Loose Pass: Ill-conceived ‘initiatives’, incredible rugby stories and New Zealand’s financial battle
Ex-Test referee Wayne Barnes, former Italy fly-half Ian McKinley and Richie Mo'unga, who has signed a deal in Japan.
This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with seasonal reads and money talking…
Christmas reading
It’s Christmas week, and with a nice full program of games on the 23rd and 24th, Loose Pass took the opportunity to sit back on the couch, switch the screen off and get some good reading in.
Wayne Barnes’ book ‘Throwing The Book’ was difficult to put down, and just as difficult not to finish without thinking with some concern about the direction in which the game is headed, on and off the pitch.
There’s plenty of fun in it – Joe Marler greeting him with “I’ll call you a **** now to save myself from getting sent off later” is a good example – but there’s also the difficulties he faced when trying to deal with poorly-conceived ‘initiatives’ (such as the head contact framework) or trying to deal with angry fans who threaten to burn his house down with his family inside it. It’s enjoyable and thought-provoking in equal measure.
Two books were released to celebrate the 20th anniversary of England’s World Cup victory. Owen Slot and Lawrence Dallaglio teamed up to write ‘The Boys of Winter’, which was a decent in-camp look at the players and how they fared both before and after the win (not always all that well), but Peter Burns’ and Tom English’s ‘The Men in the Arena’ gave the story a more rounded feel, looking also at input from people outside the England camp who encountered Sir Clive Woodward’s squad on their journey.
But there are other, more poignant, off-the-pitch stories to get stuck into this year. Former Wales number eight Mark Jones, whose career was littered with sendings-off and bans for violent conduct, wrote a moving tome on how he realised his violent bent was linked to his insecurities over a fierce stammer, and how he learned to overcome it.
Few can have already have failed to be moved by Rob Burrow’s book from 2021, where he reflected on his battle with motor neurone disease, which is noticeably affecting more and more rugby players post-career, so Burrows’ mate Kevin Sinfield’s story about the friendship and perseverance the latter has shown in raising money for research into the former’s affliction reads at times like a sequel, but is just as moving and thought-provoking as Burrows’ starter.
Budding coaches among you could do a lot worse than taking a few lessons from Steve Hansen’s ‘The Legacy’, which reads a little dry at times, but is notable for the clinicality of much of the thinking and decision-making, as well as giving interesting perspectives on many an incident Hansen has never spoken about (not least a couple of chats with Wayne Barnes).
🗣️ "Hansen was one of the good guys, despite his All Blacks side losing quite a few games I refereed."
🇳🇿 Wayne Barnes on his "constructive" interactions with Steve Hansen. 👇 https://t.co/y4BjLNNx9L
— Planet Rugby (@PlanetRugby) December 5, 2023
Women’s rugby is accelerating in both popularity and quality, so books are inevitable. ‘Scrum Queens’ by Ali Donnelly will give you a good historical backdrop on how long the women have actually been egg-chasing (often against a backdrop of surly misogyny and prejudice from the blazer brigade), while ‘World in their Hands’ by Martyn Thomas delves with fascinating detail into the first Women’s World Cup in 1991.
There’s fun too. Guardian columnist Robert Kitson’s ‘Around the World in 80 Minutes’ focuses on few specific events, but draws on the deeper memories of a host of rugby luminaries to remind us all of why we play in the first place. Martin Bayfield, in his ‘A Very Tall Story’ covers the move from amateurism to professionalism with his own inimitable wit and style.
But two books stand out from the pile this year. Ian McKinley’s quest to play again after suffering an appalling eye injury, which took him to Italy and eventually, to the Italian national team, is a superb rugby tale about conquering not only personal challenges, but also scientific challenges and scepticism, to reach his goals and make inner peace with himself. ‘Second Sight’ is a must-read for anybody, but especially those among us who may need to face up to a long-term injury.
And on that note, there’s few long-term injuries like the one former England hooker Steve Thompson – and lest we forget, hundreds of others – have suffered at the hands of the game. His book, an unfiltered account of his realisation and diagnosis of the early-onset dementia which has erased not only his memories of that World Cup win 20 years ago, but also, on occasion, the names of his children or his ability to function as a family member, is as compelling as it is chilling. Anybody with any shred of doubt that rugby is a dangerous game which needs a bit of a rethink needs to read it.
Money talking
Good news for New Zealand Rugby this week, not just that Wayne Smith is back in the national team fold, but also the cash injection from the private equity company Silver Lake.
As well as boosting the community initiatives, it would be crazy not to assume that at least some of the new boodle will be used to pep up the contracts of some of New Zealand’s emerging talents and keep them in the country just a little longer.
But for how long will it all last? With England’s players now beginning to filter across the Channel to France in ever-increasing numbers, with Welsh franchises desperately trying to cling on to even the most promising talents, with South Africa and Argentina and increasingly Scotland all now more than happy to pick players based abroad and with Australia facing a terrible mess, how long can national unions lever the prestige of the national jersey over the glitz and glamour of the weekly club game in certain parts of the world?
New Zealand enjoys the time-zone and geographical dislocation that other countries don’t, but the Japanese league is here to stay, for example, and it’s well-greened enough that players can make decisions based on earning power. The cash injection is good news, but it doesn’t feel like a solution to the actual problems rugby faces.