Fijian Drua v Crusaders: Gregor Paul - The big myth busted by the Drua’s stunning win

The Fijian Drua celebrate victory over the Crusaders. Photo / Getty

OPINION:

Rugby’s warped thinking about the power of money and the toxic relationship the sport has with it has never been better illustrated than the scorelines in Lautoka and Twickenham over the weekend.

The Fijian Drua, in beating the defending champion Crusaders with a last-minute penalty, showed that belief, passion, raw athleticism, a love of the game and a refusal to be intimidated by reputation, all equip rugby teams to win big games more effectively than a wad of cash does.

The Drua were magnificent on their home patch. Brave, tenacious, skilled and so clever in the way they made it look like they were thriving on chaos, but were in fact working within a well-considered framework that gave them the shape and technical base from which to showcase that seemingly every player in their team is blessed with a ridiculous capacity to offload.

It was a huge win for the Drua in the context of their 2023 campaign, but an even bigger win for the broader Pacific Island rugby community in debunking the myth that has pervaded within the administrative circles of the sport’s foundation nations that commercial strength leads directly to playing success.

The evidence to suggest this thinking is flawed has long been there, but no-one in authority has wanted to admit it.

Super Rugby bosses convinced themselves years ago that the Islands were a no-go zone for them.

Not because Fiji, Samoa and Tonga didn’t have the players, or the high-performance potential, but because they didn’t have the corporate heft, the broadcast might or mass of population to deliver what administrators craved most — which was pots of cash.

All anyone in power could see when they looked to the Islands was a black hole into which they would pour money, and so, it was to Japan and Australia they turned, believing that Super Rugby would benefit from adding new teams that could offer fans the promise of well-known sponsors rather than cutting-edge talent.

Maybe there was some logic behind it — a not so daft rationale that if the balance sheet was solid, money would buy players, coaches and resources, and in time, performances would reflect the level of investment.

But even if there was a grain of sense to this way of thinking, it missed the bigger point that the more sustainable model is to deliver playing success first because it then becomes the most powerful driver of commercial interest.

There is no better way to attract sponsors than by delivering the sort of victories the Drua did on Saturday.

TV audiences will only increase if fans are given more contests like the one we saw in Lautoka and the image of Super Rugby as staid, lifeless and broken will slowly fix itself when the world sees fans cramming into Churchill Park, loving every minute of every game.

Super Rugby was initially dreamed up as an entertainment product – fast rugby, played on hard grounds by supremely conditioned athletes in front of passionate crowds.

There’s been only sporadic signs of that initial dream in the last decade, but in Fiji the clock was wound back to 1996 and good memories flooded back – of afternoon kick-offs, wildly unpredictable rugby and fans invested in the occasion.

For those who have long advocated for the inclusion of a Pasifika team in Super Rugby, the Drua’s 25-24 victory was no surprise.

It has been apparent to those who have not been tricked into believing that money is all powerful in high-performance sport, that the three Island nations just needed an opportunity to be involved: a basic financial support package to get them up and running.

Money is an enabler at this level, not a differentiator. Money buys the fundamentals — pays for the coaches, players, and support staff.

If there is enough of it floating about, it can buy the professional life extras of laptops, analytical software programmes, ice baths, GPS trackers and drones to film training from every angle.

But there is no evidence that additional expenditure leads to greater success and we need only look at England to be sure of that.

The English are the best-funded and best-resourced team on the planet. They have every high-performance tool imaginable at their disposal and yet, 12 hours after the Drua (operating on the most basic high-performance budget) defeated the Crusaders, England fell to a record defeat against France.

The England players, whose collective match fees alone total $900,000 per game, were clueless and joyless. And who could honestly say that the estimated $22m that would have been banked by selling out Twickenham will have any ability to help improve a team that looks to have lost all sight of what it takes to win.

Money has been worshipped as a false idol for too long and maybe the wondrous Drua will finally enable a few more people to see that.