Rugby in the age of Covid-19 0
Rugby in the age of Covid-19 will be a non-spectator sport but at least there are some signs that action will return to the fields and our television screens soon.
New Zealand, thanks to their excellent leadership and general good behaviour of their citizens, are once again being the world-leaders and the great news came out of the Land of the Long White Cloud this week that prime minister Jacinda Ardern is set to announce an easing of their Lockdown to Level 2 on Monday, which allows for the resumption of competitive sport.
Rugby – and more particularly SuperRugby – has been in quarantine since mid-March, but now it looks likely that New Zealand’s franchises will return to action perhaps as early as the first weekend in June. NZ Rugby chief executive Mark Robinson said the players would need three to four weeks of training to be ready for contact and to put on the sort of spectacle rugby fans are so desperate to have back in their lives.
The competition will be called SuperRugby Aotearoa and will involve New Zealand’s five franchises – the Blues, Chiefs, Hurricanes, Crusaders and Highlanders. They will play each other home and away over 10 weeks, with two matches every weekend. But all matches will be played in closed stadiums.
South African rugby fans will have to be more patient, however. While New Zealand this week reported no new Covid-19 cases, South Africa is still living with a pandemic that is still causing more cases (437 announced on Friday) and deaths each day. We’re just going to have to accept New Zealand once again having a headstart on us.
While it is obviously disappointing that spectators won’t be able to watch live at the venues, the first priority has to be to get rugby on the go again, even if it is just on television. To that end, WorldRugby this week put out a statement from their medical experts that all rugby should be played behind closed doors. Even then, they say a minimum of 167 people (58 players, eight stadium operations staff, 41 people working for television, 16 medical personnel, 10 administration staff and four security guards) would be needed at a stadium to put on a high-level game of rugby, so that can’t happen until government allows gatherings of 200 people.
There are also conditions attached to the return to training, which initially will have to be non-contact with masks, and moving from pairs to small groups to full squads.
It looks likely that the two Tests the Springboks were meant to host against Scotland in July will now be played in the summer, but the Rugby Championship is still scheduled to be played in August/September. If our domestic franchises only return to action in July (which is probably the best-case scenario), then the All Blacks will have a massive conditioning advantage over the world champions. But the cash-strapped sport’s need to return to international action is so urgent that those imbalances just have to be accepted.
An additional problem in this country once rugby returns behind closed doors is access to the games. Not being able to go to the stadium is one thing, but most rugby fans cannot afford pay-TV, especially in ever-tighter economic times. Should at least some matches not be broadcast on free-to-air television?
One of the major axes I have to grind with SA Rugby is how they have allowed potentially their most valuable brand after the Springboks, the Currie Cup, to wither into near insignificance. Hopefully when our four SuperRugby franchises plus the Free State Cheetahs and Southern Kings, play their replacement tournament later this year it will spark the revival of the greatest domestic competition.
One only has to watch the sheer passion and intensity on display in the re-runs of Currie Cup finals from early in the last decade to realise what it meant to the players, even the Springboks who were allowed to take part back then. Hopefully once crowds are allowed to attend as well, they will show similar enthusiasm.