You can’t teach an old rugby player new tricks
Looking back over the opening games of the Tri Nations it’s not only clear that New Zealand are currently a seemingly unstoppable force in the lead up to the 2011 World Cup, but also that the teams they are thrashing, namely South Africa and Australia, are still miles ahead of their Northern Hemisphere counterparts. Even in their crushing defeat to New Zealand yesterday Australia exhibited a skill-set that only France, and Wales on occasion, can claim to even imitate. It’s worth remembering that this is a young team playing for a country in which Rugby Union is only the third most popular version of the game. South Africa have many problems with their game at the moment, most significantly off the field, but even battered and demoralised as they are now you would still back them against any of the Home Nations.
So why is it that the Southern Hemisphere time after time produces sides with pace, power and skill to burn whereas European nations in general, and England in particular, fail to provide teams of such balanced athletes? Perhaps the uncomfortable truth is that sport in general is not as culturally significant in modern Europe, and whereas from the earliest age nearly every Australian, South African and New Zealander is whizzing a rugby ball about, English players only begin to acquire the basic familiarity with the game in their mid to late teens. (If you want to look at some really interesting stats, compare the players with the amount of money that is spent on sports pitch construction in these countries and you will find a massive unbalance).
Intriguingly, the same point has been made about English football with some leading coaches claiming that talent must be identified and nurtured from before their tenth birthday. Though there has been an encouraging increase in community rugby clubs creating mini rugby sides with the backing of the RFU, the resistance of primary schools to include rugby in their sporting programmes continues to hold the game back in England. Until we can cut through the red tape and social preconceptions that exclude rugby from pre-teen sporting experience, we can never hope to match the constant stream of world class athletes that grace the Tri Nations.
Comments are closed!