A weekly look at the game's other talking points
It was bittersweet bordering on intensely frustrating to listen to Georgia's victorious captain Merab Sharikadze speak after his side's historic win over Wales at the Principality Stadium.
Sharikadze did not mince his words: “It would be unfair if World Rugby tried to pretend this [win] didn't happen. It says a lot, doesn't it, that we have beaten two top tier sides this year. I hope World Rugby are watching us. I'm not arrogant, but I hope they don't try to ignore what is happening. How can you when something is so obvious.”
Quite. But the trouble is World Rugby has absolutely zero say in who plays in the Six Nations, or indeed for that matter the Rugby Championship in the southern hemisphere. World Rugby are completely irrelevant in this field, the top end of the game still belongs to two self-appointed elites and commercial entities who have no interest in fairness or growing the game. They want only the status quo with their privileged positions protected in perpetuity.
Trying to explain this to the splendid Sahrikadze and his mates, even before language difficulties are factored in, is the devil's own job. For a start, and we rarely acknowledge this, the rest of the world sees Great Britain or UK being allowed to field three teams, four if you include Ireland who take in Northern Ireland. That does rather seem like having your cake and eating it too but there simply aren't enough hours in a day to do this subject justice. Let's move on.
Obviously in any normal sport you would expect the world governing body to be in charge but in reality they effectively only govern the underbelly of the game.
World Rugby governs, via Rugby Europe, the REC competitions for example and under that jurisdic- tion Georgia, if they ever encountered a bad season, would be unceremoniously relegated from REC1 to REC 2. And rightly so. Sport is about winning and losing, advancing, or being relegated. It should never be about occupying an elevated position by dent of privilege and blackballing others. Within the confines of the limited World Rugby sphere of influence, we see heartening success. Just a few seasons back Portugal were a mid table REC 2 side and were world ranked 27 and then they got hot, unearthed a freakishly good couple of back to back year groups, won their way into REC1 and then via an admittedly scenic journey, qualified for next year's World Cup.
Brilliant – that is clearly how it should be, except the system comes to an abrupt halt with the Six Nations, the Division One of European Rugby. The cosy club, under pain of death, cannot be infiltrated by continental riff raff, Iberian intruders, eastern European upstarts. Good god no. It is by invitation only.
The Six Nations might throw the occasional bone. The Georgian Facebook account reported hopefully this week informal meetings between the Georgian Union President Soso Tkemeladze with Bill Sweeney and the Six Nations CEO Ben Morel. Apparently if they behave themselves the Georgians might just be able to host and participate in an U18 Six Nations tournament – atournament which they used to routinely compete in until they got too good one year and beat a couple of teams leaving Scotland at the bottom of the table theoretically facing relegation to the REC tournament. Georgia weren't asked to compete after that just as their excellent U20 side has never been allowed to compete in the Six Nations U20 tournament which is just plain vindictive and petty.
The Facebook account also mentioned the possibility of the Six Nations training ‘Georgian managers' in marketing and TV broadcasting although it seems to me that starting from scratch when the country won its independence in 1991 and given little or no help and encouragement from the Six Nations the Georgians have done a quite exceptional job themselves in that respect.
Despite getting writer's cramp over the decades supporting the notion of a free pathway between the Six Nations and REC1, I came to the conclusion recently that we will never see a properly expanded European Six Nations or a fair system of promotion and relegation. Not in my lifetime anyway. They will look to South Africa before any other European team is included. Constitutionally and contractually, everything is carved up by the Six Nations and the survival of professional rugby in at least three of the nations – Wales, Scotland and Italy – is totally reliant on guaranteed Six Nations revenues.
It's the wrong mindset but it's the prevailing attitude. I would argue strongly that A: Such an eventuality was possibly their fault after decades of ruinous mismanagement and incompetence and B the cold shower effect of a season or two in REC1 without the comfort of home games against old opponents might, with the correct mental approach, actually kick start them in to action and a much better business model. The Six Nations will do nothing to endanger their privileged guaranteed status.
So, in the absence of any Six Nations collaboration here is my Hail Mary suggestion. World Rugby should bite the bullet and acknowledge that it has no influence whatsoever with the Six Nations, no power to change or shape, so the only thing it can realistically do is promote an annual competition of equal status in the rest of Europe.
This will be difficult because World Rugby is constitutionally still run by the Six Nations with their 18 block votes and although they don't want others in their tournament, they might not be wildly happy at a big shiny new competing tournament. However I believe we could cause enough of a stink into shaming them into acquiescence.
We are already halfway there. REC1 – which this season will be divided in two pools of four teams, boasts three Word cup finalists in Georgia, Portugal and Romania and a fourth in Spain who qualified but were then disqualified. That's 20 per cent of the World Cup nations right there.
But relaunch it and put bells and whistles on it. Throw the kitchen sink at it with all the financial and promotional resources World Rugby has. Expand it to ten teams, two pools of five, include Japan – base them in France for six weeks let's say Toulouse – and Uruguay who can stay in San Sebastian or perhaps Barcelona. Top two in each pool play off in a final. Five matches in all. Six if you have time for semi-finals.
Get Amazon on board – they have ridiculous amounts of money to throw at sport and have recently ‘discovered' rugby so strike while the iron is hot, secure the big European and transcontinental sponsors, the TV contracts and make it sing. Rugby weekends in Madrid, Barcelona, San Sebastian, Toulouse, Tbilisi, Lisbon, Porto, Bucharest, Amsterdam, Warsaw, Brussels or Bruges, Munich…Yes please.
Invent something bigger and, who knows, maybe one day even better.
