It has been another British summer when the jet stream has moved too far to the south and, as the European club seasons start, climate change is being felt with the southern hemisphere shivering in a chill wind.
Australia’s capitulation in Sydney a week ago, when they conceded a record number of points to the All Blacks, would ordinarily have led to strident demands for Michael Cheika to be sacked as head coach. Even if there was little excuse for some abject defending, especially after how the Lions took on the World Cup holders in the summer, there is an appreciation that Australia’s problems are structural.
The domestic game, like that of South Africa’s, has been raided with increasing frequency in the professional era by clubs in France, England and Japan, thinning their resources to the point where both countries have had to cut teams from Super Rugby. New Zealand have not been immune but the lure of the All Blacks jersey has been enough to keep players at home until they reach the pensionable part of their careers.
That is until now. Aaron Cruden, Malakai Fekitoa and Charlie Faumuina, who were all on the New Zealand bench in the Lions series, will be playing in the Top 14 this season. They will not be considered for international rugby until they return home. Australia give dispensation to players who have won 60 caps and South Africa 30. The fear in the southern hemisphere is that the game there will become like football in South America, a recruitment ground for cash-rich European leagues, threatening the primacy of international rugby.
The Premiership kicks off on Friday, 20 years after its inaugural season. Clubs then were heavily reliant on the largesse of owners, playing before modest crowds: four clubs in 1997‑98 generated a five-figure gate. While Leicester and Saracens did so regularly, Gloucester and Newcastle managed it once. The average crowd was 6,238 and the total attendance was 823,446.
Last season those figures had risen to 15,065 and 2,033,085. Only two clubs failed to generate a five-figure attendance, Newcastle and Sale, while the hiring of grounds with large capacities grew. On the same April day in London 71,234 watched Saracens play Harlequins at Wembley and 61,868 were at Twickenham for Bath’s victory against Leicester.
The Australian Rugby Union can only envy the commercial deals negotiated by clubs in France and England that afford them an annual salary cap of £9m and £7m respectively. The Saracens director of rugby, Mark McCall, has argued that clubs should be given dispensation within the cap for England players they have reared, whose wages explode when they establish themselves in Test rugby. It would be an incentive for clubs to develop their own talent but also give them the means to recruit more players from the southern hemisphere. For this season, 52 England-qualified players were signed by Premiership clubs, compared with 81 from other countries.
During the years it took to sort out the global calendar from 2020 New Zealand and Australia pressed hard for a change to the way income from matches between tier one nations was distributed. New Zealand hosted Wales in a three-Test series last year but made less money than the Welsh Rugby Union will from November’s solitary Test against the All Blacks at the Principality Stadium.
New Zealand and Australia argued that sharing resources would protect the international game from the growing threat of clubs in Europe but England’s response was to build a bigger stadium. Which rather missed the point: the WRU relies on income from four November internationals to support its four regions. If Australia’s value continues to decline and South Africa remain eminently beatable, the price of tickets will fall.
New Zealand and South Africa were supreme throughout the amateur era. The All Blacks have remained the game’s dominant force, losing 11% of their matches against northern hemisphere opposition. If they lose their allure, every union, including England, will feel the consequences.
While the All Blacks have been more successful than Australia and South Africa in retaining players, the consequence of declining standards in the Rugby Championship was seen during the Lions series when New Zealand faced their strongest opponents since the 2015 World Cup. Their 54 points in Australia followed 57 in Durban last year.
One administrator in the south spoke privately this summer about his fear that some owners in England and France wanted to replicate football’s model, where the club game was the financial driver. He cited the push to cut Lions tours by two matches and foresaw a time when Test rugby would be played largely in tournaments: the Six Nations and the Rugby Championship augmented by a World Cup every four years. Tours would end because countries would struggle to get players released by clubs.
It is a possible outcome of climate change in rugby union, where Europe is becoming the powerhouse. South Africa say they remain committed to playing in the south but are keeping their options open by fielding two teams in the Pro 14 for the next six years.
Eddie Jones, who has coached Australia and was part of South Africa’s management team in the 2007 World Cup, does not believe the international game is at a crossroads. “The game ebbs and flows,” the England head coach says. “How long has it been since the northern hemisphere was dominant? 2003. Was everyone saying the game was going to die here during that period? No.
“I would not worry about South Africa, who smashed France this summer and I would imagine Australia rebounding in the next 12 months. All it takes is one leader to come in to change it. There is no lack of money in Sydney. You get the right person to lead and he recruits the right people who change the economics of the game.”
England’s success in the early 2000s broke the dominance of the south but only temporarily, just as the Lions had done in 1971 and 1974. The game here did not die afterwards because it returned to its familiar path but, as it grows in one hemisphere and shrinks in another, a power struggle looms. The unions dare not create a vacuum, which is why pooling international income is an idea that will not fade.
