Most of them will never have heard of Come On You Saints (dot com). Fewer still would take the time or bother to log on and become part of its community.

Were the learned doctor about to embark upon research he would, no doubt, set up controls and parameters, define his population and rationalise his sample and probably a whole host of other things that only the world of academe would understand.

I took the opportunity to have a couple of beers with a number of friends and talk about rugby. I did not take copious notes but what follows are fair and reasonable summaries of these conversations.

I get my rugby fixes in a number of ways. The closest to mainlining is the weekly involvement with a group of young players. The other coaches and I are entrusted with their safety and rugby education & development. We try to give them opportunities to play the game; we train them in attack and defence; set-piece and loose play; ball winning and ball using. We use phrases containing the words concentration, communication and commitment, aggression and control. Trying not to be highfaluting about it we discuss aims, strategies and tactics.

1.       The Coach

Coaches, especially coaches of young players put a tremendous amount of time into their hobby. Coaching properly is not just the work of a couple hours, days or weeks. Coaches work hard to help young men learn from the lessons of their collected experience. In return the coaches ask their players to put all this learning together in a performance. A Sunday morning’s entertainment is gained in watching these young men striving to deliver that performance.

This can lead to strange states of affairs.  Imagine being towards the end of a match, your guys are leading 3-nil.  The last time they played this opposition, they lost by 40 points. With 10 minutes to go everyone but the coaches are figuratively pinching themselves and willing the boys on to victory. For the coaches it is different. They had given their instructions and made their exhortations and now with the game not yet over, there is nothing more to be achieved. 

Yes, there would be disappointment if the team concedes a couple of tries and ends up on the losing side. But, before the game, it was not about winning – the team talk had revolved around performance. The boys had competed throughout the first half and the essential message at half time was to keep up the intensity of play – not to let the effort slacken. For the coaches, the boys had performed so well for 50 out of the sixty minutes that the actual result irrelevant to success or failure.

2.       The Proud Parent

Another time we feel the rush of adrenalin is when we witness our own flesh and blood playing. Parents see relatively few competitive school games (e.g. Daily Mail or County Cup), so results are, usually, secondary to performance. Most upset is caused by the standard of the referees (the calibre can vary so much). There are those that ignore safety as though it does not matter and some that ignore equity to ensure a home victory. Parents generally see enough of the team to understand what the pattern by which the coach wants them to play. They join in the pleasure when a tackle is followed quickly by concerted rucking. There is spontaneous pleasure when the full-back makes his practised incursion into the line.

When the opposition is not up to much parents like to see a good performance from the forwards generating a stream of possession. With that possession, they like to see good decisions made and good execution to deliver the end product. When it is a tough game they appreciate the concentration and communication elements that come into play to get the defensive organisation right. They bark out approval of commitment to the cause – tigerish tackling and competition for the ball.

3.       The Referee

Referees only usually make these columns when they let their standards slip. They become figures of hate and targets of abuse. Yet every winter Saturday there are thousands of heroes that give up their time so that another 30 guys get to play the game they love. For these (usually) older men who turn up to officiate for the Extra Zeds, the most important thing is the spirit in which the game is played.

The enjoyment comes when guys of nearly as old as the author are trying and, for the most part, succeeding in keeping the spirit of the game alive. As a game, rugby is meant to be played; it is also a game for all shapes and sizes. The only time livelihood is at stake is when an occasional idiot decides that revenge for some happening real or imaginary is more important than sharing a muddy afternoon with a group of like-minded individuals.

Most of them referee for no better reason than someone has to and, when younger, the only time he did not play was when the team could not get a referee.

4.       Members & Supporters of the Local Junior Club

When we move up the scale to competitive rugby at junior club level – and here we are usually talking about first team and colts – winning seems to take on a little more importance. It is often said that the Colts XV is the second most important team in a club - especially when you are trying to develop your own players.  If you aspire to play at the best level you can, you can easily find yourself up against semi-professional s. If your club cannot or will not “pay expenses” they may not find themselves as the club of choice for incomers. And there is always the possibility that some of your better players might be offered the chance of a “sponsored shirt” elsewhere.

So while performance is still important, coaches are judged on results. A club-house is a happy place on a Saturday night if the first team has won and happier still if the lairy young men with the gelled hair and sharply defined tattoos are strutting their stuff with a win behind them.

In this atmosphere of bonhomie, when somebody asks how the seconds got on, they are not expecting a response of played-well-but-lost. One word suffices and clenched fist in a pumping motion will greet it if it’s “won”.

5.       The Armchair Rugby Fan

Moving up the grades again into what might be called televised rugby, the criteria for enjoyment and entertainment differ depending on the amount of emotional investment in the outcome. Entertainment comes when the match is balanced in all its facets and illuminated by a spark of brilliance from individual players. When the skills on display are sufficiently high in quality and the outcome is in the balance, fans remain enthralled no matter who is playing and no matter what the result.

When it is unbalanced in one or more aspects, it can fail to hold the casual fan’s interest.

One example is the summer that it was announced that Bruce Reihana would be joining Saints. Someone with whom I spoke spent a number of Saturday mornings watching the NPC. It was pre-2003 and so NZ was enthral to rugby league-style forward play. Paddy O’Brien had become a master of the 100-point game. While scores close to 60-40 were not exactly commonplace the ethos overplayed scoring at the expense of contest as the main entertainment factor. If Waikato were involved, he watched – they were his new best friends. He was an adopted Moo Loo and nobody bothered about Bruce’s kicking percentage as another try would be along in a minute.  This guy said, and I tend to agree, that a distorted game with great skill on display (but only when in possession) is only half a game.

As I remember a Graham Henry-inspired Auckland won the championship by knocking Waikato out of their stride. They did not play the prettier rugby but came to the final with aggressive defence in mind. A more complete game plan methinks.

6.       And Finally…

The rugby I watch most is that in which I have deep emotional investment. While I like to aspire to the Kipling doctrine about triumph and disaster, Saints or England winning makes me happy; their losing makes me less so. While I would like to see high skill levels from both, I will settle for more points. If it does not turn out that way, I will look toward performance for that old economist’s standby – the green shoots of recovery.

As someone who thinks that schadenfreude tastes of vinegar, I can be completely dispassionate about games not involving Saints or England but it had better be a decent game.  I want to see both teams trying to attack and both trying to defend. The referee needs to be on his mettle, too. If not, I will be off down the road for breakfast with my mate.

arw

19-Dec-06