Rugby Union: Strung up on club demands

LAST week I wrote that the domestic football championship went into oblivion because of the selfishness of the clubs, who would not release their players, and that there was little sign that this would happen in the Five Nations. This remains true. The clubs are not claiming the players' primary loyalty. What they are claiming - and receiving - is an equivalent allegiance. In the world of rugby, the leading players now possess dual citizenship, of club and country.

Mike Hall, of Cardiff, was quoted as complaining about this in yesterday's Independent. Eight Welsh players who face Ireland on Saturday, including Hall himself, were appearing in the match at Stradey Park, seven of them in the Llanelli side.

'If a few of the boys are a bit flat in Dublin,' he said, 'it will be the players who get criticised, when it should be the administrators who pack the fixture lists.'

Expressed in this form, Hall's argument is vulnerable. Is he suggesting that only friendly matches should be played seven days before internationals? If this were so, the crowded programme, in England and Wales alike, would not be completed before the beginning of June.

There is nothing intrinsically absurd in extending the season. After all, the French do it, playing in much hotter weather, too. But it opens up another line of argument entirely. Or is Hall saying the administrators should have so arranged matters that, last Saturday, Cardiff and Llanelli should have been playing, say, Dunvant and Cross Keys respectively, and would accordingly have felt free to give their leading players a rest?

Happily, administrators have no means of telling five years in advance (when fixtures have to be arranged) which clubs will be up, which down. Who foretold the rise of Pontypridd and the fall of Pontypool?

And yet, Hall is right. Even in non- league days, there were fixtures such as Llanelli v Cardiff, or Bristol v Harlequins, a week before an international. Those selected for their first cap stood down from the club match, a convention still observed, though Alan Sharp turned out for Bristol on Saturday.

But others, who could have a dozen or more international appearances to their names, might well not play either, for a variety of reasons. The most common reason was the risk of aggravating an injury.

Today, players follow - or are required to follow - almost the reverse principle, irrespective of the desire of their clubs to produce a full complement of internationals for their league matches. Thus Geoff Cooke went to the Memorial Ground specifically to see whether Kyran Bracken's ankle would stand the strain for 80 minutes. It did, and Bracken was duly chosen for Murrayfield.

There may have been something to be said for this test. But were Northampton right to risk not only Martin Bayfield but Tim Rodber as well in the match against London Irish? When Rodber came off at half-time, I said confidently to a colleague that it must be a precautionary measure. It was not. Northampton's answer would doubtless be that it is better for Rodber's hamstring to go in a club match than in an international.

The consolation for those of us who have consistently opposed heightism in rugby is that Neil Back wins his first cap. I read that Back, unable to increase his height, has been increasing his strength instead, and has put on 10lb over a few months.

Years ago it was thought bad for players to be 'muscle-bound' as the phrase went. Body-building was considered to be little short of a perversion; while copies of Health and Efficiency passed rapidly from hand to hand because of their decorous photographs of women without clothes rather than of men with muscles. Well, times change.

Last week I wrote also that Chris Rea believed the time had come to split the Five Nations' Championship, with only England and France, of European countries, in the top division. This was a misinterpretation of his views. Rea is as fervent a supporter of the Five Nations as I am. But he believes a split will come if the Celtic nations do not improve their overall performance in the next decade.