’Twas the week before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even the latest Omicron variant. And with infection rates on the rise in many parts of the continent, who would currently opt to be a cross-border tournament organiser? European rugby union’s bleak Covid midwinter is already showing signs of being a depressingly long one.
Last weekend just eight of a possible 18 pool games across the Champions and Challenge Cups were able to proceed because of Covid-related issues, leaving officials with any number of logistical headaches. Essentially if the French government do not announce an easing of their current border restrictions inside the next three weeks there will be little chance of fully completing round three of European competitions next month. That, in turn, would drastically undermine the scheduled final pool round just a week later.
Even then, how fair have some of the recent adjudicated points decisions been? Leinster remain hugely aggrieved at being adjudged 28-0 losers against Montpellier even though they could still have fielded a team for the fixture. And after Scarlets were effectively punished for having to quarantine following their ill-fated trip to South Africa, is there not a good argument for treating them similarly to those French teams currently barred from travelling whose fixtures may be rescheduled?
It is a deepening hole at a time of year when players and supporters are supposed to be building towards the start of the Six Nations in early February. Vaccines or no vaccines, will it be possible to stage the tournament in front of capacity crowds? Will mass cross-border travel be permitted or sensible? Nor have we even mentioned the possibility of inclement wintry weather, not exactly unknown when Scotland host England, as they will do in February's opening round. Remember Storm Ciara in 2020? The capacity for disruption is never too far away.
So, what next? As anyone with the slightest knowledge of rugby’s jam-packed calendar will know, it is not a matter of simply waiting for a free weekend. Even tinned sardines would wince at the congested nature of the northern hemisphere fixture list, with not a solitary spare Saturday available until deep into the summer.
Midweek games are also a non-starter on player welfare grounds, which leaves just the round of 16 home and away weekends pencilled in for April. Could you ditch those, move any postponed December and January fixtures to the now vacant dates and then send only the top four from each pool through to the quarters? Fine in theory, less so if you happen to be one of the clubs forced to field an under-strength side in the early games.
There is a more radical alternative. You could call a reluctant halt to the pool stages now, invite the eight fastest starters (including at least two sides from each of the three major European domestic leagues) from this season’s fledgling Challenge Cup to make up the numbers to 32 and play a straight knockout tournament over five weekends commencing in April. Not ideal and slightly breathless, but more inclusive and, with a fair wind, potentially workable.
Last season was arguably even more of an oddity, with Sale managing to qualify for the last 16 (and subsequently the last eight) despite losing both the pool games in which they played. And yet, by the end of the season, with Toulouse beating La Rochelle in a highly-competitive final at Twickenham, many of the whys and wherefores had melted away. As the Scarlets chairman, Simon Muderack, rightly put it the other day: “We love sport because at the end of the game we know who has won, lost or drawn. If you remove that factor then you lose the sport.”
It is not just EPCR, though, whose fingers are tightly crossed. In the Ultimate Rugby Championship, the fixtures involving South African teams in Ireland and Italy on the weekend of 7th-8th of January have now been rescheduled to the final weekend of February. Sure, but if January turns out to be badly disrupted from a Covid point of view, will that leave some, if not all, Six Nations teams with players seriously short of match practice? On and on it goes.
At least – and how thankful we should be – there has been one discernible silver lining so far. Several of the European matches that have been played, particularly, those involving Cardiff, have been genuinely uplifting, with players who might otherwise not have enjoyed the spotlight making the most of their opportunities. Cardiff's Cameron Winnett and Theo Cabango showed much youthful promise at Harlequins, while James Botham and Dan Fish, in an uphill cause, both burnished their reputations significantly. Elsewhere, how good does James Hume look in the centre for Ulster and does Duane Vermeulen ever have a bad game? How many sides on the UK mainland would love to have Michael Lowry at fullback?
When the dust settled at the Stoop, though, the excellent statistician Russ Petty observed that winless Cardiff’s -58 points difference after two games against Toulouse and Quins was a worse scenario than it would have been had they forfeited both fixtures and been adjudged 28-0 losers on both occasions. Harsh indeed, and slightly ironic as the spirit shown in adversity has bathed the club in as much deservedly good publicity as it has enjoyed for years.
Which maybe is the lesson the whole game should now absorb. Focus not on what may not happen but on what might still be possible. Accentuate the positive, keep smiling and try not to let the virus, or other gloomy winter tidings, entirely dominate the way you feel. On which upbeat note it is time to leave you with a socially-distanced chorus of a bespoke festive carol. “Four lateral flows, three French tests, two booster jabs and a test tube in a pear tree!”
Happy Christmas all.
- Guardian
