Why Eddie Jones is laughing all the way to the World Cup

The autumn international season in the northern hemisphere has perfectly set up next year’s Rugby World Cup in France, but the clashes between north and south also sent out the message that the sport may be in trouble.

Let’s start with the first bit. My money says it is SA and New Zealand who are most on the rise. The Springboks lost narrowly to Ireland and were then unlucky against France in Marseille. By the time they got to the final game against England it was clear they are embracing evolution in their game, and that will make them red hot challengers in France.

I’d venture to suggest they could even find themselves going into the tournament as favourites, but that is to ignore the obvious stumbling block, which is the ridiculous World Cup draw. England were hammered by SA and suffered the same fate for over an hour against New Zealand, yet they go to the World Cup with a good chance regardless of whether they sack Eddie Jones.

That is because the draw means they play almost no-one of significance until the final, where they will meet the survivor of a bunfight in the other half of the draw that will feature Ireland, France, New Zealand and SA. No wonder Jones keeps saying “Wait until the World Cup”. He knows a thing or two about World Cup draws.

But while it is going to be a really absorbing month and a half in France, what chance of it being ruined by one of those ridiculous red cards which we saw plenty of in this northern season and which are usually more the product of technical error than malicious intent? A player sent off the field for good because his head accidentally clashed with another player ’ s head just makes no sense.

A player sent off because a player behind him lifted him up and unwittingly propelled him into another player is also ridiculous, and there’s always going to be an element of risk when players jump for contestable kicks. The drive to make the sport safer is understandable, but there are ways to do that without taking away the integrity of the 15against-15 contest.

My solution is to do what SA trialled in one of the return to play competitions after the Covid-19 hiatus. The offending player was still red carded, but he was replaced from the bench after 20 minutes. I’d make that 10 minutes. It is enough of a disadvantage to the offending player’s team that his coach has to send on a replacement before he would want to.

But in conversation with an international coach the other day, he suggested something that might work even better — adopt the Rugby League approach of picking up on those incidents during the game but only dish out the punishment afterwards in the form of a stiff suspension or fine.

That keeps the integrity of 15 against 15 intact but it is still a deterrent to the players. Being suspended from the sport is a costly business. Perhaps even more importantly, taking the decision-making off-field will save the watching audience from the long drawn out TMO and referee/assistant referee decision making process.

There are so many stoppages, for referees to confer but also not least for the resetting of scrums, which is a whole separate subject, that it has become quite pedestrian and at times unwatchable.

Hockey has become a far more spectator-friendly sport now than it was two or three decades ago. It’s become quicker and more exciting to watch, which is partly due to the shift to synthetic surfaces but also to a quest to simplify the laws. I am told by people who’ve played at a high level that there are fewer rules in hockey than there were before.

Even my preferred form of cricket, Test cricket, while not necessarily being helped by the sport’s rulers, is being revolutionised by Ben Stokes and his England team. Whatever other reason there is for the aggressive England “Bazball” approach, the main one is to make the format entertaining and watchable, to draw eyes.

In rugby there is the odd coach, such as John Dobson and these days Jake White too, who makes the needs of the watching public paramount. But generally the sport is mired in a morass of laws that slow it down and the technology, for all its benefits, is slowing it down further.

One half stretching over 67 minutes, as happened in Durban recently, is just not good for the sport. And what is this thing with water breaks? They weren’t necessary before, so why are they necessary now? They just slow down the game.

Rugby people need to do what hockey did and become more forward thinking or their sport could lose a lot of eyes. The sport has been professional since 1995 but in so many respects the penny still has to drop when it comes to what will make the sport more watchable and therefore marketable.