How did rugby survive and prosper?

NECESSITY is alleged to be the mother of invention and perhaps it is. It can be said with equal truth that expediency and dishonesty are often the parents of innovation. And if one wants some typical examples of that, then look no further than rugby union.

I am not referring to the ongoing transfer market. Players flit from rugby league on short term contracts to bolster teams for the European Cup. Players are only too willing to cast aside longstanding club affiliations in pursuit of cash. If you want to get ahead get an agent. The Lions manager, Fran Cotton, is absolutely right on those issues and indeed on some others.

Leaving aside that facet of the game, it seems that if you want to get laws changed in rugby union, just keep breaking them - the new order will become accepted practice and will be written into rugby law. Laws that were a central and integral part of the game for generations are allegedly no longer workable, so pander to the law breakers and make their activity legal. However did rugby survive and prosper without the current crop of profound thinkers and innovators?

The failure to take on the transgressors led directly to the game going professional. The wind blew from the Southern Hemisphere and became a hurricane, fanned by the greedy, the vociferous and articulate in Britain. Enter the captains of industry who bought their way into long established clubs and took over. Will that now happen in Ireland? How long before one of Ireland's leading clubs becomes the effective property of some millionaire, who before his backside is warm in the seat of power will be telling those elected to run the game what to do and how to do it. Before that happens, I hope the IRFU close the door.

It seems to me that it has been forgotten, very conveniently, that when the game went "open" it was also stipulated that every union had the right to legislate for its own domestic scene.

For quite some time now the International Rugby Football Board (IRFB) has, in effect, been a toothless tiger. It is allegedly the supreme authority in the game. I wrote last year that there is a dark side to the board; I have no reason to change that view. There are some decent and very honest and hard working men on the IRFB; men such as its chairman Vernon Pugh, Ireland's representatives Syd Millar and Tom Kiernan, Scotland's Alan Hosie, Australia's Norman Byrne and some others.

However, too often the board has failed to act when action was patently necessary, and it has failed to act against the activities of some of its members whose brief is to uphold its own laws. It is a matter of record, for instance, that Louis Luyt, the supremo of South African rugby, publicly advocated a policy that was contrary to the stated policy of the board of which he was and still is a member. No action was taken, his place at the top table stayed secure. He is still there. He was, of course, misunderstood and misinterpreted".

For several years, countries were blatantly breaking the laws of the game. The activities that preceded the decision in Paris to make the game "open" was a telling example of double dealing and utter hypocrisy. A matter of no more than a few weeks before the famous Paris meeting that turned rugby union on its head in August 1995, we had board members telling us that professionalism was not a starter, that it would be detrimental to rugby. Alas, those same people went in and voted for exactly the opposite.

People were realistic enough to know that players had to be compensated in a proper manner, that anomalies had to be cleared up and a standard procedure introduced that was common to all. But what happened in Paris was typical of the double standards to which we had all become accustomed and which was a clear demonstration of self interest. To hell with the vast majority who play he game.

Of course there must be evolution and some things must change. There have been many changes in the game through the years and periods of great development. One of the changes that took place was the advent of the World Cup in 1987. The premise on which this was accepted, in this country and elsewhere, has been positively prostituted.

ONE of the arguments put forward before it was inaugurated was that it would be tremendous for the emerging countries such as Western Samoa, Fiji and Tonga, to mention just three. That argument was put forward vociferously by New Zealand when they sent a delegation to this country. We all know what happened. Those countries lost some of their best players to Australia and, particularly, New Zealand.

Then, while the World Cup was in progress in South Africa in the summer of 1995, New Zealand, South Africa and Australia did their television deal with Rupert Murdoch's Sky television. Fiji, Western Samoa and Tonga were given the boot without ceremony or apology out of the Super 10 tournament. The Murdoch millions were split up between the superpowers south of the equator. That really did a lot for the propagation of the game. Some of the central figures in the making of that deal were members of the International Board.

Some of the activities that took place during the World Cup in South Africa last year were nothing short of shameful. Even more recently we had the controversy over the forthcoming tour by Australia. Concerted attempts were made to have the itinerary changed so that Australia could play England. What financial inducement was offered to bring that about? It was another attempt at a clandestine deal.

In stressing these totally unacceptable elements of rugby today, it is not being ultra conservative. It is just telling the truth.

And what is the IRFB's latest contribution to the game changing the laws on substitutes to allow up to five replacements for tactical reasons. Thus one third of a team can be changed during a match. That is not recognition of deceit, it is compliance with it. By all means have replacements, but surely not five. That is supposed to make the game more honest. The mind boggles at that statement. What next? Kickers brought off the bench just to kick goals. The decision to allow replacements for injuries, made almost 30 years ago, was a good decision that was honesty in purpose. Of course the law was being abused and injuries were being feigned. So what does the IRFB do, play into the hands of the abusers.

That is rugby today, tomorrow it will be the dancing girls "to make the game more attractive". We are rapidly coming to a time when teams will not be announced until just before kick off. What was that about rugby being a players' game?