There are plenty of major rugby union contests happening this month but perhaps the most far-reaching is taking place in Dublinon Thursday. World Rugby’s assembled delegates will vote in a new chair and the outcome is not yet the foregone conclusion so often served up on these occasions.
The race to succeed the retiring Bill Beaumont is a three-way one between Australia’s Brett Robinson, France’s Abdelatif Benazzi and Italy’s Andrea Rinaldo, with Robinson regarded as the frontrunner. The winner needs 27 votes and sources suggest it is not inconceivable that, after one first-round runner is eliminated, Benazzi could gain some game-altering last-minute extra backers.
It has already been an acrimonious tussle with Scotland’s John Jeffrey having withdrawn from contention after being advised his own union would no longer support him. Those close to a furious Jeffrey also allege Robinson firmly assured him he would not be running, only to change tack. There certainly seems to be a collective realisation that the days of protectionist old-school thinking need updating.
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In that sense, Robinson, who has made a lot of money from retirement homes in Australia, could be considered an appropriate candidate. Having won 16 caps in the back row for the Wallabies, he knows the game well.
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Australia have already enjoyed one massive result in recent days, but Benazzi, born in Morocco and a legendary forward for Les Bleus, is putting himself forward as a candidate for change who will do more to encourage those nations outside the familiar Anglo-Saxon elite. He says he believes rugby union faces an existential crisis if it fails to find and encourage new markets and wants to pursue new methods of growing the sport among different cultures.
That kind of pitch did not quite work for Argentina’s Agustín Pichot when he stood against Beaumont in 2020 but rugby’s problems – financial and otherwise – have deepened since then. While it also remains to be seen how many northern hemisphere turkeys will vote for Christmas and accept any dilution of their voting power, the debate is increasingly stark. Benazzi, for one, openly questions whether the status quo is sustainable. “We can continue like this, but what happens in four or five years?” he asks, rhetorically.
It will be fascinating to see what unfolds at a time when the sport is crying out for fresh vision. The Rugby Football Union and New Zealand seem to be behind Robinson’s candidature with Italy and Ireland backing Rinaldi. Interestingly, Pichot is back in the mix for one of the six other available seats on the executive board and may yet push for another tilt at the top job in the future. England’s Jonathan Webb is potentially in the running for the vice-chair role.
Whoever emerges on top there are any number of pressing issues beyond the plan to take major games to Qatar in return for the kind of cash windfall other sports have been scrambling to secure. For example, the World Rugby Council will be asked to rubber-stamp certain law trials recently approved by the executive board, with the 20-minute red card experiment the talk of Cardiff and Edinburgh last weekend.
For those who have been away visiting Mars, the 20-minute red card is designed for non-deliberate head contact and other similar offences deemed more serious than a yellow card but below the full red card threshold. These can then be upgraded or otherwise by the bunker review system, with another player permitted to take the original miscreant’s place after 20 minutes are up.
Thus it was that Fiji’s Semi Radradra could be replaced after his first-half dismissal, restoring his side to 15 men and helping to seal them a memorable victory over Wales. Already, though, there are concerns about mixed messages. If hitting someone in the head is suddenly worthy of only a 20-minute sanction, how does that sit with World Rugby’s player welfare messaging? Or is it a tacit admission that tackle height margins are now so tiny in a full-on contact sport that a midway sanction is essential? If it is the latter, is someone going to write a note of apology to Sam Cane, Beno Obano and Charlie Ewels, among others, for the reputational damage done before that penny belatedly dropped?
Tackle height strictures, by the way, are still not preventing the kind of injuries suffered by England’s Tom Curry and Italy’s Ange Capuozzo at the weekend Both were attempting supposedly textbook low tackles and copped knees to the head for their pains. And what happens on Saturday if both full-backs at Twickenham are invalided off early on with broken ribs after being smashed by opponents who must now be given a clear run at them by retreating defenders? Is that progress or does it sound end for diminutive attack-minded No 15s everywhere? If it ends up encouraging even more kicking it will be the latest instance of a well-meaning initiative that has not been entirely thought through.
We could go on. Unions playing a muted version of the away anthem over the public address before firing up their own singer to do the home anthem maximum justice. Allowing one team to do a full-on ceremonial haka while simultaneously barring the opposition from putting so much as a toenail over the halfway line. Permitting six fresh forward substitutes to rumble on simultaneously while still marketing rugby as a game for all shapes and sizes. The winner of Thursday’s vote will inherit a bulging in-tray. — Guardian
