Former Australian Wallabies rugby CEO Raelene Castle. Photo / Brett Phibbs.
Former Australian Wallabies rugby CEO Raelene Castle. Photo / Brett Phibbs.
Give rugby a mile of crisis and they will apply an inch of moral standing in trying to solve it.
Those eternal optimists who are viewing the Covid-19 situation as a pathway to a better future for the global game are going to end up horribly disappointed.
Change, on thescale that many are hoping for, is not going to happen. The global season – a perceived panacea for many of rugby's financial ills, inequalities and welfare issues – will remain the pipe dream it always has because self-interest and self-protection will prevail.
Those who have faith that humans can learn from major events should remember that we had a Great War in 1914 to sort everything out. Then in 1939 we had another Great War.
Humans are resilient more than they are adaptive and now that rugby has been plunged into a financial crises of catastrophic proportions that will become apparent.
The survival instinct is already kicking in and rather than see the current opportunity to re-draft competitions, move the calendar around, haul the Tier Two nations on to the deck and distribute the wealth equitably and sustainably, rugby's various factions and decision-makers don't have any notion of operating for the greater good and are instead scrambling like rats in a bucket.
In Europe, conflict has already erupted. World Rugby aired a provisional plan to play the soon to be cancelled July tests in October.
Test rugby is the real financial driver of the global game and so the plan made sense, but the all-powerful European clubs have said no.
Bill Beaumont, (L) the World Rugby chairman, shakes hands with Bernard Laporte. Photo / Getty Images.
October is their time to finish off the various competitions that are currently in limbo and with many clubs just about bankrupt, they aren't going to move out of the way for the international game.
The clubs need income as much as the national unions and so the conflict and internecine politics that have riddled the game in that part of the world since it turned professional, look destined to continue and be the handbrake on reform they have always been.
How could anyone think otherwise when two old stagers, two men who are old school rugby to their core, are likely to be given the keys to the kingdom on the condition they talk about their desire to establish a brave new world but never actually go there.
Bill Beaumont and Bernard Laporte are the Six Nations' golden ticket, which is why they stack as the likely winners in the upcoming vote for World Rugby chairman and vice-chairman.
These two will rekindle the Nations League concept which will give Japan and Fiji a foot up to the top table. But ultimately it will just make the rich richer and leave the likes of Georgia, USA, Canada, Russia, Samoa and Tonga with the same old problems they have always had.
And, it won't bring any significant change in regard to a unification of seasons between the two hemispheres. The Six Nations will stay exactly where it is, because it works in that February-March slot and by playing it then, it gives those nations certainty they can start filling the huge holes in their respective balance sheets.
Most executives still think principles are great until they get in the way of delivering what they want.
And then there is the situation in Australia. Raelene Castle raising the white flag, selflessly determining that she is a noose around Rugby Australia's neck.
She stood down as chief executive because she came to realise that the old boy cartel that wanted her out doesn't actually have a strategy or plan to save the game. They just have a desire, compulsive need almost, to see one of their own at the helm of Rugby Australia. It won't fix anything, but seeing one of their own in charge will make them feel better.
If it felt like there were undertones of sexism and xenophobia in the old boys' quest to oust her, it was because there were undertones of sexism and xenophobia in the old boys' quest to oust her.
Self-preservation, ambition and greed will overcome any sense that a stronger collective leads to greater individual strength and rugby's big chance to change will be blown.
Just watch, 2021 will be business as usual, nothing new or innovative in the pipeline. It will be the same major nations playing the same major nations, shoving what they can in their coffers without a hint of guilt that they will be killing the lesser nations as they do so.
