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Why does rugby persevere with Test tag?
Saturday, June 17, 2006
Andrew Stevenson, Rugby Heaven.
The Wallabies' victory over England last Sunday answered several questions - no, the Wallabies are not a complete rabble and yes, the rules of rugby desperately need tinkering with to get forwards back in the rucks and free the game from stifling flat-line defences and yes, rugby referees are desperate attention seekers - but, for me, the big question remains unresolved.
When is a Test a Test and not just another challenge on the whirligig of never-ending sporting competition? The Wallabies and England have not played a fair dinkum scrap since the compelling final of the Rugby World Cup in 2003, instead flying patched-up outfits to the other side of the world and then tinkering with the players they've got - all in the name of experience.
Once, that was what the fixture against Queensland Country served for; now, it's what you do against Australia at Telstra Stadium in front of 60,000 fans.
Already under-manned with up to a dozen of their best players recuperating at home after a long club and Six Nations season, the English outfit has made seven changes to its side for tonight's Test; Australia have rotated their captain George Gregan onto the bench and found space for a hooker, Adam Freier, who couldn't even make the reserve contingent for the first Test.
The days when the players singing the national anthem represented the best possible XV that could be marched out to play are gone. In their place are "depth" and "rotation".
FIFA has a name for matches like these. They're no-tackle, no-challenge affairs called friendlies, a term which made the ever-prickly English coach, Andy Robinson, bristle when asked about it last week.
"These are full-on Test matches, make no bones about this. We have not brought a development side here. We've brought a side to come and win two Test matches against Australia and that is our whole mindset," Robinson said.
Considering the players who were left at home to enjoy the European summer - and perhaps sneak a look at the other World Cup - it's questionable whether Robinson's bristle is just there to cover the baby-faced backs he was forced to tour with.
But the problem is not confined to Australia. Just listen to Graham Henry, the All Blacks coach who last year directed a side to a 41-3 thrashing of Wales one week only to "drop" the entire starting XV for a 45-7 towelling of Ireland the next.
Once, you had to spill blood for an All Blacks jumper; now, you just need to be there or thereabouts and the All Blacks coach is coming on all warm and fuzzy like a pre-school teacher or the coach of the Eketahuna under-8s; "We're trying to give everyone an opportunity," Henry said this week.
Yet the punters are supposed to believe this is a Test match against Ireland, a matter of some import and not Possibles versus Probables; a Test, not a trial.
No, in fact, they're not. Thankfully, at least in New Zealand, plain-talking appears to come before marketing syrup. All the Ireland affair amounts to is "a bit of an international trial before we select the 30 players for the Tri-Nations", explained Henry.
A friendly, by any other name.
The NRL goes on almost forever - from early March, when the ocean's still a balmy 23 degrees, right through winter and back out again into the October sunshine.
Weekends come and go, teams find form and lose it and still have time to find where they've left it. No sprint, the season is even more marathon than middle distance.
But at least it goes somewhere and just about every single match - yes, even the Storm v Panthers in Adelaide - gives meaning to the season: every game is worth winning in the challenge to steadily accumulate enough points to make the finals and charge at the main prize, the premiership. Likewise, AFL.
Players don't get paid to rest, or to play tackle-free football. To tank is the game's greatest sin, a breach of faith with the supporting public. Friendliness is defeat, and would be booed from the pitch as an act of treachery on the fans. You play your best every week, and the best play wounded.
Not so rugby union. Leave aside the World Cup - at least from the quarter-finals on - and only the Six Nations and Tri-Nations generate anything like wholehearted commitment. Only then can fans be assured of the best XV, playing with a single mind in the pursuit of victory.