In the great quest to put this World Cup year behind us and reset the rugby standards of the outplayed northern world, may a little glass be raised to the scoreboard at the Talbot Athletic Ground, the atmospheric old home of Aberavon, overlooked by the M4 on its stilts a few miles east of Swansea. There, on a rather bleak Tuesday night, not a finger was called upon to advance the numbers and Aberavon 0 Pontypridd 0 remained there for all to see.
The Foster’s Challenge Cup is a new competition in Wales, fitting in around weekends of European competition on high and the British and Irish Cup at a level called something like regional-select – a hybrid of young regional pros and semi-pro club players. This B&I mongrel offers what is described as an opportunity for other hopefuls in the Foster’s. These are, as they say in planning meetings for the Way Ahead, early days, but 0-0 suggests there is a way to go yet before the new competition diverts the attention of passersby on the motorway overhead.
Anyway, I was minded to mention the score because it happened in the shadow of the Port Talbot steelworks, not far from the old copper town of Swansea and on the way to Tinopolis, as tin-plate Llanelli was called. This is the metal belt of Wales, still vital in the shaping of the Welsh rugby future, even if the age of forging and smelting is mostly a memory.
Oyonnax is a bit different, being the Plastipolis of France, a town in Plastics Valley in the Jura. There is a tradition in France of cherishing clubs slightly outside the mainstream – Bourgoin, Perpignan, Dax – where survival hangs on a rare spirit of defiance. Oyonnax, who naturally (as it were) play on a plastic pitch, have for the past few years been that spirit’s embodiment: if you come to the Stade Charles-Mathon you’d better be ready.
This season, Oyonnax find themselves bottom of the Top 14, with two wins from 10 games. Even as they lay down their customary challenge to star-studded Saracens, it slips out that their priority is not the Champions Cup, but the struggle to stay in the French elite. As plans are made for a more liberated future, there are always reminders that the northern climate can reduce a scoreboard to motionlessness or that the struggle for survival can override a desire to risk an offload and make the game flow.
Into this contest – between pragmatism and the ambition to embrace change while the World Cup still hurts – steps Eddie Jones. He’s still a lone operator, not quite in a position to unveil Steve Borthwick and Paul Gustard as his assistants. He roams the land as an observer, a maker of notes.
Has the rugby of England changed since he was last here? Saracens, whom he coached, may well be familiar. Plastics Valley is no place to take a willowy experiment. Saracens under Mark McCall (and Gustard) are pretty flinty when it comes to away games. Their wolf pack are hardly likely to invite Oyonnax to stroke behind their ears.
At the Ricoh Arena, however, the new England coach may see an almost exaggerated sense of enterprise. These back-to-back ties at the heart of the European pool stage often become two-part thrillers, and the more one-country they are, the more they seem to become a sustained romp. Wasps and Bath could light up the pre-Christmas weekends.
There is nothing sweet about Nathan Hughes and Leroy Houston going toe-to-toe at No 8; this is a running contest on a formidable base. Wasps have gone from Sudbury to Coventry, from impoverishment to spending power, with hardly a pause for breath. Unfortunately, a rare interruption to the flow came only last Saturday, with a heavy defeat at home to Exeter, England’s own Oyonnax – without the nasty bit about finding themselves bottom of the table. Far from it in Exeter’s case.
Defeat may have helped Wasps, a reminder that nothing can ever come easily. Bath will be saying the same to themselves, having lost at home to Northampton. The recent losers will be fired up, yet willing to give the ball to Charles Piutau, Frank Halai and Christian Wade on the Wasps side and to Anthony Watson, Semesa Rokoduguni and Jonathan Joseph for Bath. There are obviously influences from the southern hemisphere there, but there is enough English talent to suggest that the development of a broadened English style is not fanciful.
Adventure will need to be directed on the field, as well as observed by the new coach. And here George Ford needs to regain his confidence. Everybody has dips and moments of doubt, but the whole Bath approach demands a swagger from their outside-half. It probably doesn’t help Ford that Ruaridh Jackson is a perfect example of how significant the position is, regardless of size and pressure. A 10 on song rules rugby. It’s just that Jackson will be trying to make the point at Ford’s expense.
The personal duel on a very public stage is one of the many threads. The overall setting is grand enough at the sell-out Ricoh; the individual ingredients all add their flavour. This promises to be a two-part belter; a miniseries to welcome Eddie Jones back to England.
