Spain’s coming of age
ANALYSIS
>> PAUL REES REPORTS ON THE CHALLENGES FACING EMERGING NATIONS TO REACH THE TOP…WHILE PROBLEMS MOUNT IN WALES
IT HAS been some July for Spain. They won the men’s football European Championship, Alcaraz retained his men’s Wimbledon title and the national rugby side won in Tonga. The latter achievement may have only created the merest ripple in the pond of international sport, but is it the prelude to a wave?
A few hours later, Spain booked their place in next year’s World Rugby Under-20 Championship by defeating Fiji in a relegation play-off through a try by David Gallegos in extra-time having at one point been 14-0 down. At the same time, Georgia defeated Italy to secure seventh place in this year’s tournament, which was won by England.
Spain, who the week before Tonga had pushed Samoa all the way in Apia, succumbing to a try one minute from the end, missed out on competing in the last two senior World Cups because they fielded ineligible players in the qualifiers, prompting an exit of players the last time. Their one appearance in the tournament was in the last century, 1999, but with the number of sides involved going up from 20 to 24, they are on course to make it to Australia in three years, assuming they pick properly qualified players.
Spain played their first official international in 1929, defeating Italy 9-0 at the Olympic Stadium in Barcelona. The game there has been centred on the Catalan and Basque regionsBiarritz used to take matches to San Sebastián in the days when they were involved in the Champions Cup rather than struggling in France’s second divisionas well as Madrid and European Professional Club Rugby has taken its finals to Bilbao, the destination again in 2026.
Rugby is increasing its profile on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal made an impression on last year’s World Cup in France. They defeated Fiji, drew with Georgia and made Wales and Australia work hard for their victories. They returned home to find Lisbon Airport crammed with supporters.
Last weekend, Portugal were in Bloemfontein taking on the World Cup holders, South Africa. Even with the early sending off of centre Andre Esterhuizen for a high tackle, there was only ever going to be one result, a comfortable home victory.
The outcome was not the point which was to give exposure to countries whose only contact with tier one nations had come during World Cups, not in between them. Portugal were popular in France not so much because of their willingness to attack but the ability they showed with ball in hand. They scored three tries against the Springboks, playing without fear, only for the physical demands of the game to catch up with them.
“It was an historical event for us,” said Simon Mannix, the one-cap All Black who replaced Patrice Lagisquet as Os Lobos’ head coach after the World Cup.
“The 15th ranked team in the world came to the number one and showed we want to play and get the ball into space, here is what we can do.
“Spain missed out on competing in the last two senior World Cups over ineligible players”
“We had a try ruled out that would have brought us back to 22-14 with 15 minutes of the first half left, but we were under no illusions in the coaching box that we were going to do something special. We could have stayed in the game a bit longer, but it was so tough physically. The players hung in there and the promise we have for everyone in Portugal is that we will get better, work harder and come back stronger. There is a lot of talent in the squad.”
Two other of last year’s World Cup qualifiers, Uruguay and Chile, have played Scotland in a full international this month with the former facing France in an uncapped Test. Samoa defeated Italy, a surprise given the Azzurri’s improvement in the Six Nations but they wilted in the heat in the second half, and Georgia won in Japan to extend Eddie Jones’s poor run of resultstwo victories in his last 14 Tests covering three countries.
Chile attracted a bigger crowd for their 52-11 defeat to Scotland in Santiago (24,875) than Australia managed in Melbourne for their second Test victory over Wales (21,932). And here lies the dilemma as the game ponders its direction of travel.
In the one corner are the likes of Australia and the championship playing countries who were financially exposed by the pandemic. In the other are the aspirational nations who are losing patience at continually banging their heads on the glass ceiling that is Test rugby: they are allowed to go so far before being blocked by closed shops.
The nations championship will be unrolled in 2026, played every two years. It will effectively be a World Cup played without the emerging nations and will be, in theory, more competitive. It carries the risk of devaluing the main event and still to be decided is whether there will be any access to the top from the second division.
World Rugby is pledged to expand the game’s boundaries and so widen its commercial reach, bring more money into the game. The choice of Japan as the 2019 World Cup hosts was successful both financially and on the field. The choice of the United States to stage the 2031 event was more controversial because the game there did not have as much infrastructure and the country is known for its insularity. But it is the world’s major economy and contrasts with most of the established rugby nations.
As World Rugby heads towards the next decade, there will be a battle between the established, mainstream unions looking to increase their revenues and not jeopardise their status and those who believe in a meritocracy and a pathway to the top, as is meant to happen in domestic leagues: form rather than history.
That said, making a break- through is considerably more difficult for a country than a club. It is about the whole game in one union rather than one team: players, professional teams, league structure, academies, the youth and schools set ups, coaches, referrees, exposure through the media and finance. That all takes ti out the incentive o the top will not ha lem for the emergi that although the year mark the 30th of the decision to the administration by-product of the me and with out the incentive a route to the top will not hthe happen. A probappen for the emerglem nations is the that although the game will next game will next year mark the 30th year mark the anniversary of the decision to to take it open, the administration remains a remains a by-product of the by-product of the amateur age.
“World Rug by is pledged to expand the bound aries of the game and its a commercial reach”
World Rugby is the governing body but it is run by the unions. And so nothing will change in the international game in Europe without the assent of the Six Nations: the only impact World Rugby can have is on the levels below the top tier.
It has no say in the biggest commercial drivers in the game in the two hemispheres, the Six Nations and the Rugby Championship. The voting structure has changed on World Rugby to make it less undemocratic than before – France only became a member of the old International Rugby Board in 1978 – but it remains weighted in favour of the traditional powers.
Change takes time, as it always did. The idea of a World Cup was first proposed in the 1960s but was shot down by Ireland. When it was resurrected 20 years later by Australia and New Zealand, the vote was tied after South Africa voted in favour despite knowing they would be barred from it because of the sporting boycott then in place because of apartheid. It only went through after the English and Welsh union changed their votes. The old Five Nations were fearful of the side-effects of a World Cup that could ultimately threaten their control of the game. Professionalism was one and opening up the sport was another. Italy were eventually accepted into the Six Nations, but it took longer for Argentina to break into the Rugby Championship and only made their case by reaching a World Cup semi-final.
“At some point, we’ll get the opportunity to dine at the top table,” said Richard Cockerill, below left, after taking over as Georgia’s head coach. “If that’s not in the near future, we’ve got to make a compelling case that they’ve got to include us. We want to be competitive. I think there is opportunity for us.”
Georgia are at the top of their level, chased by the likes of Spain, Portugal and Romania, but what happens next is not down to them. The earliest there will be access to the Nations Championship for the second tier nations is 2032 and they can be sure that it will not be a straight one up, one down.
But if the pandemic showed anything it was that the game as it stands is not generating sufficient income. Unions had to reduce their expenditure with the grassroots bearing the brunt of the cuts.
World Rugby’s executive appreciates that boundaries need to be widened, the equivalent of oil exploration, but it can only take the horse to water.
