By Leipziger
July 26 2005

I would like to share with you some thoughts that have been troubling me for sometime. The club v country conflict has become greater in more recent years, and nowhere greater than at Kingston Park.

Newcastle Falcons have greatly benefited from Jonny Wilkinson’s exploits in November 2003, but the fact is that because of his international career, he missed half of the 2002/03 season and all but 59 minutes of 2003/04.  The benefits off the field are tempered by the problems this causes on it.

 

In this essay I will attempt to analyse the problem and provide an answer to the debate – can the club game and England both be successful (by which I mean both holding the public’s interest and being exciting and worthwhile, not simply money coming into the clubs and England winning the World Cup), or will one have to give way to support the other?

 

In the amateur era, the clubs existed for one simple reason – to give their members a game and a bit of fun.  Serious rugby was limited to the small elite players who played for their counties or, smaller yet, internationally.  Selectors of a side in either representative structure needed only watch a player once for his club and invite him for a “Probables v Possibles” (an elitist term if ever there was one) trial, a number of which would take place before the start of the international and county seasons.  The All Blacks still use this system.

 

These trials were necessary because of the lack of serious competition at club level outside of the county cup competitions (and, from 1972, the National Cup), which still only accounted for a couple of games in a 30+ match club season.  Yet the trials themselves were prestigious, an England trial at Gosforth for example once causing the postponement of almost all club matches in Northumberland so players could watch it.

 

The power of the international game has lessened somewhat, while the County Championship was, after the shambolic Merit Table system was replaced with formal leagues in 1987, limited to players outside the top two divisions.  Now the County Championship is a tournament strictly for amateurs, and only the most rounded rugby supporter of a Premiership club could tell you who are the current champions (I myself don’t know).

 

My point is that the clubs would play in September, and then lose their county players until January, when England would then take over, the clubs getting their best players back for late March and April when the County Cups would be played.  In one season in the 1970s, Steve Gustard and Malcolm Young didn’t even play for Gosforth until after Christmas; such were their representative commitments.

 

But now clubs have serious competition practically every week from September through to May or even June, and they pay their players a lot of money (possibly more than they deserve if we look strictly at the audiences they pull in, though of course that discounts the immense punishment a rugby player takes in a game) to be available and at their best for Premiership, European and Cup matches.

 

This was fine in the early days of professionalism, up to around the summer of 2000, when the regular midweek fixture was abolished.  Now clubs had decided only to play at weekends – when international sides play too.  There just aren’t enough weekends between September and May to play 22 league games, 9 European weekends and 5 Cup matches (league games not being played on semi-final weekends), as well as 8 internationals.

 

So the answer is apparently to play league matches on international weekends.  It is slightly hypocritical when figures such as Rob Andrew complain about playing on Autumn International days, when it was the clubs themselves who decided to play on Six Nations weekends, but one can see his point.  Newcastle lost Jonny Wilkinson, Stuart Grimes and Andrew Mower (and were lucky Epi Taione, Jamie Noon and David Walder didn’t join them) for half a season to the World Cup in Australia in 2003, and injuries resulting from that tournament meant we lost Wilkinson for the rest of the season and Mower forever.  Of course insurance money is paid to the clubs for injuries, but that is beside the point.

 

The impact on losing Wilkinson for 2003/04 and Mower ending his career (even today we are still feeling the effects), was a lot greater than the £30,000 we apparently receive for releasing each of these players to their countries and the insurance for their injuries.  I’m talking of prize money for league places and also lost gates for the team not playing well because of the absence of key players.

 

The flipside of this is that Wilkinson kicking the points that won England the World Cup has been of enormous benefit both financially and in publicity terms to Newcastle.  In addition to this, the experience gained by Wilkinson, Noon and Grimes of playing against the world’s best players improves them as players considerably.

 

But I cannot shake the belief that it is unfair that we have to play during the internationals and then get players returned to us injured or tired.

 

Is there an answer?

 

The fact is that change is required if England are to be successful, yet the club game still be strong enough to bring in the money to satisfy the owners and offer the quality to fans who have supported it since 1995 and before that.  The club game must not be allowed to become a sideshow to entertain people on non-international weekends.

 

My personal loyalty in the club v country debate lies firmly with the club game.  If I had my way, the international game would be curtailed to ensure matches against southern hemisphere teams remained the special events they once were (but sadly aren’t anymore, with the exception of New Zealand).  However, as has been pointed out on numerous occasions, the Autumn Internationals bring in vital revenue that filters through to both the amateur and professional club games.

 

In addition to this, my personal view (and probably that of J.R.R. Tolkien too) is that there one main reason that the sport stayed amateur for so long – power.

 

The power of the unions over the clubs.  The working class did not have the time to become involved in rugby at the highest level, as they couldn’t take the time off work for tours and such (for heaven’s sake, Lions tours lasted four months every three years!).  By continually preventing the formation of leagues, which would inevitably (and did) lead to professionalism, the unions kept the club game out of the spotlight and because there was little competitive rugby at that level, the clubs didn’t have the pressure to win all the time and the need to pay for better players.

 

The middle and upper classes played the game, and did not need to make money from it.  County rugby kept those not selected for England happy that they were getting some competition and recognition.

 

The clubs have much more power now that the professional Premiership and European tournaments have been formed, but are still dependent on international and union money.  The unions will not give up any more power than they already have, and so will not change the structure of the international seasons just to suit the clubs.

 

I can only see an answer if the clubs change their structure.  As Mark H suggested, playing the National Cup (assuming we forget the Anglo-Welsh tosh) on international weekends with reserve teams would be a good idea.  Either this or doing away with the Cup completely, because the Premiership and Europeans cannot be made smaller.

 

Although I personally quite liked the Cup when it was a more democratic event (i.e. up until 2000/01), if it meant no club games on international weekends I would let it go.  It would impact little on clubs’ finances, as at least four Premiership clubs only get one match anyway, and that match is not necessarily at home.

 

And without the Cup, three weekends would be freed up for league matches, the Autumn Internationals would have the nation’s full attention, and by playing the Six Nations in one block at the end of the season, non-international players would be finished by early May (mid-April for those not involved in playoffs or a European final), with the internationals only going on into early June.

 

Thus clubs would not have to suffer the consequences of injured players from internationals, as their seasons would be finished.

 

This is I feel the only way for the club and international games to both co-exist successfully, by the definition I set out at the beginning.  I feel it is workable and, if only both sides could sit around a table and sort out a solution (rather than rejecting it just because the other side suggested it), realistic.