Personal responsibility on players to keep the show on the road

We’ve got a lot of rugby ahead of us over the next few months. There’s Super Saturday in the Six Nations, the PRO14, the very Pro Evolution 5 sounding Autumn Nations Cup and that’s before we consider the return of the European Champions Cup which, now that I think of it, is extremely Pro Evolution 5 sounding too.

We need better tournament names in rugby. That’s going to be my platform when I run for the World Rugby presidency in a few years, that and banning passing so that the only way to move the ball without carrying it or mauling it is box kicking. #Savage2024.

Either way, we’ve got a lot of rugby coming this year and after the merciless grind of 2020 where every month seems to pass incredibly quickly but the year itself feels like three years. Hopefully we’ll get to see it all.

I say “hopefully” because if this year has taught us anything, it’s that nothing is for sure until the game is literally kicked off. England, for example, thought they were playing the Barbarians last weekend but the Trattoria Twelve had other ideas.

If you haven’t heard, the Barbarians/England game was called off after a series of COVID protocol breaches during the week by the Barbarians squad. In a normal year, this would be a very Barbarians’ style thing to do, to the point that it would be weird if it didn’t happen. You don’t don the black and white hoops for an intense week of training and tactical disciple. You play with the Barbarians to go on the piss, have the craic with a bunch of lads you might only ever have played against and then go and fling the ball around like there was a live hand grenade in it at the weekend.

But this isn’t a normal year.

This year, the Barbarians weren’t asked not to go on the piss, they were simply asked that when they went on the piss that they kept it in the hotel they were staying in. Why? That would be in the bubble. Modern elite sport in the COVID age exists under the principle of “bubbles” and rugby is no different.

Basically, if we are playing you we both are protected by our bubble which means that both sides can guarantee that they have not been exposed to someone who might have been infected with COVID19 because everyone in the bubble has been tested and shown that they are not infected. That way, both sides can play each other safe in the knowledge that COVID19 isn’t on the field too. Well, as safe as you can be these days.

When those 12 Barbarians’ players left the bubble of the hotel to go for a pint and an Italian, they took away the certainty that everyone in the team was not, as best as could be ascertained, infected with COVID19.

So they couldn’t train and had to be sent home. The Barbarians went looking for replacement players that were still in a pro “bubble” that could join them until it was revealed that there was another breach earlier in the week. That meant that none of the players who had trained with the Barbarians were available to play because they could not guarantee that they had not been exposed to COVID19 during their time outside the bubble.

None of the lads who binned off the guidelines to go for a few pints outside the hotel are bad dudes but what they did was selfish, reckless and so stupid that it’s scarcely believable it even happened. Most have apologised on Twitter and, while it’s not the end of the world, it’s the kind of thing that just can’t happen if the sport is to survive as a fully professional entity.

The coronavirus has changed everything and as we head into a level five lockdown here in Ireland, we’re reminded every day of the privilege we’re afforded by having our jobs continue. The elite sports exception means that rugby continues but we only exist as long as the bubbles we erect around our squads remain intact. An entire industry depends on the sanctity of that bubble.

You can catch COVID19 off someone standing too close to you in a shop if you’ve got bad luck but if you expose yourself to parties or other activities that are against the rules right now, hundreds of jobs could be at stake. It’s too much pressure for any group of young men really but it’s what we’re asking of the senior and academy players all over this island over the next few months.

We’ve seen what happens when a small group bins off the rules for a few pints and a pizza this week. A game that charities, the RFU, the Barbarians, a TV outside broadcast unit and others were reliant on, never mind some players in line for debuts that they might never get back, got cancelled on a few days notice because a group of people thought their fun was more important.

It’s a privilege that our business gets to continue while others have their doors closed. We must respect that gift and strive to go above and beyond what the government recommend until this is all over so that we can keep the show on this road. We are six bad months away from disaster in this sport, so players have to be athletes and monks until the country can relax a little.

Anything less would be disrespectful to fellow professionals, the non-playing people who depend on this industry directly at the provinces and the IRFU and would be a smirk in the face to the hundreds of thousands of people currently wondering if their business will survive the year.

It isn’t fair, it sucks, but it’s what has to happen if we want the game we love to continue mostly as we’ve known it.