Over the last couple of weeks discussions over changes to the structure of rugby – both domestically and internationally – have taken place in terms of a 13-team Premiership and World Rugby’s Nations Championship proposal. It must not be forgotten that they are taking place at the end of another long, arduous season with gruelling preparations for a World Cup just around the corner after the players’ five-week mandatory rest period.
All parties involved will talk loudly about a commitment to player welfare but the demands on modern-day players are huge and far greater than when I retired in 2015. There is no doubting the game has changed since then – it is quicker, the ball-in-play time is up and across the board players in every position are being asked to do more. If you look purely at how the workload for a scrum-half has increased in the past five seasons, however, the results are extraordinary.
This season involvements for a scrum-half are up a staggering 40% from the 2014-15 season. On top of that Cobus Reinach – the Premiership’s joint top try-scorer – is one of three No 9s in the top 25 whereas there were only four in the previous four seasons together.
It is the rise of involvements, though, in both attack and defence, which is the most remarkable statistic and one would hopes that the powerbrokers would take these figures into consideration when mapping out the game’s future because increasingly it feels that sooner or later there will be a tipping point. Here is statistical evidence of the sharp increase in player workload and that is even before looking at the added psychological pressures.
The question is what will the role of the scrum-half look like in another four years? Will we have No 9s, like props, who are can last for only 50-60 minutes? I think it speaks to the wider point of which direction rugby is headed in. I appreciate that this year – World Cup year – the onus from World Rugby has been on making the game quicker, in other words more spectator friendly. But that has had the unintended consequence that has led teams to focus even more on their defence – some teams are adopting the tactic of preferring not to have the ball. I wonder if that is because it is easier to coach defence? Is there enough encouragement from coaches to develop attacking skillsets?
I look at the huge number of casual rugby fans – the disparity in viewing figures between club matches and the Six Nations or the World Cup – and I ask how do we foster that kind of audience for nine months of the year? I am not sure it is by watching a team go through phase after phase, picking and carrying.
As the game has changed, it has become increasingly hard to get the ball back as a defending team. Tackle heights have been reduced – which in terms of player welfare is a very positive thing – but that only makes it more difficult and you have teams such as Exeter so comfortable at going through 30-plus phases time and again so in that sense it is inevitable that the No 9 is going to be more involved.
More than that though, I look at it as a knock-on effect of the fact that every player is being asked to do more. Look at the amount of work modern-day props such as Mako Vunipola and Tadhg Furlong get through; back-rows are being asked to provide an attacking threat and be a link man rather than merely destructive at the breakdown, and because the scrum-half is the conduit between everyone in the team, his involvements are up because he is taking on that extra bit from everyone on the pitch.
All of the above is reflected in how the style of each scrum-half in the Premiership reflects his team’s DNA. I look at Richard Wigglesworth and now Ben Spencer who exert the control that Saracens want. In Faf de Klerk at Sale I see an uncompromising, all-action player and he is given licence – he is slightly rogue in the way he operates. He seems to have free rein, much like Reinach does at Northampton.
It is also worth noting that external influences play a big factor in the changing role of the scrum-half as I doubt if the Premiership had seen a No 9 such as De Klerk until he arrived. He was nominated for player of the year and it is pretty obvious that other nines will start to base their game on his. He has raised the bar and made others up their game. It was the same with Wigglesworth; exit strategies became such a focus because of his expertise. The question that remains, however, is how much higher the bar can go before breaking point.
