The Breakdown | Fiji and the beautiful south reveal rugby’s soul but northern money talks loudest
They’re present in every top-flight club in Europe.They pack down for teams in France and Scotland.They run the show from half-back in England and Italy.They provide heft through the midfield and dazzle out wide in Ireland and Wales.There are 257 of them in total, drawn from 12 nations including Chile, Zimbabwe and the Cook Islands.
More than 60 are South African, a further 56 call Argentina home.Remove them and the complexion of the Top 14, Prem Rugby and the United Rugby Championship would look completely different, not least in the development of European players alongside and against them.They have been drawn north by the gravitational pull of pounds and euros.Some cross the equator in search of financial security, others for the chance to extend careers or test themselves in different environments.Whatever the motivation, the contribution of southern hemisphere talent to European rugby cannot be overstated.
A week on from the highest-scoring Six Nations in history, they were back at work.The northern hemisphere, for all its noise and narrative over the past two months, has exhaled.The club season rolls on.Between the post-international lull and the business end of domestic campaigns, it is a useful moment to look elsewhere.Because while Europe settles into the long tail of its season, some of the more revealing shifts in the game are taking place over the horizon.
Let’s start with Fiji.While 31 players from the archipelago play in Europe, 40 are on the books of the Fijian Drua, who thumped the Brumbies 42-27 in front of 10,000 fans in Ba – with a few dozen more watching from trees – as Super Rugby came to the small Fijian town for the first time two weekends ago.It felt, in many ways, like Fijian rugby in microcosm: ambition, enterprise and a willingness to play no matter the conditions.Weeks earlier the pitch had been flooded, threatening the fixture and placing strain on modest facilities.But the game went ahead and the result was a reminder that rugby does not need pyrotechnics or slick production to resonate.
What it needs, what it has always needed, is connection.That is what makes the next phase slightly jarring.When the Nations Championship brings the hemispheres together later this year, Fiji’s “home” fixtures will be staged offshore – against Scotland in Edinburgh, England in Liverpool and Wales in Cardiff.Fiji Rugby Union’s chief executive, Koli Sewabu, has tried to spin the narrative by saying he is “determined to make it feel every bit like a home game”.This may not wash emotionally but the logic is sound.
Larger stadiums, greater revenues, broadcast demands.Rugby bosses, like those who put their bodies on the line, are compelled to follow the money.But something is lost in the process.Because what was evident in the passion and proximity in Ba is precisely what the game claims to value.Yet, when presented with the opportunity to showcase it, the instinct remains to relocate rather than invest.
Fiji might be gradually building something more permanent, and their performance at the 2023 World Cup shows that they can field a team that is more than a cluster of individuals.But there’s no getting away from the sense that their moments that matter most are still primarily staged somewhere else.New Zealand and Australia find themselves navigating different challenges as they grapple with rugby union’s shifting plates.At a World Rugby meeting last month leading figures discussed the shape of the game.Representatives of the All Blacks and Wallabies pushed for greater tempo and less emphasis on set-piece power.
France and South Africa, with the most intimidating packs, combined to block proposed law changes, leaving the antipodeans frustrated at their diminished influence.That is not to say that power sits neatly in Cape Town.Despite winning four World Cups and exporting more talent to Europe than any other nation, South Africa face their own constraints.This month SA Rugby’s chief executive, Rian Oberholzer, acknowledged that neither South Africa nor New Zealand are presently viable World Cup hosts.The reason is simple: they do not generate the revenue World Rugby requires.
“The Rugby World Cup is the only revenue stream for World Rugby that must fund the whole ecosystem and all the members get some funding out of a Rugby World Cup,” Oberholzer said.“So World Rugby must take the World Cup to where they can make the most money and to go where they will be supported by local and national governments.”That’s bad news for Argentina, too, who are long overdue a World Cup of their own.The Pumas are a formidable outfit, and will be a challenge on home soil for Scotland, England and Wales this summer, but without a professional league and with all but three of their most recent squad representing European clubs, it is difficult to see how they could currently meet the financial demands required to host.That, ultimately, is the tension running through the modern game.
Much of the talent comes from the south but the money resides elsewhere,Rugby needs that money, perhaps now more than ever, to fund competitions, to maintain grassroots, to keep enthusiasm alive,But we lose something when it is the one factor driving decisions,In Ba rugby looked like itself,In boardrooms and bidding processes, it looks like something else.
The balance between the two will determine what the game becomes next.Whatever that is, there is no doubt it will be shaped by southern hemisphere muscle.This is an extract from our weekly rugby union email, the Breakdown.To subscribe just visit this page and follow the instructions.
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