Brendan Gallagher: Why Eagles dare on this Field of dreams
Except Nigel Melville that is. The former England captain and the coach behind some of Wasps and Gloucester’s best teams has been CEO of USA Rugby since 2006 and has longed for this gala occasion to showcase the game in a sports mad country of over 300 million souls.
There are countless reasons why this match/occasion might not have taken place. Technically it’s outside the IRB November Test window; player release is potentially a problem for the Eagles; the All Blacks squad will effectively be en route to England after a busy schedule and, of course, as world champions they don’t come cheap; fitting a rugby pitch into narrow American Football stadia is not easy and guaranteeing a decent crowd in a city which even by American standards is hardly a rugby stronghold was far from certain.
But it’s happening nonetheless. Live coast-to-coast coverage on NBC, the World Cup being paraded before, during and after the match, the full Monty. Chicago native and sports nut Barack Obama has even been invited and well, he hasn’t said no although clearly he might have more pressing commitments.
Chicago historically has always been a place of flux and a catalyst to change. Mark Twain famously offered the opinion that “Chicago is always a novelty, she is never the Chicago you saw when you passed through the last time”, and it could just be that Rugby is never quite the same after its first major outing in the Windy City.
“We are very happy, and slightly incredulous, the way everything has worked out so far,” says Melville. “Chicago is a sports mad city and Soldier Field is an iconic venue. It’s downtown and easily accessible, you can walk from the hotels. The Chicago Bears are in season and initially we thought that might be tricky but as it happened they have actually got a bye, the whole weekend off altogether so the stars really seem to have aligned on this one.
“At the moment, over two weeks out, we are looking at 98 per cent capacity with over 58,000 tickets already sold. I would be very surprised if we don’t reach the designated capacity for the event which is around 61,000.
“Bear in mind the biggest previous crowd for an Eagles home match is 22,000 so a 60,000 crowd is off the scale, a whole new ball game so to speak.
“Just opting for such a big stadia was a huge leap of faith and a bit scary if I’m honest. We clearly didn’t want to bring the All Blacks to America and play in a half-empty stadium or worse so our thinking was that if we could somehow work our way towards 35,000 in one of the smaller iconic venues – Soldier Field is the third smallest NFL ground I think – that would be fine. To be knocking on the door of a 61,000 capacity has completely blown us away and has certainly made the financial side of things easier because clearly and rightly, as world champions, New Zealand come at a premium.
“You won’t be surprised to hear we are very interested in the demographics of the crowd so we can build on this interest. It seems a right old mix. We are quite a big, if far-flung Union, with 115,000 members and a lot of rugby fans are making a very special effort to get into Chicago from all four corners of the nation by train, plane or automobile. There will be some great ‘road trip’ stories coming out of the game that’s for sure.
“Just about every New Zealander in the US seems to be making a big effort to get to Chicago. Then there has been the local take-up. Soldier Field is a community stadium and it’s nothing unusual to have some big event or other being staged there when the Bears aren’t playing and it seems curious Chicago sports fans are going to give rugby a try.
“The Chicago Sports Commission has been pushing this game very hard for us and finally the Bears themselves have been incredibly supportive. Through their good offices we have sold nearly 5000 tickets directly to some of their season ticket holders.”
The actual process by which Soldier Field was chosen is interesting and illustrative of the challenges Melville and his small team have faced. This is a Union that doesn’t own its own ground and has rugby outposts of players and fans nearly 3000 miles away from each other. Everything decision has to be a calculated compromise.
The original idea dates back to much good-humoured banter between Melville and NZRU CEO Steve Trew over a period of years but suddenly over a pint of the dark stuff in Dublin last year, after an IRB conference, they realised that a possible window was presenting itself for the autumn of 2014.
Suddenly the talk became much more serious and was followed up with clear headed emails and proposals the next day and the weeks that followed.
“When we were talking to the All Blacks and then their sponsors AIG, who have been rock solid behind the game, we basically worked backwards from the fact that New Zealand need to arrive in London on the Sunday November 2 in good shape for their game against England on November 8 and the rest of their autumn tour.
“So right from the off then that ruled out any tempting Pacific Coast venues because the All Blacks need to be 4-5 hours closer to Britain in terms of flying time.
“From our perspective we wanted the match in an iconic venue that would be recognised around most of the sporting world while another necessity was a grass playing surface.
“The All Blacks didn’t want to play on a plastic of 4G surface. They might or might not be the future but at international level a grass pitch is still standard and certainly a week ahead of playing England on grass at Twickenham they didn’t want to be on another surface altogether.
“AIG also particularly wanted to be near their big markets in the USA which meant preferably Chicago or New York so very quickly, when you look at the criteria, there were actually not that many options. Soldier Field was always right at the top of our ‘gut instinct’ list and when you started ticking all the boxes it also quickly emerged as the logical choice.
“A couple of other possible venues in New York were not available and we took a close look at Yankee Stadium but you just couldn’t squeeze a Test-sized rugby pitch in properly.”
Melville is very conscious that November 1 on Soldier Field is much more than a rugby match although clearly it is that as well.
He says: “The other big consideration is that we want the All Blacks to really enjoy the ‘Chicago experience’ and perhaps think it is stop-over they might repeat occasionally. It’s a very short week for them, a stop off en route before their tour and we will be leaving them to train, relax, sightsee whatever they want to do. We ourselves have got a gala dinner, schools initiatives, the RWC Trophy tour and lots of stuff going on during the week.
“Just having the world champions in town allows us to showcase the game. We will ‘work it’ for all its worth.
“The live TV coverage is a major step for us and with the kick off at 2.50pm central time that means it hits everywhere – West Coast and East Coast – at a pretty accessible times. Again Chicago, without us fully realising it at the time, has come up trumps in terms of time zones.
“US sports fans back their home team 100 per cent– they will be noisy and vocal. They will love the Haka and be respectful to it, I doubt if they will challenge the Haka with chants, but they will make plenty of noise throughout the rest of the game.”
The final piece of the jigsaw slotted in on Friday night when Premiership Rugby confirmed they would release the Eagles English based players – primarily Samu Manoa, Haydn Smith, Chris Wyles and Blaine Scully – for the game despite it falling out of the IRB Window. There is a cost to pay – those players will not now be eligible for the November games against Romani, Fiji and Tonga – but it is a cost the USA are prepared to pay on this occasion and there is a good chance that they would in any case have looked to blood less experienced players in those games.
“We appreciate Premiership Rugby’s support for this very special occasion and it means that everybody we would wish to be involved will not miss out,” said Melville.
“At the end of the day does it all fit playing wise? No, not at all – we are short of Test rugby and training together and New Zealand, the world champions and best team on the planet, are coming off a huge Rugby Championship campaign.
“But this was an opportunity we just couldn’t afford to miss and that has always been the challenge.”
*This article was first published in The Rugby Paper on October 19.
