Former All Black Lima Sopoaga gives insight into what life is like in the UK for his young family. VIDEO / @limasopoaga / Wasps
COMMENT:
There's a bit of needless shock horror arising out of the constant cancellations of major rugby events and the news that professional clubs are looking to make cuts in expenditure.
Of course they are. Governments around Europe have effectively made the cancellation decisions for tournament and competition organisers byclosing borders and imposing limits on mass gatherings and with revenue greatly compromised as a result of reduced gate revenue, clubs are cutting their cloth.
Not cutting their cloth accordingly, but cutting it to survive and obviously the players, whose wages must constitute more than half of expenditure at most clubs, are going to feel the brunt.
None of this particularly needs to be dramatised or sensationalised as it's a scenario that will be playing out in hundreds, if not thousands of business right now.
It's what happens in times of extreme financial uncertainty and the Covid-19 response by world governments has created arguably the most uncertain financial times of the last 100 years.
Recession will hit, hundreds of thousands of jobs will be lost, a number of big companies – probably well known airlines – will go bust and there will be casualties across the business landscape.
Well paid rugby players forced to be less well paid...it's not really the story of the moment and it's not even the story of where rugby's real concern should lie at the moment.
And it still won't be if and most likely when New Zealand's top players are asked to accept less to keep things afloat here.
The thing everyone has to remember is that this crisis will ease in time and when it does, professional rugby has enough support and liquidity to arise quickly.
All Blacks players during the New Zealand national anthem. Photo / Photosport
The community side of the sport, however, does not have that luxury and if no school or club rugby is played this year in New Zealand, the ramifications could be significant.
The cost of not having kids playing may end up being much more significant than not having professionals play.
In the weeks before the world shut itself down, the inability to keep teenage boys playing was one of New Zealand Rugby's highest priorities to fix.
Playing numbers in New Zealand have stagnated for the last five years largely because while there is a steady stream of new entrants aged 5-12, there is an equally steady stream of defections among boys aged 12-18.
If we stay on an effective sporting lockdown beyond the current review date of early May, rugby is going to be in a world of trouble but more worryingly the general physical and mental wellbeing of a generation could be affected.
The parallel here is Scotland in the mid 1980s. For almost three years there was prolonged industrial action by teachers and extra curricular activities were all but stopped in most schools.
Sport was only played sporadically and was only possible in some schools because of the involvement of parents who were willing to get involved.
Most teenagers of that period were denied the opportunity to play anything. They drifted away from exercise, from staying fit, from being interested in sport.
It was all too hard without schools organising it and without meaningful games to play.
A whole generation of kids drifted aimlessly. It was a torrid time for parents, holed up with moody teenagers who had no outlets for their angst.
That wasn't the extent of the damage, though. Scotland's national teams – in all sports – plunged in ability in the mid-1990s when they were being picked from the lost generation.
Scotland's rugby team was especially impacted: good enough to win a Grand Slam in 1990 and come within a whisker of beating Buck Shelford's All Blacks at Eden Park that same year, they were hammered by New Zealand three years later.
Throughout the mid 1990s, they suffered a near 70-point drilling by the Springboks and constant big defeats in what was then the Five Nations.
Push the clock a further 10 years forward and Scotland had become a world leader in heart disease. All because of the lost generation? Not entirely, no, but it's certainly true that a cohort of teens who lost the ability to exercise, subsequently lost the love for it and never regained it.
It's community sport where the real shock horror impact of Covid-19 may be felt and the sight of empty fields on Saturday mornings should be more of a concern that the diminished bank accounts of professional players.
