One-off All Blacks-Lions Test appeals but not as a 'decider'

Chiefs coach and next year's coach of the British & Irish Lions team to South Africa, Warren Gatland has floated the idea of the All Blacks and Lions playing a 'series decider' ahead of next year's Lions tour.

Is it a goer?

Optimists and they are people to listen to in times of coronavirus, would say nothing is impossible.

But pessimists, and English club owners, would say no.

Before even considering the concept it is worth remembering that England's premiership club owners are already under significant pressure because they refuse to allow the Lions to have time to prepare for their tour, just as they did ahead of the 2017 visit to New Zealand. That has resulted in the tour being reduced to eight games in five weeks, compared to 10 in six as happened in New Zealand.

At the New Zealand end, in a normal world, the game would be scheduled, at Twickenham, in the vital end stages of the Super Rugby competition.

It wouldn't only involve one week out of action for New Zealand players, it would be at least two weeks to make the flight north to prepare in time.

That is presuming borders are open and flights available because in a worst-case scenario a vaccine may still not have been found – and that holds much of the answer about a return to normality.

Conjecture had centred on the Maori All Blacks providing the Lions with a warm-up game but Gatland floated the fund-raising options that a game involving the All Blacks at Twickenham might provide for New Zealand Rugby.

All that aside, could the game be described as a 'series decider.'

No doubt the winner could claim that.

In reality, it would be nothing like a continuation of that series and would have to be in the 'one-off' category.

Why?

No Kieran Read, no Owen Franks, no Jerome Kaino, no Julian Savea, no Israel Dagg, no Sonny Bill Williams and that's just from the starting XV for the third Test. Put in the reserves and Wyatt Crockett, Charlie Faumuina, Aaron Cruden and Malakai Fekitoa would all be missing as well. And that's just on the All Blacks' side.

If it could be achieved a game between the two sides would be a huge drawcard and if entered into as purely a chance to provide the Lions with warm-up potential and revenue for the All Blacks it would appeal.

But please, just let it be that.

November Tests shaping as crucial for world rugby

World Rugby is facing difficult decisions resulting from the north-south split in seasons and the financial implications associated with a return to international rugby.

The immediate concern is with the potential loss of the July internationals in the southern hemisphere and the associated loss of revenue for the likes of New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Argentina.

But then in the November window, there is the consideration of finishing the suspended Six Nations championship and ensuring the November tours by the southern hemisphere nations.

World Rugby president, Bill Beaumont said two options were to the forefront in their thinking but were not restricted solely to them.

One involved matches played in the northern hemisphere in November with 'an equitable sharing of revenues' (something long overdue) or possibly having Tests played in the southern hemisphere and then in the north.

The second option was seen as difficult due to restrictions of achieving a suitable time in the remainder of 2020.

"We are well aware of the financial situation in the south," Beaumont said.

"The southern federations need the tests of July, those of the north of those of November.

"But we must be united in this crisis. No one is going to make a profit during this time, everyone is going to suffer. I have full confidence in the ability of the federations to work together to find a solution. Even the northern nations will be impacted," he said.

Beaumont added that if no Tests were possible in November the situation would become 'very serious'.

"We have to wait for the situation to settle. We cannot predict an exact solution today. The Federations are going to need matches, but we must also think of the clubs that have seasons to end," he said.

The situation needed to remain under control, he warned.

"It shouldn't become the Wild West. If everyone has gold fever and runs after silver, we will not get there," he said.

Meanwhile, French Federation president Bernard Laporte said no decision would be made about postponing or cancelling the July tours until the end of April.

He added that director-general of World Rugby Brett Gosper had already said that individual unions in the southern hemisphere could not decide on the cancellations or postponement of tours.

New book offers complete history of New Zealand's game

For all the wealth of information committed to print in the last 125 years regarding New Zealand rugby, a complete history has always been conspicuous by its absence.

New rugby history offers complete story of the NZ game

Whether it was because rugby was just a game and therefore not worth the attention of any academic, or because the sort of people who played rugby were not the sort to be interested in all that had gone before, or any of the dismissive attitudes that invariably raise their heads when attention to rugby outweighs the emphasis that is perceived as not being paid to the arts and other endeavours, there remained a hole in the reference area that captured its complete history.

That has changed with Dr Ron Palenski's 'Rugby: A New Zealand History'. It tells the story of the game that, in spite of what some may believe, has captured the interest of New Zealanders like no other.

Palenski is part of a growing community, not only in the academic sphere but across the board, who appreciate that rugby is more than a game and it is beginning to take its place as an attachment worth far more than passing treatment it has received in the past. And the same attitude is applying to sport in general.

Management treatises of the virtues to be had in acknowledging the astonishing winning success rate the nation's top team, the All Blacks, have achieved in international play are becoming common.

Universities are starting to include Sport History papers in their offerings to students and people like Palenski are lending an academic approach to aspects of the game that have tended to be the area of newspaper journalists and enthusiasts who have recorded the development of the game through the various provinces that support the game in New Zealand. Theses are being written about aspects of the development of the game and academic journals have many more papers associated with rugby than was previously the case.

Palenski was one of the most influential sports journalists in the country before joining the exodus of much of the institutional sports experience associated with newspapers in New Zealand to pursue an academic career - the end result of which is a doctorate and a historian's approach to the subject that has occupied much of his twin careers.

The result is the long awaited history of the game represented in his latest book. It is not stretching the point too far to say that Rugby: A New Zealand History is Palenski's finest work.

He had already put to bed the myth that a printer or sub-editor's error in England was responsible for giving the All Blacks their name. But he reaffirms that research in this book, along with many other myths that have grown up.

One of these is the claim that a New Zealander, William Atack, gave the whistle by which referees now control games, to rugby in 1884. Palenski shows that claim may have been true in New Zealand, but evidence exists that a whistle was used in Australia a year earlier.

It is interesting also that while Robbie Deans was believed to be the first New Zealander to coach Australia the facts show that when Australia played their first Test, against Great Britain in 1899, the coach of the Australian side was Billy Warbrick, one of the famous New Zealand family who had been associated with the New Zealand Natives side to Britain, Australia and New Zealand in 1888-89.

Snippets on various aspects of the game, including music, warfare connections, political interest, art, the origins of the Bledisloe Cup and a wealth of others, are the subject of breakout stories in the text and provide a complete picture of the game and its moods.

It would be difficult to imagine that 'new' photographs might be available but there are many that capture aspects of the game through the years that enhance the text superbly.

By its nature, the book spends much time on the years preceding the 1970s. This is not surprising. The years previous were the time in which the legend was formulated and information of more recent times is often not so readily available, for any number of reasons, including closeness to events, and a lack of total perspective around modern happenings.

Understanding those nuances in the game will be the task of future historians, but those same historians will be able to rest assured that they have a significant foundation to work from on.

Nothing is ever a closed book, and there will be elements arise that are not included in Palenski's book, but they will be few and far between so well has the history been accounted for in this publication.

'Rugby: A New Zealand History' is the history the game deserves.

Rugby: A New Zealand History by Ron Palenski. Published by Auckland University Press.