Since the end of the apartheid era in South Africa, racial quotas (whereby a specified number of each team must be non-white) were instituted in South African sports in an attempt to increase participation by non-white players. As in America, this type of affirmative action has been controversial primarily since it has led to team selections not being based on merit.

Unlike the non-elite teams, the South African national rugby team has been immune from racial quotas, but the lead-up to the 2007 Rugby World Cup intensified calls for quotas to reach all levels of sport, including the elite/national level. Parliamentary Sports Committee chairman Butana Khompela even suggested that passports might be confiscated if the Springbok world cup squad was not representative of the country’s demographic which is 8% white.

In the aftermath of South Africa’s Rugby World Cup victory, it seems that the focus has started to shift away from quotas to support player development. In October when presented with the Webb Ellis Cup in Pretoria, President Thabo Mbeki indicated that development should be built from below.

In Cape Town today, Sports Minister Makhenkesi Stofile officially endorsed this notion:

Quotas are out. We are not going to decide who must be on the team. All we are saying is expose everybody, give them an opportunity. […] Let us put our resources into the development of talent.

I am certain that Rugby fans in South Africa are cheering this turn of the political tide. But is this ‘triumph’ really something to cheer about? Since Apartheid ended in 1991/1992, what has the South African Rugby Union (SARU) done to promote the sport among the citizenry? The Transformation Charter published by the SARU in 2006 sums it up well:

After 10 years sport is only now moving towards establishing guidelines to shape its future demographic profile more aggressively. To date there is no Transformation Policy or Charter to guide sport code specific transformation initiatives in the country.

More than a decade has passed and the only measurable progress is a set of guidelines! Clearly, the SARU has been slow to adopt any genuine interest in making rugby representative of the nation’s demographic. Minister Stofile admitted as much in today’s announcement:

Quotas were used only for window dressing for international consumption.

So, what do we make of Minister Stofile’s comments? More ‘window dressing’? Only time will tell. The Transformation Charter has a scheduled audit at the end of 2008, but today’s announcement may make the charter moot entirely. The real test will be the number of white and non-white players on future world cup teams. Of course, at least a generation is needed to properly mold a World Class athlete, so don’t expect real accountability any time soon unless South Africa slips from from its perch atop the rugby planet.

by Yue-Houng Hu and Victor Drover

Much has been made of the Stellenbosch Experimental Law Variations (ELVs) which last week were given preliminary approval by the IRB to be more widely circulated and analyzed for further approval on 1 May 2008.

The IRB Council last week approved the ‘experimental law variations’ (ELVs) be circulated to all unions and returned with comments by January/February. The council will then vote on 1 May whether or not to bring them into worldwide rugby for a year’s trial. South Africa, Australia and New Zealand have also been asked to trial them in the Super 14.

The ELVs remain controversial as they amount to a revolution in the way rugby is played. Aimed to render rugby faster, more exciting, and simpler for both fans and officials, it is clear that the IRB is attempting to create a more ‘viewer friendly’ sport. What is not apparent is the dirty little secret exposed by the proposed law changes:

rugby as we know it, may be dying.

We all know rugby to be a great sport. There’s a reason why we love it, why we play it, why we pore obsessively over details. North Americans who are drawn to the sport are often enamored with its physicality and perceived brutality. What they often don’t realize is that rugby, at its best, is a sport of incredible intelligence, creativity, beauty and grace. Not all of us in Canada and the USA realize this aspect of the game. Rather, many North Americans extol the virtues of ‘smash mouth’ rugby and of physical dominance. Not enough of us celebrate the moments of sublime inspiration, the moments of unthinkable beauty. To deny the cerebral portion of the game is to deny at least half of what is important about the game and to deny the great majority of why it can be such an incredible sport to watch.

Held every four years, the Rugby World Cup is the pinnacle of the sport, the most prestigious and sought after prize. On the world stage it is surpassed only by the Football World Cup and the Summer Olympics. Under the intense spotlight cast by such events, we’ve begun to see the strategies that are leading to victory. As we progress through the knockout rounds of the tournament, teams are becoming increasingly conservative. What we are left with in the championship match is England and South Africa, the two most cautious teams amongst the major rugby playing nations in the world.

Of the four semifinalists at this years 2007 Rugby World Cup, was there one team on either pitch playing ‘constructive’ rugby, the type of calculated and inspired rugby that leads to tries? There were perhaps one or two creative tries in either semifinal, although this is debatable. In any case, the overwhelming majority of the points were scored through penalties and intercept tries. Clearly, teams are not playing constructive rugby. They are not creating scoring opportunities or venturing to great lengths to score tries. Rather, they seem content to play a game of advantage, endlessly kicking to the other team in hopes of gaining favorable field position.

The strategy is simply dictating play in opposition territory and waiting (yes, waiting!) for a penalty. Should one not come, these elite teams are content to attempt hopelessly dull and surprisingly low-percentage drop goals. They are satisfied with pushing the score card over three points at a time and hoping for the occasional opportunistic or intercept try. The only variation is seen when a series of high bombs and up-and-unders are employed to prey on the mistakes of the back three defenders.

Importantly, this strategy is not an aberration of the 2007 championship. At the international level and in the professional leagues, we are seeing a dearth of flair and spontaneity in favor of this unproductive, uncreative and overly cautious play featuring high-percentage set-pieces and territorial kicking. The few teams who have qualified for the Semi Finals while playing constructive rugby (Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji) have been unceremoniously bounced.

Even the French, renowned (but deservedly so?) for their unpredictable, free-flowing game, abandoned their traditional style for the Semi Final in favor of what can only be described as ‘decidedly English’. French coach Benard Laporte chose a tactical kicking game with the huge boot of Damien Traille out of position at fullback and Lionel Beauxis at fly half. Of course, these decisions were at the expense of the awe-inspiring (although admittedly riskier) Clement Poitrenaud and Frederik Michalak. By using this strategy, Laporte all but admitted that the traditional French game with its intrinsic risks would render ultimate victory impossible. The real shame is that despite the change in tactics, France was still unable to defeat England at their own game.

This trend in overly cautious play is not based simply on opinion and conjecture. Fans and critics are urgently aware that England reached the final of the 2007 Rugby World Cup by scoring just one try in three of their matches against major opponents (South Africa, Australia, France). Historical data also supports the argument that the professional era has stifled an open and creative rugby style. In the knock-out stages of the World Cup prior to the professional era (circa 1995), the World Cup champions scored more points from tries compared to the runner-up (Figure 1). After the professional era, we see a sudden switch as team scoring more tries is handed a loss for their efforts.

How then are the modern World Cup champions scoring enough points to defeat an opponent who is scoring more tries? If one compares total points scored from penalties and tries during the knock-out stages of the first 5 rugby World Cup championships (raw data, PDF), the answer is clear. The professional era marks a shift in scoring trends which favors penalties (Figure 2). The data from the 2007 Rugby World Cup (not shown) do not follow this trend due to teams like Fiji and Argentina being heavily outmatched in the Semi Finals and Quarter Finals. However, it cannot be denied that in the 2007 Final, both England and South Africa presented vigorous and courageous defense but little in the way of attack with all 21 points scored from penalty kicks. Much to the dismay of the fans who were exhilarated by the pool stage matches, the majority of attacking sequences in the Final were spent kicking the ball away for positional advantage.

It seems that the only way to win the World Cup and other professional rugby leagues is to shelve the creativity and spirit of the elite players. International and professional teams are better able and better resourced (both in manpower and funding) to analyze their opponents and to create impenetrable walls of defense. Could this wealth of resource be used in reverse to stimulate creative attack? Of course. But building a defensive system is always going to be easier and faster than cultivating creativity and decision making, the latter of which is perhaps the most difficult rugby skill to teach and to learn.

The implications of the ‘success’ of an overly cautious rugby style could well be catastrophic at the elite level of the sport. Success breeds imitation and replication. We may soon witness an influx of teams playing simply to not lose or concede points of any kind. France used this strategy to defeat New Zealand in the 2007 Quarter Finals by defending not less than two Kiwi attacking sequences with greater than 20 consecutive phases of possession.

The Stellenbosch Experimental Laws may not be the answer. They may not cure the epidemic of cautious, defensive rugby. However, they are at least a step towards righting the ship of rugby which has gone astray, tossed around by the waves of pressure exerted by the professional sport industry. The proposed changes strive to return rugby to its roots: a game simultaneously of great physicality and conflict as well as intelligence and supreme inspiration.

The hope is that the ELVs will force teams to go for the try and not the line-out/maul or penalty kick. If the players, fans and corporate sponsors appreciate this more than the current rugby union style, then the IRB will have achieved a holy trinity of support for the game and perhaps even spark a golden age for the sport.

Argentina shocked the world when they defeated France at their home stadium in the ceremonial opener, then cruised on to handily defeat Namibia and Georgia and then showing Ireland the door. Argentina has been on a role before the World Cup began and they have been a good team for several years now. Their biggest problem in terms of being mentioned in the world’s elite is that there is little competition for them in the southern hemisphere and certainly even less in North America. Argentina has been making a case publicly for their inclusion in the world stage, that being the Six Nations Tournament which includes, Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales, Italy, France and the Tri-Nations Tournament which includes New Zealand, Australlia and South Africa. Felipe Contempomi, one of Argentina’s standout players has suggested that the Six Nations would be good for the short term, but that the Tr-Nations is where they belong.

Contempomi seemed to suggest that the Tri-Nations would suit them better because they are in the southern hemisphere along with the other Tri-Nations teams. But at the same time, many of their players play their club rugby in Europe.

In my opinion, I think the Tr-Nations would be too much for them to handle and that the Six Nations would be a better fit. One could argue that Argentina’s defeat at the hands of the Springboks showed they are not ready for the Tri-Nations. Or maybe fatigue and pressure just got to them. Judging from the actual match, I think they were simply out-played and over their heads. Argentina barely escaped defeat from Scotland in the quarterfinals, a match I personaly believe Scotland lost rather than Argentina won. But then again Argentina did defeat France and Ireland giving them three wins out of six of the Six Nations teams. Contempomi believes the Tri-Nations will help Argentina rugby grow, but are they really ready to compete with the three powerhouses of the world? I think not.

The Tri-Nations would be too big of step for Argentina to make and I think would only discourage them in their quest for international recognition. The Six Nations would be a much better fit for them, a tournament they can actually compete in. Perhaps if the Tri-Nations also allowed Fiji and Tonga to compete it would be better and also make for a more interesting tournament. It seems most people in New Zealand believe Argentina can compete, or is it that they just want another team to liven things up?

It’s my opinion based on what I’ve read that there are alterior motives in allowing Argentina into the Tri-Nations. Things like TV contracts, money and fans simply wanting more teams seem to be of more importance rather than competition and the fostering of an up and coming nation. Argentina has proven they can compete with the best in Europe and unless the Tri-Nations expands beyond just including Argentina in the tournament, the Six Nations would be a much better fit.

Rather than speculate wildly as to the results of this weekends games, let me make a case for the best possible result for Saturday’s semi finals: France over England and Argentina over South Africa. This sets up a repeat of the epic championship opener of France v Argentina. Even if beleaguered England managed a place in the final, the ‘down-and-out team does good’ story will not have the drama of the first and final matches of the tournament featuring the same 2 teams.

Argentina is the consummate underdog in the entire tournament and a place in the finals will give them the respect that has eluded the South Americans for so long. Already, the football-mad nation is taking notice of Argentina’s success at the RWC. Football matches have been rescheduled to prevent broadcast conflicts and rugby has supplanted the football news in the local newspapers. In addition, the consistently effective defense and tenacity of Los Pumas are one of the few game plans that has a chance against South Africa.

As for France, the pain of losing unexpectedly to Argentina is still raw despite their momentum in the pool stages and success over New Zealand in the quarter finals. French and international media outlets have frequently compared this quarter final victory to the French semi final victory over New Zealand at RWC 1999. However, little has been written on the subsequent collapse of France in 1999 against Australia in the final where they suffered a 35-12 defeat. Thus, Les Bleus need to show up for the England match ‘in the mood to win’ so they have the chance to prove to the world that their focus and determination can extend beyond any individual match. Only this will prove France worthy of hoisting the Webb Ellis trophy. England on the the other hand will struggle with their pedestrian style if France show up with their creativity and their flair.