The Champions and Challenge Cups have the capacity to restore rugby’s credibility against a backdrop of maddeningly inconsistent refereeing and wildly different interpretations of the laws from one tournament to the next.
In the time before the 20-minute red card was enshrined in law, the sport lived in a reasonably stable environment. Players understood the parameters: hinge at hips, keep tackle-height low and avoid head contact. A failure to do so meant a yellow card and 10 minutes in the sin bin.
Red cards were largely reserved for genuine foul play, not mistimed clashes or the kind of accidental contact that is inevitable in a sport built on collisions. Referees looked comfortable with the framework. Clarity and consistency make the sport a better spectacle.
World Rugby decided to tinker, not for the first time, based on a premise that it could mitigate against matches skewed by a red card that potentially ruined the spectacle. I’ve written before about this obsession with reshaping rugby into something it isn’t, solely to attract people who may or may not exist.
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The 20-minute red card hasn’t simplified anything. Instead, we’ve landed in a place where referees are forced to become on-field coaches, narrating their decisions, explaining things step by step, and managing players rather than refereeing matches. They’ve become central characters in a drama in which they were never meant to play a leading role.
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It hasn’t made the sport safer, more free-flowing or easier to understand. If anything, players are confused, coaches are frustrated, and supporters don’t know which version of the laws they are going to see week to week.
To pile on more uncertainty comes the suggestion that scrums now need to be “looked at”. Reactionary thinking like this serves nobody. The number one team in the world, the Springboks, who traditionally produce elite-level props and enormous secondrows, have a natural advantage at scrum time.
Why does that require a rule change? Why are we constantly looking to dilute strengths rather than asking why other teams aren’t raising their standards? It would be like deciding the All Blacks, in their pomp when dominating rugby in the 2000s, offloaded too much and the solution was to restrict passing in contact.
Ireland, for instance, does not allow contested scrummaging at teenage/underage level. We tend to produce hybrid props, excellent rugby players, technically sound around the field, but without the same number of scrummaging miles as their counterparts in South Africa, France or England.
These are gaps that should be addressed in the development pathway, not patched up late in a player’s career. If we’re serious about competing with the best, we need to develop the qualities required to reach that level.
Back to Europe, the only thing the EPCR (European Professional Club Rugby) can truly control is the brief given to referees. If they get that right and provide a baseline of consistency then the competition itself will do the rest. Let the rugby shine.
For some of us, the Champions Cup is weighed down by nostalgia – old rivalries, the memory of great matches and the edge in the air when French giants travelled to provincial grounds. It generated tremendous excitement.
I have criticised the current format, yet each year I find myself caught up in the magic of this tournament and the hope it regains its stature. Europe is arriving at the right time for the Irish provinces. Despite a first defeat in the URC last weekend, Munster have momentum, Leinster are clambering back up the table after a slow start, while a resurgent Ulster and Connacht have been playing some excellent rugby.
Ireland’s November Test series highlighted a need for some fresh faces. This next batch of matches either side of Christmas, in both Europe and the URC, offers the chance to make a down payment on winning a place in the Ireland squad.
From a player’s point of view, there are maybe six meaningful matches between now and the Six Nations squad announcement. That’s your window. That’s all you control. In performing at the elite level consistently, you make it impossible to be ignored.
Tom Farrell’s career trajectory leading to a recent Ireland debut is a case in point and one that should encourage others to take a few more risks, trust their instincts and back themselves.
Ulster and Connacht will want to roll their URC form into the Challenge Cup against Racing 92 and the Ospreys respectively. Munster will feel that Bath is the ideal opportunity to park the irritation of last weekend and reset.
Leinster have been guilty in recent seasons of going too hard, too early. They operate under the pressure of trying to keep everybody happy, giving enough minutes to satisfy everyone in a big squad while still winning matches.
One of the bravest decisions Leo Cullen made when he took over was to blood a new generation, and the foundations laid then still underpin the province today. There may be a case now for trusting that process again.
Players like Fintan Gunne, Hugh Cooney, Joshua Kenny, Alex Soroka, Harry Byrne and Thomas Clarkson need to be thrown into the big matches to establish if they are good enough, and then to see if they can push the frontliners.
Selection is only half the story. How that message is carried, how the group is managed, how the internal competition is framed, that matters as much as the team sheet. Maybe there’s even a trick or two to steal from the Rassie Erasmus playbook. The results will matter for Leinster, of course, but perhaps not quite as much as the growth of the squad across the Champions Cup’s two opening rounds.
European rugby may have landed at exactly the right moment, a chance to bring clarity where confusion has reigned, and perhaps to let a brilliant competition breathe again.
