Rugby bosses wringing enjoyment from game

Press, 6 December 1985, Page 24

Rugby bosses wringing enjoyment from game

By

JOHN BROOKS

The New Zealand Rugby Union, that staunchest of amateur bodies, has made out a very good case for the leading footballers to become professional by compiling a formidably heavy list of representative fixtures for 1986.

Circus monkeys have a better deal than top rugby players these days, and the size of the 1986 fixture list must make the All Blacks feel like a bunch of daleks.

Demands on the game’s leading participants will reach unreasonable levels next year, and those who are both All Blacks and Aucklanders can expect to be pursuing the pigskin from February through to November.

Andy Haden and his men are scheduled to tour Japan in February, and those who are selected for New Zea-

land will be tussling with tough French competition in October and November. In between they will participate in the new competition for the Tasman Cup, defend the Ranfurly Shield, play in the inter-island game and the All Black trials, and face Australia in a threematch home test series. There will also be national first division matches, games against neighbouring unions, and the sevens tournament.

For others, there will be the additional chore of Maori, university, services, colts and emerging players’ games, and mini tours consequent on those selections. Somewhere in the midst of this vast framework,

players will also be sought avidly by their clubs for matches which administrators love to term the “grassroots” of the game. Canterbury, which, with Auckland, supplies the bulk of the present All Black side, does not have such an absurdly early start as its northern rival. But with 20 representative matches for Canterbury A, with the attendant trials, Town-Coun-try, and sub-unions’ games, the engagement books of the top players will be crammed with fixtures. All players cherish a strong affiliation with their clubs, for it is through them that they gained their initial toehold in the game. But loyalties will be stretched to

snapping point with leading participants expected to line up for so many first class fixtures, and the unfortunate clubs are the ones likely to miss out Most players are proud to be amateurs, for they feel that the maintenance of that status is one of rugby’s great strengths. But aware of the amount of money the game is coining through their endeavours, the players’: rumblings are risking to a deafening crescendo.

There are two important points which will soon bring the situation to an advanced state of* agitation. Employers of All Blacks cannot expect to continue to allow their men time off, often on full pay, over such a large span of time. And the players cannot hope to handle the physical demands of the 1986 list without either losing all affection for the game, or dropping dead. Test players such as Jock Hobbs, Wayne Smith, Warwick Taylor, Craig Green and Victor Simpson could theoretically play an average of one game a week for the entire year if they were able to fulfil all club, representative and international demands. Add in the time consumed by travelling, training, and touring, and it is hardly worth the players’ while to report for work. Those who are family men realise the strain that

can attend the domestic scene through frequent absences. Children will ? be peering behind the . television set “to find daddy.”

Consider these relevant quotes: ■ F “We give our guts for our club side on Saturday, and are expected to do it again for the province the next day. It is just not possible. The body takes time -to recover from rigorous exertions in rugby. - 2 " “If you happen to be an All Black, and you play below form through sheer tiredness, the crowd gives you hell. They don’t understand. ;

“We are supposed: to be playing rugby for?, enjoyment. What I want to know is: When do to enjoy it?”. . ) Those comments, were made 11 years ago. >by two of Canterbury’s hardiest forwards, Alex Wyllie and Kerry Tanner. Nothing has been done in the interim to reduce the workload of top players; rather, the opposite has taken place.

The Tasman Cup series next year, more , tours, the World CUp contest in 1987, and inter-hemisphere matches have been gleefully hatched by administrators, obsessed by the sound -of clicking turnstiles. The significance of the personal factor has been lost on them. The events of 1986 will show that saturation point has been reached.