Author: Benson Hendrix

Has the salary cap had the unfortunate side effect of reducing the amount of competition in the Aviva Premiership? 

Or is it, as we’ve seen in the NFL, just that some organizations are more fortunate than others as managing not only their finances, but their teams as well?  

According to this article in The Guardian, since the salary cap was instituted, three teams have won the championship, with Leicester winning seven of the past 12 Premiership championships.

Much like in the NFL, certain teams in the Premiership seem to be able to take better advantage of their situation. Teams like Leicester in the Premiership, or the New England Patriots in the NFL, are always able to attract the talent they need to reload to compete year after year, and provide the facilities needed to not only attract the players needed, but also develop and grow the fan base. 

Is it coaching, or tradition that attracts better players to an organization?  Before the New England Patriots rise to their current success, the team was mediocre outside of a few good years.  But then after bringing in first Bill Parcells, and then Bill Belichick, the team began its rise to the current championship contender status they enjoy.  There are lessons there to be learned by other sports organizations.

What do other teams need to do to reach this level of success?  What comes first in this situation – the chicken (stronger fan base) or the egg (top flight players)?  According to the story: 

(Rugby rival Northampton chairman Keith) Barwell points out that Leicester, who enjoy a capacity of 24,000 at Welford Road, earn £3m more a year in gate income than Northampton and that his club’s annual turnover is £12m compared to £18.5m. “We cannot afford to stand still,” Barwell says. “We would have to decide whether it is worth putting the club into significant debt by paying for the redevelopment ourselves or share a stadium somewhere else.”

Stadium size is important, because if you have the fan base to build the stadium, that translates into more money.  But you need that initial investment of capital to provide the  facilities needed to attract players.  The story goes on to explain that some of the Premiership teams can’t afford the £4.1 million salary cap, putting them further back in a competition as long as the Premiership runs.

So should teams look for additional sponsorship?  Split stadium costs with other teams (much as the N.Y. Giants and N.Y. Jets do)? Do they need to reduce some of the teams in the Premiership?  These are some of the questions that teams need to answer as they try to challenge for the Tigers juggernaut in the upcoming season.

This in from the BBC, Dr. Wendy Chapman, the doctor behind the Harlequins “lip cutting” incident in the Heineken Cup tournament, has received a warning for her actions.  I said it earlier, she shouldn’t lose her medical license – but I still don’t think that her “getting back with her life” should include her working in a sports medical facility. If I were her attorney (or barrister as they call it across the pond) or her PR flack, I’d be informing her she needs to be seen giving back to the community for a while, maybe earn her way back into the good graces of professional sports.

I really, truly, don’t want to write anymore about verbal slip ups by South African coach Peter de Villiers, but it seems every time he opens his mouth, something amazing falls out.  Something that has to be commented on.  There’s a story coming soon about South Africa fighting its way back from the Tri Nations cellar and hopefully reversing the team’s course with just over a year to go until the 2011 Rugby World Cup.  But first…

de Villiers, fresh off of South Africa’s first Tri Nations win of the series, and after going a whole three weeks without making an idiot of himself or his team, decided to jam both feet in his mouth with a recent statement that:

“the (Springboks) support (accused murderer Bees Roux) 100%, not on the deed, but rather on the circumstances that led to the situation developing.”

OK, for those who don’t know, Roux, a player for the Blue Bulls, was recently arrested for allegedly murdering a South African police officer who, it is reported, pulled Roux over for possibly drunk driving.  Roux has been given time off from the Blue Bulls as this situation continues to play out.

Now according to the Times in South Africa, de Villiers might face yet another disciplinary hearing – this one for bringing the game of rugby into disrepute with his comment.  This, coupled with his recent comments about alleged referring favoritism in recent Tri Nations matches with New Zealand, might finally push him out of his coaching role for the Springboks.

According to Sports Illustrated, U.S. Men’s soccer coach Bob Bradley will be awarded a new four-year contract as of yesterday.

Why is this important to the fans of the Rugby Super Site, it probably isn’t – except for a few quick notes.

1. The U.S. Women’s National Rugby Team lost to England in the Women’s Rugby World Cup this weekend – and there’s not even a footnote in any mainstream news source I’ve found.

2. The Men’s soccer coach is an American. I’m not one to bash on current coach Eddie O’Sullivan, I think he’s done a decent job given the hand he’s been dealt, but there are precious few American rugby coaches (outside of the University of California rugby machine) that could be ready to coach the U.S. men’s Rugby team at the drop of a dime, so either we go back to Cal calling all of the shots, or start developing our own top tier talent and coaches until youth rugby starts to pick up, which will cost money.

3. No one outside of rugby really cares about the state of things right now.  We have a long way to go if we ever want to see rugby advance beyond a third-tier sport played by drunken sods (as it’s seen in parts of the U.S.) and building a grassroots outreach program should probably be the main priority, with the U.S. sevens team (which will be seen in the Olympics in 2016) as a close second (to develop a broader viewership.)  There are too many damn rules in the game to immediately impact U.S. sports fans, who expect rules they can grasp, and set plays (see first through fourth down in football, or a sketched out play after a basketball timeout) rather than a sport as free-flowing as rugby.

The Springboks have finally broken their Tri Naitons jinx – notching up their first win in what can truly be called a “never say die” effort, beating Australia 44-31 in Pretoria.  While that cliché tends to be overused, in this instance I think it should be applied – after four minutes in the first half, the Wallabies had jumped to a 14-0 lead, and it looked like we were going to see another South African beatdown.

But the Springboks maintained their composure and played a gutsy game, repeatedly coming from behind to pull close to the Wallabies they showed flashes of the team that won last year’s Tri Nations.  They might not have played the flashiest game with rugby flair, and they may have locked up their victory by grinding it out, but at the end of the day a win’s a win.  And I’ve given the ‘Boks a hard time here, so allow me to also say, “Congratulations guys, you really earned this one.”

–          Benson

For those of you who don’t know the case, last year in a Heineken Cup quarterfinal match between London’s Harlequins and Leinster (based in Ireland) – the ‘Quins were down 6-5 as the game was coming to a close when winger Tom Williams was struck down with an “injury” where he was bleeding from the mouth. As a result of the injury Harlequins was able to bring back in kicking stud Nick Evans, who it was hoped would be able to slot any late potential penalty kick to win the game.  Nothing wrong with that, right?  People get hurt all of the time on the rugby pitch, my two fragged knees, jacked up neck and concussions are a testament to that.

The only problem was, Williams faked the injury, biting down on a fake blood capsule in order to bring Evans back onto the field.  Williams was then rushed off of the field and taken into the locker room to be examined by the team’s doctor, who should have been able to recognize a fake injury.  But instead of reporting the fake injury, the team’s doctor, Wendy Chapman, “under pressure from the team and player” decided to cut his lip, making it appear that the injury was legitimate. The scandal was later dubbed “Bloodgate.”

Only after the scheme started to fall apart, facilitated by Williams’ admission of the scheme (to reduce his ban), did the truth finally escape. Harlequins was fined a serious amount of bank, Williams’ ban was reduced from one year to 4 months, Harlequin rugby director (and former rugby legend) Dean Richards was banned from coaching rugby ANYWHERE for three years, chairman Charles Jillings resigned, and team physiotherapist Steph Brennan was banned for two years.

Then there’s team doctor, and lip cutter, Wendy Chapman. She’s been in front of a disciplinary committee to determine what happens to her future.

I need to get this out of my system before I explode. “Dr. Strangelove” doesn’t deserve to lose her medical license, or her ability to practice medicine in some way, shape or form. But there is no way in hell she should ever work an athletic event again.  She was hopeful to get a spot working in the 2012 Olympics in London, and I’m sure there’s a chance she’ll get in because people want to forget that this little lip-cutting event happened.

Her defense is essentially “but, but, but I was under SO much pressure from the player and the club to cut his lip and make this injury look legitimate that I didn’t know what to do.” Bullshit. You know something, you’re a sports doctor – you need to know what’s right and what’s not right, and you need to have enough of a spine to stand up and say “no.”

In my mind this is worse than Bakkies Botha going “WWE” on the All Blacks a few games back, because that happened on the field and while you need to be able to control yourself on the pitch, sometimes these things do happen – and Botha paid the penalty for his actions.  But what Chapman did was a violation of the trust she had as a medical professional.  She’s essentially forfeited her privilege to work on a pitch’s sideline. She needs to spend a little time working for a hospital or a school in the country, taking care of people who can really benefit from her expertise. Maybe after a little voluntary self-exile then she’ll gain some perspective.

It’s not just her.

Don’t get me wrong, the entire Heineken Cup structure is just as guilty.  As Williams was being carted off of the field the team doctor for their opponents was demanding to see the player, since he thought this was a fake injury, designed to bring another player into the game (which, surprise, it turned out to be). Harlequins did everything in its power to bar the doctor from examining Williams. At that point, had the ‘Quins won the game the Heineken Cup governing body should have stopped the game to investigate if Williams had been truly injured or not, and why another doctor was not allowed to examine the player.

I dunno, maybe it’ll be necessary for all medical personnel to be provided to teams by a central body, making sure doctors don’t get cozy with teams.  Perhaps the competition should take care of organizing doctors, letting the teams pay them for doctors then paying the doctors from those payments.

USA Rugby recently announced the schedule for the nation’s new Collegiate Division I Premier Schedule, expected to launch in early March 2011.  The schedule, consisting of some of the top collegiate teams in America – and of course the University of California, essentially the best collegiate team (and better than many club teams) in the nation.

This is something the U.S. has needed for a while now, there have only been a handful of strong teams that have feasted on other teams in their local unions for too long.  Now by lumping together most of the best college teams in a Premier Division and getting them to play against each other beyond the National Championship tournament, where the eventual winner might only play a handful of the top teams.

The teams facing off include:

Pacific Conference

• University of California
• Cal Poly – San Luis Obispo
• Central Washington
• San Diego State
• Claremont
• St. Mary’s
• U Cal. – Davis
• UCLA

Western Conference

• Air Force
• Arizona
• Arizona State
• BYU
• Colorado
• Colorado State
• Utah
• Wyoming

Mid-South Conference

• Arkansas State
• Life University
• Louisiana State
• Notre Dame
• Oklahoma
• Tennessee
• Texas A&M

(What, no U Texas here?)

“RugbyEast” Conference

• Army
• Dartmouth
• Delaware
• Kutztown
• Navy
• THE Ohio State
• Penn State
• Rutgers

A complete schedule of games can be found at USA Rugby’s main Web site.

Recently the team over at IRB’s “Total Rugby” podcast asked the question that almost every rugby player has probably asked at least once while playing the game, although in probably not as polite terms – Are the referees really fit enough to keep up with the game? (I haven’t heard the entire podcast yet, as I’m still playing catch up with the rugby podcast world)

That’s a good question, because the game is fast enough these days that if the refereeing crew might miss important calls if they aren’t fit enough.  Keep in mind I said “might miss,” there’s no guarantee they would be able to catch those calls anyway.

Fitness is important for officials, probably more so than for the players on the field – but one question I have is – Are we picking the top, younger referees able to keep up with the play on the field, and are we keeping our top, more experienced officials in top shape?  From what I remember in our local union, there’s always been a shortage of referees, and they did a great job of keeping themselves in as much shape as possible, but at the end of the day they were responsible for keeping themselves in shape.

Some of the questions that have come to mind thinking about this are:

• Is it worth it to have referees go through physical training with comparable level teams in their area? For example, should international-level referees be jumping in to international team fitness sessions to stay in shape for their matches?  
• Is that even an idea worth considering at the end of the day? 
• Will they get too accustomed to the players on the team and start to subconsciously make calls in favor of their “training mates?”
• Would international teams even allow referees to fitness train with them?
• Who’s responsibility is it to ensure referees are properly fit to handle a match?  The national rugby union?  International referees association? The referee themselves?
• This might work better at lower levels of rugby where referees might be able to fit in a training session without causing as much of a disturbance as it would on a national level.

This is another reason that having an official located up in rafters of the stadium watching the game on monitors is very important.  They can catch some of those calls that the referees miss on the field, as evidenced by the Bakkies Botha headbutt earlier this Tri Nations season.  It’s a matter of these referees being able to work together as a team, each trusting what the other’s capabilities, and more importantly, limitations are.