Features

Rugby Rugby columnist Jon Harris ponders the move of a number of big-name Rugby League stars over to the game of Union and what the broader affects League has had in the development of the great 15 man game are...

In the amateur days, if a Union player was so much as seen in the company of League administrators, he faced the very real prospect of being banned from the fifteen man game. Amateurism was an all encompassing commitment to the original format and no form of remuneration was allowed.
 
South African centre, Wilf Rosenberg who had a distinguished Rugby League career playing for Leeds is testimony to the acrimonious co-existence of Union and League. Having played for Transvaal before turning professional, he had to don a disguise to attend a Rugby Union match after the big move as professional players were not welcome at all in the amateur set up.
 
Shortly after Rugby Union went professional, we saw players switching codes. Actually, let's put that another way. Union players went professional on a reasonably open scale before professionalism, amongst them the likes of Frano Botica, Scott Quinnell, Jonathan Davies, John Gallagher, Scott Gibbs and many more. A glance at Wikipedia gives one an idea of the traffic between the various codes, yet the movement from League to Union has been far greater than the reverse, at least since 1995, the advent of professionalism in Union.
 
It appears that Rugby League has suffered from player and supporter shrinkage for a number of years now, and one of the popular reasons to blame is that it has become a defence based game, losing the attraction that it once possessed, which was that it was a fast paced open spectacle of tries and athleticism.
 
As the Rugby Union game has evolved over the last 15 years, it has turned more and more to the abbreviated code for guidance and innovation to make it more spectator friendly. The game has become faster and more structured, not only to entertain, but also to produce the required results, viz prevent tries being scored while scoring as many of one's own.
 
To facilitate this, skills coaches and gurus from the League code have been lured across to assist. Defence has been the most popular discipline for cross-code raids. The number of ex-League defence coaches now being involved with Union teams is more than just a smattering and the trend started way back when.
 
Les Kiss a rugby league guru helped Harry Viljoen's 2002 Springboks on defence. He is but one of many. The latest high profile coach being Shaun Edwards, defence coach of the 2009 British & Irish Lions to South Africa. This particular area of the game has been 'improved' so much that the rules, in the form of the ELVs,  have had to be adapted to encourage more adventurous play. But would it be unreasonable to assume that these defensive patterns, so detrimental to the flair of League have been imported to slowly strangle the last gasping breath out of Union's attacking game. Is it fair, indeed, to blame the League pattern?
 
London Wasps have announced the signing of Leeds Rhinos' and England rugby league star Lee Smith. Why is there still the need for this poaching? Surely there is enough talent available in the Union code to survive or is it yet another sad indication that the two codes are becoming more and more similar in style, with equally disenchanted supporters?
 
Rugby Union used to be a game for all shapes and sizes, where a player with flair could shine no matter what his stature. Look at the Barry Johns, Gareth Edwards, Gerald Davies of the past. These men would not have made it in the modern game, not for a lack of talent but for their abundance of flair. Their natural ability to to play rugby could by no means be contained and they would shrivel up and die in today's play-by-numbers format.
 
And where did it start? I'll go as far as blaming the importation of the Rugby League methods. Yes, the Union game has benefited from some of the tricks of the League trade, as an example the fitness regimes. Players are far fitter and stronger and are able to deliver more on the pitch as a result. As the benefit of certain methods is seen, the belief that all things League are therefore good for the game is assumed, blindly ignoring the fact that the 13 man game has been suffering for years, and is indeed in the UK losing spectator numbers to the traditional code.
 
So is there a solution to this dilemma? Probably not. The game in it's current format enjoys great support, but the ongoing word from administrators, who ultimately voice the opinion of their employers, the TV channels, is that the game is too boring, to static, too many interruptions. What these very people fail to see is that the game is not too-anything-like-that, it is too defensively orientated. It is too structured. Why is Sevens so popular and growing exponentially? It's simple to watch, and allows space to play.
 
A player is not encouraged to express his talent in Union. He is not allowed to genuinely play the situation. Perhaps Matt Giteau is the only player on this Earth who is given license to play the game as he sees it. The rest are told to play by numbers. Run to that point and pass to that fellow,who should be at these co-ordinates. Need a basic demonstration of the point? How often does one see a scrum wheel to the left and still the number eight picks up and goes to the right. That is classic pick-up-and-play ball. But he can't as all the support is waiting at their pre-designated spots, with their programmed brains not tuned into any deviation.
 
This pattern cannot be changed by simply saying go out there and play. It involves a massive change of mindset. Touch rugby enjoyed a massive boom over the last few years, although it seems to have gone quiet recently. This is perhaps where players can be encouraged to express their talent and indeed nurture the talent in the team. Get the players playing that game on a prolonged programme and one will see the improvement in the ability to play out-of-the-box. Pie in the sky, I know.
 
So in my opinion, the cross-pollination of Rugby League ideas to Rugby Union has been overdone. It's like a tree endemic to one country being introduced to another, which runs riot and encroaches on the existence of the indigenous trees. The value of League to Union has been exhausted, and Union should start re-inventing itself, in the tradition of it's amateur game. A game where flair and talent was free to be expressed and where players were encouraged to demonstrate every bit of talent they possessed, not only if it falls within the boundaries of the coach's game plan.       

by Jon Harris