As the European Six Nations of rugby union kicks off this weekend Simon Barnes, chief sports writer of The Times, reflected this weekend on what makes the tournament special.
“I wish they’d shut up about rugby union being a global game. Its nothing of the kind. It’s a parochial game, that’s the whole point. There are no exoticisms. Every year, the Six Nations rugby tournament is a journey into the known.”
What’s interesting is that Barnes is saying this as very much a compliment. Often rugby union fans in Australia and elsewhere are consumed by rugby’s relative presence in the world, but perhaps this ignores what makes rugby union great at heart, its strong rivalries in small pockets of the globe.
Rugby union does not rival football or arguably other sports such as basketball, tennis and formula one for its global footprint, but that doesn’t mean it can’t revel and admire in what makes it strong.
In comparing football and rugby, Barnes goes on to say;
“The England football team too often face the likes of Croatia and Macedonia: decent teams against whom England have struggled, but who don’t carry that derby frission.”
“Football is global – that is its weakness as well as its strength. Rugby union is not global – that is its strength as well as its weakness”
Of course football has its great rivalries at international level, England and Germany is one of many. But as Barnes states, rugby union is perhaps too quick to jump at a growing international presence as what makes it special, when it is really where it has come from and what it is that sets it apart.
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