Bok B-team selfishness a disgrace

David Moffett, former boss of the New Zealand Rugby Union, writing in The Press on 30 June 2007 labelled the South African Rugby Union an absolute disgrace. I think most of us would agree with him on that one – but he’s talking about the latest Springbok B-team fiasco, and not the usual goings on at SA Rugby HQ that regularly keep us amused.

“With friends like South Africa, who needs enemies? The South African Rugby Union is an absolute disgrace and should be told immediately by New Zealand and Australia that it will not be required when the next television rights deal is negotiated.

The New Zealand and Australian unions initially kicked up a huge stink when South Africa decided to send its B team on tour for the Tri Nations. This quickly fizzled out when they realised that any more home-grown negative publicity would only further weaken ticket sales.

The other problem for the New Zealand Rugby Union, of course, is that it is potentially on weak ground, having withdrawn 21 All Blacks from the first eight weeks of Super 14.

However, I would argue that the situations are totally different. First, the NZRU had given months of notice that this was going to happen, and secondly, the 21 players were spread over five teams, not one international side, as is the case with the Springboks.

By contrast we are led to believe that all three Sanzar countries had agreed to field their strongest teams and, in fact, New Zealand and Australia had sent their best available players and filled the stadiums and coffers of Saru.

What was the response of our supposed partner? It waited until after the second test and selected a B team.

If I were the paranoid type I would be considering a conspiracy at this point. Denying New Zealand and Australia hard match practice against one of the best teams in the world in the lead-up to the World Cup will obviously harm the preparation of the All Blacks and Wallabies.

The ABs, in particular, will now have only two serious games until the World Cup against Australia and three practice matches against fundamentally amateur teams in the pool matches in France.

When I was chief executive in Wales, I and others lobbied the International Rugby Board to change the exclusivity window leading into the World Cup which now allows warm-up matches to be played within the previous four-week period. I organised matches against France, England and Argentina before the World Cup as a means of getting some serious match practice and competition.

New Zealand and Australia should give urgent consideration to organising a series of A and B matches in Britain as World Cup warm-ups. Just imagine the take-up of tickets by expatriates.

Of course, the other injured party in this sorry saga of selfishness by Saru is Sanzar’s major financial partner, News Ltd. Its response so far has been muted but I can imagine its fury behind the scenes. This goes beyond contractual requirements, which are a concern in themselves.

News Ltd and its subsidiaries have no rights to the World Cup and have to sit and watch their supposed partners concentrate all their efforts on a rival broadcaster.

As I have said all too often, the World Cup is slowly destroying the fabric of rugby as we know it.

Football, the biggest and only truly global game, does not have this unhealthy obsession and its event is a real World Cup, not the four-yearly sham that the Rugby World Cup has become in the era of professionalism.

This brings me back yet again to another of my hobby horses: ditch South Africa from the next television deal. It behaves more and more like a northern hemisphere union and should make it official by playing in competitions in the north.

New Zealand and Australia can get a much better deal for fans, players, sponsors and broadcasters by playing three Bledisloes a year and a home-and-away trans-Tasman Super 10 competition.

Selfishness seems to be the order of the day in the professional rugby era, and perhaps now is the time for Australia and New Zealand to play that game.”

David Moffett, former boss of the New Zealand Rugby Union, writing in The Press on 30 June 2007.