The SANZAR nations can learn much from 'Rugby's Greatest Championship'

If you visit the official Six Nations website, you will see to the right of the homepage the proud proclamation that this tournament is ‘Rugby’s Greatest Championship’.

This will be met with howls of derision south of the equator. Not since ancient times, when one bold Gallic village stood up against the might of the Roman empire, has there been such a borefest many will say.

Yet just as northern scribes like to dismiss Super Rugby as a turnstile-defence form of basketball, so too do many in the south turn up their noses at the rugby offerings up north at this time of year.

This way of thinking is unfortunate as in many ways I agree with the website’s claim. There is much that can be learnt by looking at Europe’s premier rugby tournament and comparing it with the Rugby Championship.

It is tempting to think that, as historically the top-three ranked teams consist New Zealand, South Africa and Australia, Europe is welcome to wallow in its muddied bog of mediocrity each year in the depths of winter. The Rugby Championship, however, is just as capable of serving up tired reheats of microwave rugby lacking flair and imagination. Ranking is by no means a protection against being rank.

Wales against Scotland in 2013 and England versus Scotland in 2014 may have been the equivalent of petrol station rugby fare, but Australia in Perth against Argentina two years ago and against the All Blacks in Sydney last year were as equally noxious as a late-night drunken fry-up.

I prefer to look at what the Six Nations tournament does well and compare that against what the Rugby Championship does.

Format
The Six Nations can trace its roots back to the Home Nations Championship, which began in 1883. In 1910, France joined Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England to make the Five Nations Championship. This reverted back to the original tournament when France pulled out in 1932. It stopped altogether with the Second World War and then became the Five Nations once more in 1947 until Italy joined to make it the Six Nations in 2000.

Despite these occasional structural changes, the format has remained the same. Each team plays every other team once and alternate each year between home-and-away against every opponent.

Contrast that with the Tri-Nations and the new Rugby Championship format. Are you able to list the different formats? Add in the Super Rugby, which also started with the Tri-Nations in 1996, and you start to lose track of all the changes.

Bragging rights, moreover, hinge on one match. It’s do or die so to speak. There are no return grudge matches. You get one chance to prove yourself and then gloating is allowed to reach fever pitch and resentments fester until next year’s match.

Imagine South Africa had only played Australia away last year. While it’s true we would’ve missed a heroic Wallaby defensive display in South Africa, fast forward to the hypothetical follow-up match the next year and imagine those opening forward exchanges after Springbok pride had been boiling constantly for a year in a billy under the shade of a coolabah tree.

The Southern Hemisphere teams depend on international rugby but they should take heed that less is sometimes more and that expansion and constant tinkering with the format make it difficult to build a solid fan-base. Continuity has a lot going for it.

Rivalry and tradition

With Australia and New Zealand in particular, change is viewed as something positive. Being relatively new countries, there is a lack of consensus on the best way to go about things. We’re willing to try new things and make it up as we go along. Indeed, New Zealand prides itself on innovation and the ‘number 8 wire mentality’ implies a fondness for going against tradition.

There is infinite more resistance to change in Europe. Things have been done a certain way for centuries and change is not seen as good as a holiday; it’s seen as an inconvenience and a slur on all that has gone before it.

Rugby is no different in many ways. The first international being played between England and Scotland and the fact that rugby is an English invention help to create that image of constancy.

Furthermore, the Six Nation rivalries extend beyond rugby and seem to be dominated by an overwhelming sense of antagonism towards the English. They are the team that the other sides love to hate. It doesn’t matter if their journalists write a positive piece, invariably they seize upon the piece that either builds England up or dismisses an upcoming rival.

I feel a great deal of sympathy for the English in this regard. People make a sport out of mocking their rugby anthem. While opposition crowds are allowed to paint their faces with their national colours, speak in their local tongues, and even goad the English into ‘going back home to think again’, any England supporter who turns up with the St George flag cheering on En-ger-land is immediately singled out as a BNP supporter and labelled as the source of all the world’s problems – from global warming to being stuck in a traffic jam.

Regardless, it makes for great rugby rivalry when the pantomime villain takes on more depth. With the exception of Italy, the rest of the Six Nations teams prize the English scalp above all. The fact that they only have one shot each year to claim that sweetest of victories only adds to the occasion.

The Six Nations has the added incentive of obtaining the elusive Grand Slam. New Zealand secured two Grand Slams in the opening two Rugby Championships, as well as a Grand Slam when the Tri-Nations team played each other three times. Yet no song and dance was made of that, just grizzles and mumbling about how we could’ve won by more.

The close proximity of all the nations also helps generate an atmosphere of rivalry. Italy is the furthest country from the other teams but is effectively a trans-Tasman flight away. The punishing travel schedule and different time zones make it impossible for the Rugby Championship teams to connect.

Imagine if Auckland, Wellington, Canterbury and Otago comprised the teams in the Rugby Championship and were different nations rather than provinces. Many New Zealand expats live in Australia but that is about as close as the Rugby Championship comes to equalling the presence of opposition fans.

Sheer distance and the fact that the respective unions rely on gate revenue to fill their coffers means that a one-off game each year or a tournament based in one of the four countries is highly unlikely. But is there a better way of running this tournament? Why do all the games have to be in the same order each year? It’s a good thing that the games are made to minimise the travel but does New Zealand always have to start with the Bledisloe and have their important away games last?

More could be done to emphasise the rugby rivalry between the Rugby Championship teams. Despite the relative recent history of Australia and New Zealand, their rugby rivalry dates back to 1903. The Bledisole Cup has been running since 1931. How about the top-ranked Australian Super team taking on the top-ranked New Zealand team in the warm-up games, similar to the SuperCup concept in football?

Similarly, New Zealand is six years away from its centenary match against South Africa. Instead of a June series against the North, how many would like to see a tour with mid-week games against the Springboks?

Viewing spectacle
The advantage of being in a comparable timezone with a big television audience is that you can maximise the number of viewers. To compensate for the games being played in winter, most games are played during the day.

There has been resistance in Wales to many games being played at night on a Friday. To make matters worse, the Millennium Stadium is in many ways a Lemon Stadium in that the structure prevents direct sunlight on the pitch and hosts crimes against humanity such as One Direction concerts.

France is another country where the pitch can often be a problem. With all their fanatical support down south, the Six Nations could learn a trick from the southern teams who share their internationals around the country a lot more. Why do the French always play in Paris? Does French regionalism mean that the French national team won’t be embraced down south?

But generally the matches are played during the day and provide a better spectacle as a result. In New Zealand, daylight Test rugby is a thing of the past. The only problem is that night rugby looks like the ball is being passed around in a Mountain Dew factory.

Playing rugby at night in the New Zealand winter makes about as much sense as wearing a full body condom when making love. It makes for even more awkward fumbling, the overall experience is dampened, and you ultimately come away thinking that you really didn’t get your money’s worth. Who can forget the 2006 Super 14 final when the Crusaders played the fog more than they did their opponents the Bulls.

I for one look forward to watching many of the Six Nations games. I live in Europe and always support Scotland due to my father. It’s nice to watch a game with no real vested interest in the result. I admired, for example, Ireland’s tactical outwitting of Wales, their resolve in overcoming their bogey team away to clinch the title last year.

Sure, there are games where I come away thinking that was like eating a bowl of cold jellied tripe, but there have been quite a few Rugby Championship games where frustrations at a poor rugby spectacle have caused alarmed neighbours to ring the police in the early hours of a Sunday morning.

Too often we get caught up in the game of digging our positions on higher ground and entrenching our views about what we see unfolding below us. There is no shame in admitting that the Six Nations offers a superior product in many ways and seeing how that could be applied in the Rugby Championship.

England against Wales, France against Scotland and Ireland against Italy are the opening fixtures this weekend. That may not get your blood racing but they’re doing something right with all the money that comes in with this event. There are certainly things that are difficult to emulate due to practicalities but there’s still much to be learnt by looking at this tournament with non-judgmental eyes.