Following a similar trend of columns in the recent past, David Moseley, also reckons the fun has gone out of rugby in his recent News24 column.
You probably recall those mid-90s Springbok Tri-Nations matches in New Zealand rather fondly. I do. I was still at school back then, and spent many weekends with my grandparents (they had Mnet). On Tri-Nations Saturdays my granddad would wake me up, usually around 4am in those days, with a cup of teeth-melting sugary tea and a toasted cheese sandwich that, had it ever been placed on an airport runway, could’ve halted a runaway Boeing.
The two of us would sit there in sleepy silence and watch the game, my granddad snoring through the most pertinent parts, like the first 80 minutes (he was a soccer man, and only ever “watched” rugby because I enjoyed it) and me wailing and gnashing under my breath as the Boks succumbed to their usual 50-nil New Zealand drubbing.
It was a special time and a happy routine, made it all the more magical because my Glaswegian granddad could care less for the Boks, yet got me up anyway, but also because there was something fun and romantic about getting up to watch rugby while it was still pitch black outside.
You probably all did it, and you probably all remember how rubbish the Boks were when they played in New Zealand in the 90s. Yet somehow those early morning games never deterred us from waking, always expecting for “this” to be the Saturday when Springbok luck would improve.
Nothing but a memory
Those mornings are consigned to the memory scrapheap now. Still, when we do play sport at odd hours, like the Proteas are busy doing in New Zealand, I like to wake up in the dark and have a cuppa with my team, mostly because it reminds me of my granddad, but also because it reminds of when rugby was fun, and not a board meeting in studs.
For me, the game has lost its lustre. Somewhere between 1995 and hearing last night that Varsity Cup teams were cheating (it only took three years, surely a record of sorts?), the game booted the romance of rugby into touch and started mauling cheerlessly and relentlessly towards bottom line results.
It’s tiresome, formulaic and dreary. You can tell the powers-that-be know this, because every weekend commentators are frantically trying to tell us how exciting a particular game is – when they know better.
At this stage of the season during the Super 12 we would be getting excited about semi-final prospects. A third of the season gone, we’d be looking at the form books and figuring out who would make the Springbok squad. Now, with Super Rugby, we have coaches still talking about “getting into it”, “improving week-by-week”, “looking at the bigger picture” or noting that “it’s a long season still to come” – a long season of what, snoring in front of the telly?
Did you know the Stormers are top of the log? How the hell did they manage that? Oh wait, their opponents have fallen asleep in the second half of every game at Newlands so far.
Test rugby is no better, with players and coaches talking about “the next four years” or the cycle between World Cups. For sure, like any fan I want my team to win the World Cup, but not at the expense of having some fun in between. I blame Jake White for this “World Cup cycle phenomenon”. He put so much emphasis on winning 2007, that fans were happy to give him a free pass for some of the atrocities committed between winning the 2004 Tri-Nations and the 2007 World Cup.
Yes, like all sports, rugby is a business now and blah blah one poor excuse after another. But that shouldn’t be the sole reason for squeezing all the life, spirit and fun out of the beautiful game.
I used to go to as many Western Province matches as I could: Vodacom Cup, Currie Cup and Super Rugby. Today, rugby is so dire and lifeless, you won’t catch me within 500m of a TV showing a game.
It may seem odd to declare rugby dead on a weekend that the Stormers went top, the Sharks beat the defending champions and the Cheetahs won it after the final whistle with the best of smash-and-grab tries. But don’t let those little victories fool you. The game is played by men in suits, who smile when the money rolls in, not when a forward pack rolls over the try line.
For me, nobody seems to be having any fun anymore, and that’s far more devastating than losing a game.
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March 20th, 2012 at 8:43 am
So true!
March 20th, 2012 at 8:47 am
These days one can easily walk away from a game and not be bothered. There will be many many more so why care about the outcome of today? Value is determined by availability. Those things available in abundance has less value. Rugby is becoming such a commodity. To play for the Boks hasn’t got the same meaning it used to as they play so much now that the measure of success has become a century of Bok selections.
March 20th, 2012 at 8:57 am
Problem is (or is it) as most fans (myself included) grow older whether that be music fans or sporting fans across the codes and genre’s… they tend to become too insular with the inherent too-set-in-their-ways nostalgia trip setting in…
In their opinion, no longer is current music live or on radio… as good as it was in their times… or current tests with media-on-tap as good as the old days when there were no DVR’s nor repeats across the avenues…
I say blah… the modern man can appreciate the nostalgic past AND keep re-inventing evolving his tastes and open-mindness (sic)!
Take this Super 15 for example so far in 2012… gone are the days the favourites would be guaranteed a smashing over perennial wooden-spooners… or usually dour RSA teams or over-active Antipodean teams stuck playing to their stereo-typical styles…
There’ve been upsets a plenty, multiple loose free-flowing games with ball being swung with gay abandon, forward play and defence still balanced and culminating in exciting last minute tries at the death… then there’ve been the test-like slog-fests going PK tit-for-tat right to the end and lastly the balanced power-paced Southern Hemishpere Super rugby magic… and all of this including upsets or excruciatingly close finishes…
Super rugby teams have never been as close as they are this year… and the rugby has been awesome IMO!
Clearly I’ve been watching different rugby… bring on round 5!
March 20th, 2012 at 9:51 am
By the reduced watching numbers we now see, something needs to be done.
We can start by bringing back rucking.
Then the defensive line needs to be bought back or policed better. Kind of rugby league defense sucks but works.
Reduce the games between SA, AU and NZ at both club and international level.
One global season with a world club championship every two years.
Dirt trackers for tours.
Players staying Provinces longer and not bolting at the first sign of 10 bucks more. It then just becomes a job, which we all have and therefore less appealing.
March 20th, 2012 at 10:08 am
refereeing is more detrimental IMO. I watched the Sharks game and the Highlanders game last night and must say I was a little entertained but how many times I shook my head due to the ref I lost count after the 1st 20min of Bryce Lawrence
Anyway – game is not all that bad, some good stuff. However I watched the F1 replay as well and I did not fall asleep
March 20th, 2012 at 11:11 am
I agree with Bryce
March 20th, 2012 at 11:13 am
I think Dave Mosely is talking kak
There was one 50 pointer in the 1990′s…
In 1997 when the Boks played 60 minutes with 14 men after Andre Venter got sent off and when Ruben Kruger had already been stretchered off earlier.
Maybe he should go and relook at his memories the twat.
March 20th, 2012 at 11:19 am
Reply to DavidS @ 11:13 am:
I was astounded when I read (re Newlands) that
WP won the CC THREE times in a row (1984+) when
I thought all and sundry knows it’s FIVE times.
Coming from Zelim Nel I was even more surprised.
March 20th, 2012 at 11:57 am
I was having this discussion on another forum about the Border war as well and yet another about WW2…
I mean what the hell are they teaching kids in school these days?
Apparently the Chinese “defeated” the Portuguese in a war in the 1500′s somewhere… go look and … oh yes a small fleet of Portuguese exploration boats were confronted by like a hundred Chinese ships and chased off…
And I’m like… if the Chinese won can someone explain how Portugal held onto Macau for 600 years?
And apparently they defeated the Dutch too…
Ja, they besieged a fortress on Formosa for over a year before the Dutch decided to negotiate to leave seeing as Holland at the time was at war with England and unlikely to send reinforcements… Formosa reverted to Dutch control afterwards and stayed a colony until after WW2…
I swear I don’t know anymore…
As for the border…
It’s amazing that SWAPO had the magnanimity to let the SADF stay there from 1915 to 1989 without losing their temper and killing all the white soldiers instead of just the half a million they did… I mean it’s amazing that despite suffering half a million casualties and incessant defeat the apartheid government still managed to hold onto that useless piece of land for so long… if you believe certain numbers then the south of angola is built on the bones of dead white soldiers in rotting brown uniforms and the fact the SADF still had aroured vehicles to give to the SANDF is a miracle of industrial output by Armscor as all the Ratels. Elands, Olifants and Mirages are all still smouldering wrecks littering southern Angola…
Or this beaut on a WW2 website
All German soldiers in WW2 were Nazis…
Oh really why is that?
They fought for the Nazi regime…
Oh right.. the way all American soldiers in Afghanistan are Republicans because GW sent them there? Or all the British ones in 2003 Iraq were labour supporters because toothy Blair sent them to do America’s dirty work… or all Russian soldiers in W2 were communists?
Then I get accused of being dishonesty…
Eastern Europeans have nothing to be proud of that is nt long long long gone… their last precious greatness died at the end of WW2.
March 20th, 2012 at 11:57 am
Okay
Rant done until I recall something else that pisses me off.
March 20th, 2012 at 12:09 pm
Okay but as a support for Moseley, though I still do not agree with him..
Worrisome for rugby
On a weekend which included Cheetahs v Bulls, Lions v Hurricanes and Sharks v Stormers as well as a test match between SA and NZ and a round of soccer derby matches the highest watched television show was the live coverage of EFC 12 at Carnival City…. which aired at 23h00 on E-tv which is renowned for televizing no sports of value…
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=301867533214466&set=a.224720367595850.56132.181663058568248&type=1&ref=nf