar afflciaitons. AFL struggled throughout the 1990s to release itself from the rump of ‘player administrators’. The presidents of clubs and Board members are incresingly drawn from media/marketing networks or business people who are largely providing a service to the club. Soccer in Australia was impetent until it became a dictatorship owned and operated by one man. I suspect that ARL avoids the problems associated with ‘player administrators’ by having a player pool that does not aspire to business success.
Chris, be careful in wishing for Rugby to become an amateur sport. Your wish might come true.
July 2nd 2010 @ 11:54am
Brian said | July 2nd 2010 @ 11:54am | Report comment
With respect, if New Zealand had achieved what the Springboks have over the last decade, you wouldn’t be too worried about the state of the game. You should change the title of you article to: “Why modern rugby IN NEW ZEALAND is in a serious state of decline.” Rugby in South Africa has never been in such a strong position on or off the field – please don’t paint everyone with the same brush – world rugby (and particularly rugby in SA) is bigger than NZ.
July 2nd 2010 @ 12:02pm
Jerry said | July 2nd 2010 @ 12:02pm | Report comment
With respect what the hell are you talking about? The WC, I guess cause that’s the only thing the Boks have got over the AB’s. If you look at ‘the last decade” Head to head it’s not close (AB’s have won about 2/3 of the time), Tri-Nations wins it’s not close (6 wins to 2). Overall record it’s not close (AB’s 81%, Boks about 61%) . The AB’s haven’t achieved what the Boks have, they’ve done a hell of a lot more.
If you’d said SA rugby, I could see what you mean (in terms of making money anyway, NZ is still way ahead on S12/14 wins), but the Boks? Not so much.
July 2nd 2010 @ 12:17pm
sixo_clock said | July 2nd 2010 @ 12:17pm | Report comment
The Marriage of Business and Rugby is but ten years old, not enough time to rid ourselves of the amateurist ‘leather patch’ brigade in all the club house administrations.
We are at that point where the honeymoon gloss is over, the kids are becoming fractious, the husband still has some immature mates and the wife wants new curtains in a new house or she herself gets a boyfriend. Sound familiar?
If we pulled out our pipes and gazed into the future what will we see. An international Super Club scene that attracted all the best players, paid them squillions and produced the best rugby available, these players will have jetset girlfriends and the biggest toys. The clubs would trade the players, pay home unions for their contracts and the money will flow back to the source. International Test Rugby may survive but will not be the drawcard nor the premier form of the game as it is now.
We have in our game arguably the best sport on the planet, we involve speed, brawn and the mind in what at times is electric in its excitement. As a spectacle we have nothing to fear except hindsight. We have been there done that and now we are professional so there is no going back, like it or not we are moving on. The game will remain international, it will expand to another level with the right stewards.
Those were great times and produced fantastic stories of their exploits on and off the paddock. They properly belong in a library. What we need now are those who have the acumen to propel Rugby to the next higher stage, not those bemoaning the past. You probably remember the story of how New Zealand negotiated itself out of the 2001 World Cup. in an important IRB conference apparently they showed up in their very best ‘Southie’ gear, had made no progress on the signage issues at NZ stadia and Vernon Pugh took one look and sent them packing. Same story, same traditionalist thinking, but now irrelevent.
July 2nd 2010 @ 12:19pm
Brian said | July 2nd 2010 @ 12:19pm | Report comment
Hit a nerve there Jerry? SA teams have won 2 of the last 3 Super 14s, SARU has recently posted a 10 million rand profit – NZ has just posted a record loss, SA are the reigning tri-nations and world cup champions and are on track to retain the world cup (thanks to their incredible depth) – even you can’t deny that. All-in-all, one suspects SA fans are a lot happier than their counterparts in NZ – as is manifest from Chris Laidlaw’s comments.
July 2nd 2010 @ 12:51pm
Jerry said | July 2nd 2010 @ 12:51pm | Report comment
You said last decade, not last 3 years. Forgive me for responding to your actual words. And the fact is, in rugby terms the Boks trailed the AB’s by a considerable margin if you look at the decade as a whole. You can’t deny THAT.
Yeah, the SA union is in great financial shape, but I wouldn’t count your chickens before they’re hatched as far as the RWC. I’d say SA are a very good side at the moment but ‘on track to retain’? Talk about tempting the mocker gods.
July 2nd 2010 @ 1:16pm
James D said | July 2nd 2010 @ 1:16pm | Report comment
NZ will make losses because they are investing like mad for the future and for the RWC at the moment.
This will pay off.
July 2nd 2010 @ 12:37pm
Wix said | July 2nd 2010 @ 12:37pm | Report comment
Brian
You are misunderstanding Dr Chris Laidlaw’s point. He was referring to the impact of professionalism which has transforned teams and players into products, to be marketed like packets of soap flakes. This is an anathema to Dr Laidlaw and his generation and possibly to all present generations. He did not refer to future generatrions, but it is entirely possible that they will have accepted marketing of rugby products as perfectly normal. And this suggests there will be a further decline in what he regards as just a game.
The result of professionalism has been to change the pattern of play to what is now excused by journalists as ‘ugly’, the intention being to make us accept it as normal. ‘Ugly’ has infested both NH ans SH. For example, I cannot speak for provicial French rugby but at the national level the French, like Australia, no longer play the running game. They paly ‘ugly’. And that is also true of South Africa, although in their case they can rightly claim to be the greatest and the ugliest.
On a slightly different topic, If I remember rightly Dr Laidlaw’s book way back, drew attention to the incidence of permanent injuries to young kids in NZ junior rugby. He applauded the pommy way of keeping kids away from rugby until they reached 11 years of age. I’m sure he has made other significant contributions to the game over a very long period of time.
When he speaks publicly, which ain’t very often in this country, I think we should listen