In 1996, a year after rugby union had turned professional, the London Evening Standard published an interview with Andy Ripley, one of England’s greatest Corinthian sportsmen. Paying people to play rugby, he argued, would destroy the soul of the game he loved.
“Friendship and loyalty have been smashed,” he lamented, criticising the “sugar daddies” waving their cash about. “Rugby has lost its heroes. I want to have heroic figures out there. If they’re chasing a few quid I don’t like it. It devalues them. It means they are marionettes, puppets manipulated by people with money.”
What a shame the late, lamented Ripley, an outstanding England No8 and an even finer human being, has not been around to witness this World Cup. In the Standard article he was referring to club rugby’s new monied dawn rather than the international arena but he would have been hugely gratified to find that the overwhelming majority of modern players and coaches are still doing their best to preserve the ethos of the sport.
There have been umpteen examples over the last five weeks but Heyneke Meyer, South Africa’s head coach, and the Springbok flanker Schalk Burger were deeply impressive after their side had been edged out by New Zealand in last Saturday’s semi-final. Meyer warmly congratulated the All Blacks and refused to get involved – “I don’t believe in loser talk” – in blaming anyone else. Burger held his hand up and, in front of the world’s media, acknowledged that “it was probably my mistake” which settled the game.
Put yourself in both men’s shoes: you have just lost to your arch rivals at the worst of all possible moments. The temptation to howl at the moon, or at least attempt a passable José Mourinho impression, is a hard one to resist. Instead Meyer, one of the most passionate coaches in world sport, gave new meaning to the phrase “dignity in defeat”. When he embraced his opposite number, Steve Hansen, after the final whistle, the mutual respect between the two men was palpable and made words largely irrelevant. As Meyer wryly put it: “In his heart he knows what I wanted to say.”
Out on the field, similarly, there have been Andrew Flintoff-Brett Lee style snapshots after almost every game. Even when they lost to Japan, the Springboks were suitably magnanimous in defeat. So, too, was England’s Stuart Lancaster after his side’s losses to Wales and Australia. Not every England head coach would have honoured a commitment to conduct a clinic for school kids in Manchester at the end of one of the worst weeks of his life.
Lancaster did and, notwithstanding his team’s premature exit, remained a model of courtesy and grace to the bitter end.
No one is trying to claim that rugby union is in any way morally superior to other sports, merely that it is still hugely fortunate to possess individuals of rare integrity and humility who, even in weeks like this, appreciate that winning rugby matches is not all that matters in life. Namibia may be long gone but their captain Jacques Burger will be remembered as one of the great rugby men. Ditto Georgia’s Mamuka Gorgodze, Italy’s Sergio Parisse and Ireland’s Paul O’Connell.
For a sport to possess as many inspirational warriors simultaneously – and there will be plenty more deserved salutes this week for the phalanx of All Black heroes preparing to strap on their breastplates for the last time – cannot be wholly coincidental.
As anyone who saw this week’s moving BBC Wales documentary on Nigel Owens will be equally aware, the sport also has some remarkable referees. How fortunate rugby is to have a man like Owens, whose struggle to come to terms with his sexuality once drove him to the brink of taking his own life.
These days, as both sides will discover in Saturday’s World Cup final, his mix of humour and empathy helps players to prosper and has been another ingredient in this tournament’s success.
There is, sadly, a “but” coming. While the oval-ball world has been en fête and its lead acts have been redefining what modern sportsmanship looks and feels like in recent weeks, not everyone’s reputation has been enhanced. Clearly there are strong legal and financial imperatives why Premiership Rugby feels it cannot publicly divulge the details of its investigation into apparent salary cap abuses by a couple of leading English clubs but the stench is destined to linger until it does so. What price a league that has effectively been rigged, or at least devalued? Where are the refunds for supporters of less successful clubs who imagined they were paying to watch a fair contest?
It could all scarcely contrast more starkly with the inspiring images seen on a weekly basis at this World Cup. Aside from the unseemly abuse aimed at Craig Joubert after the Australia-Scotland quarter-final, rugby union can be proud of its efforts. It is big business, sure, but still sufficiently unspoilt that the charismatic Burger could get on a tube train this week at Sloane Square almost unrecognised.
Ripley was wrong about professional rugby diluting any sense of fellowship or heroism but he was right to query the motives of some of its modern power brokers.
