Rugby has been played in Agen since 1908, and Sporting Union Agenais has won the Bouclier de Brennus eight times since 1930, most recently in 1988. Agen's 30,000 inhabitants are proud to call their town the prune capital of France. As with many other small towns in the first division, if there were not for the rugby team there would not be much going on. It is beautiful country though, with a well-deserved reputation for good eating, and the rugby team is very good. This is the club that has come closest to breaking the hegemony of the triumvirate of Toulouse, Biarritz and Stade Français in the French championship in recent years, losing 22–25 against Biarritz in extra time in the 2002 final.
The irony of this result was that it came just a few months after Agen had lost 59–10 to the Welsh club Ebbw Vale in the junior European Cup competition, the European Shield. Even the most ardent supporter of Ebbw Vale would agree that this was an unexpectedly large win for the Welsh side, but what happened that day so shocked European rugby officials that Agen were suspended from European competition the following year, the only time this had happened in the history of the competition.
Confronted by a busy calendar, Agen had decided they were going to concentrate on the French championship. Qualifying for the next round of the European Shield would simply add to the pile-up of games to be played, so they decided to throw the game. The problem was that simply losing wasn't going to be enough: Ebbw Vale had to score a barrowload of tries to go through, which meant the French side had to make a meal of it, and they did, waving the Welsh through as though they were trying to free up a traffic jam. They then unashamedly owned up to their ploy in the press, and seemed surprised that disciplinary action was taken. (The penalty was later reduced from a two-season disqualification to one-season following an appeal.) They had cause to regret their action: by finishing second in the championship they would have qualified for the Heineken Cup, but they missed out because of the suspension.
You may be appalled by this exercise in cynicism. Or perhaps you will just shrug your shoulders and figure they made the right calculation, since they got as far as the final six months later. The reality is that this kind of attitude towards the European Cup is not unusual in France. Agen lacked the necessary subtlety that might have allowed the authorities to swallow it: a few yellow cards for repeated technical infringements would have given them much the same result. But every year, when the European competition rolls round after two months of week-in, week-out championship games, one or two clubs will look at the list of wounded, look at the depth of their squad, assess their chances of winning the competition, and quietly pull the pin.
There is obviously a difference between not going all out to win a game and actually throwing it, but it's only a difference of degree, and both run contrary to the nature of any competition. But the clubs know that a full-scale campaign will, at best, tire the players by adding to an already heavy workload, and, at worst, lead to the loss of players through injury, and so the risk has to be worth the potential reward.
This is not to say that the European Cup is systematically written off. It is a great competition for the players because it allows them to come into contact with different rugby cultures, and games tend to flow more because there is less at stake. The kind of negative play that is often seen in the French championship is left behind, and there is more emphasis on attack.
French clubs have a proud record in the European Cup, with Toulouse winning it three times and Brive once, and there have been two all-French finals in recent years. But you need to have strength in depth. Bourgoin, for example, had a bad run in the Heineken Cup in 2004–2005: they lost 0–34 to Treviso at home (the first time a French club had lost to an Italian one in France, and it was a pounding), and topped that in the next round by losing 17–92 to Leinster in Dublin. The reason given for these woeful performances was that Bourgoin (who made it to the semis of the French championship that season, so they weren't there by accident) had put their money into quality rather than quantity of players, and there was a big drop-off in standards when a few key players were rested or injured.
Apart from the three big clubs, and perhaps Perpignan, the rest of the clubs look at the European competition as cake, compared to the bread and butter of the championship. Everyone would like a slice of European success, but only the rich can consistently afford it.
In 2003–2004, Montpellier won the Parker Pen Shield, which sounds quite glamorous but isn't. We qualified by losing our first-round game against Glasgow and slipping down a level. Our rivals were Italian teams who hadn't made it to the Heineken Cup, and had also been knocked out of the second-tier competition. Still, it was fun to win.
It wasn't a great success as a concept though, and no longer exists. Today there is only the European Challenge Cup, the junior brother to the Heineken and with a similar kind of set-up—a four-team pool, with a round robin of home and away games. The winners of each of the eight pools move through to the quarter-finals.
At the start of the year, when we were drawing up our team goals, we discussed the emphasis that would be placed on Europe and decided we would aim to make it to the knockout rounds. This struck me as a little overambitious, given the standard of the other teams. Catania, a Sicilian club, was fresh up from Italy's second division so they probably weren't too flash, but Worcester, even though they had been in the English Premier division only as long as we had been in the French version, were not going to be easy. And Connacht, the smallest of Ireland's four provincial clubs, would be highly motivated as well. Both Worcester and Connacht could realistically hope to qualify for the Heineken Cup by winning the Challenge Cup, and were sure to take it seriously.
Montpellier, after ten hard games in two and a half months, arrive at the doorway to the European season limping and wheezing like a sick man whose car has broken down half a dozen miles away. Nourault decides this may be a good moment to give the usual starting team a break and let those who have been kicking their heels have a run. It's a good decision. At this stage of the season, after the win against Perpignan but before the game in Agen, we are on 15 points, a nose ahead of Pau. They have 13, while Toulon bring up the rear on 11. We can't afford to lose any more players, and this gives the guys who haven't had much game-time an opportunity to show their talent, and perhaps force their way into the team.
South African Rickus Lubbe and I, the two old crocks, are left off the list submitted to the European Rugby Cup authorities. It will be months before I can play again, and Rickus is being rested. Unfortunately, we don't have the luxury of making the changes in the orderly way you might expect: pretty much everyone who's been playing regularly gets a weekend off or is on the bench, and this doesn't help organisation. A full-strength team, well-prepared and with an eye on the title, might just have had a chance to make it through to the next round.
The mix and match outfit that gets slung out on the field acquits itself reasonably well at Worcester, before going down 18–36 (after 15–15 just before half-time). But we then lose at home to Connacht 13–19, despite putting out a stronger side. The home game against Catania is the one bright spot: they are very ordinary, but we play well enough and keep our heads to win 74–12, which indicates how dreadful the result is when we go to Sicily and lose against them 34–37 a few weeks later. (It seems the more Latin your blood, the more 'home and away' you are.)
We are soundly beaten 10–43 in Ireland, and then lose 21–31 to Worcester at home, so Catania, who beat Connacht in Sicily in their last game, finish ahead of us, and we are dead last. Ouch. So much for qualifying for the next round. How ever, the beauty of the European Cup is that, even if this cuts at our pride, the wound isn't serious, and while it stings for a bit it soon goes away because we have bigger things to worry about.
The week before the game in Agen we train very well, particularly in opposition. It seems the European Cup experience, even if it not successful in terms of results, may have been useful: our continuity is better, with players getting away good passes in contact. Being less worried about the result gives us the freedom to try things that we might not otherwise, and if we can continue with this confidence in the championship it will add a dimension to our game that has been lacking.
'You play the way you train' is a coaching cliché with which most sides get ear-bashed all the time because it's generally true, but the French are such mavericks that form on the training field is no indication of what will happen on the day. I don't travel to Agen because of my arm, but from what I gather I don't miss much. Agen have had a scratchy start to the season—they are only three points ahead of us before the game, on 18—so perhaps we might sneak a win? A bonus point?
Er, no. Within a couple of minutes of the kick-off they score a converted try, then a quarter of an hour later another one. Dio dots down in the middle of a driving maul from a line-out, and Coco converts with quarter of an hour to go to half-time, but they reply in kind a few minutes later. 7–21 at the pause.
Rupeni Caucaunibaca, their flying Fijian winger, is always a handful (provided he's interested—not always the case) and he assures them of the bonus for four tries shortly after we return. He has a mazy running style, seemingly effortless acceleration, and a swivel-hipped change of direction that would make Elvis envious. All of these attributes combine to make him a nightmare to tackle, particularly if he has a few yards in front of the defence to turn you inside out. Despite the dance routine he's no will-o'-the-wisp, and occasionally mixes it up by simply running over the top of you. Great to watch from the stands, less fun close up. Anyway, it's now 7–28. Coco pulls a penalty back for us but then François Gelez kicks one himself, converts another try and rounds it off with a final penalty. It's 10–41, and definitely no bonus for us.
The result is not much of a shock, and by the time I find out that we have lost heavily I have set up headquarters in an Irish pub, and this eases the pain. I've dragged Marion along to watch England play New Zealand: the All Blacks are on course for a grand slam of the British Isles. Lack of foresight has me also watching the game with Nico Grelon and Drickus Hancke, who are injured too, so I have had to sit through France v. Tonga and Wales v. South Africa to keep them happy. This means nearly six hours of rugby, a considerable investment in what passes for stout in Montpellier, and one stroppy French girlfriend. Happily, the ABs squeak home against the English.
England v. New Zealand hasn't always produced great rugby over the years—historically the Springboks have been New Zealand's leading rivals for world supremacy, although of course the English are, at the time of writing, the current world champions. However, most Kiwis would agree that the one game that New Zealand must not lose is against England.
There is an element of chippiness involved, but it's more than that. New Zealand is often said to have come of age as a nation on the blood-soaked hills of the Dardanelles during the disastrously organised Gallipoli campaign of 1916. New Zealand then numbered less than a million inhabitants, and the Gallipoli campaign landed 8450 men on the Turkish shoreline, of whom 2721 were killed and 4752 wounded. During the whole of World War I, 58,000 New Zealanders were killed or wounded—in a war that took place on the other side of the world.
This may sound strange to self-assured Europeans with thousands of years of history behind them, but New Zealand is a young self-conscious nation with a tendency to judge ourselves by what others see in us, and the massive sacrifice involved during World War I validated the idea that we weren't just a far-flung outpost of the British Empire. We were as good as the Brits, and maybe even better, a country full of courage and resource and natural grit, and big enough to stand on the world stage.
The seeds of this national identity had been sown a decade earlier, when a team representing New Zealand had gone to play rugby in Britain. In 1905 'The Originals', as they came to be known, played 35 games, including five tests, losing only once, 0–3 to Wales. They wore a black jersey with a silver fern, and for the first time were referred to as the All Blacks. The story is told that, in a headline, a newspaper intended to describe the tourists, who were quickly making a name for themselves by allying ferocity with grace, and whose forwards were as skilled and fleet-footed as the backs, as 'All Backs!' but someone slipped in an 'l'. Unfortunately, no one can find a copy of the newspaper, so the more prosaic explanation that the name was a reference to their gear is now generally accepted.
Wherever it came from, the All Blacks beat England 15–0, scoring four tries to none. The men from the distant island colony had beaten the mother country—who had, after all, invented the game—and impressed the British sporting public with their skill and strength. Best of all, they elicited ad miring comments from British writers about positive aspects of New Zealand that were reflected in the team's performance: natural, healthy living conditions made them strong and fit, and the egalitarian society made them adaptable, broadminded and scornful of convention.
All of this tallied neatly with what New Zealanders thought of themselves. New Zealand had measured itself against Britain (most particularly against England, the seat of power) and was proud to have proved its worth. From then on, New Zealand has felt that its place is on top of the rugby world. Losing to anyone is disastrous; losing to England is the world turned on its head. The first lines of the traditional haka run: 'Ka Mate! Ka Mate! / Ka Ora! Ka Ora!—'It is death! It is death! / It is life! It is life!'
It is impossible to grow up as a boy in New Zealand without knowing that you are supposed to play rugby and aim to be an All Black. Even before I started, I wore a pair of black pyjamas, with the silver fern over my heart. I was nine when I played my first competitive season, relatively late for a Kiwi kid. We played in bare feet at about eight o'clock on Saturday mornings on the Wanganui racecourse. The pitch was sandy, and in the cold winter mornings it should have been illegal to play without boots, but we loved it.
If the All Blacks have become the personification of New Zealand values, they are also the point of reference for all other sports played in the country. Even the monikers of the national teams in other disciplines are a kind of name check: the basketballers are the Tall Blacks; the soccer team the All Whites; the cricketers the Black Caps; the netballers the Silver Ferns; the yachtsmen steer a boat called Black Magic. Athletes, rowers and cyclists all compete in black.
People often wonder how a small country like New Zealand manages to stay so consistently at, or very near, the top of world rugby. There is a raft of different reasons. For example, a large number of the current All Blacks are of Pacific Island origin, and the explosive style of play of these men has allowed the team to keep ahead of the rest of the world in pure physical firepower. But what ties it all together is that the country sees rugby as such a big deal. The older generation, brought up in the rugby tradition, is keen to encourage younger players and pass on what they know.
Innovation has always been part of this tradition. In 1905 The Originals were the first to have specific positions for players, rather than simply lumping large men into the forwards and skinny ones out the back, and each new wave looks for a way to improve. The pyramidal structure put in place by the New Zealand Rugby Union means the whole country is geared towards acting as a feeder system for the apex—the All Blacks—and there is no damaging club v. country tug-of-war over players. Rugby going professional was, paradoxically, inimical to New Zealand's domination, because it levelled the playing-field: players in other countries now had the incentive to put in the same amount of effort.
Of course, New Zealand has gone through bad patches and lost games. And we have won the World Cup only once, in 1987, while our close rivals the Australians have won it twice. But New Zealand has a positive record against every other country in world rugby. Only the Springboks come close—the All Blacks have won just 55 percent of games against them.
I spent my last school year and then three university years in England, and the culture shock was considerable. It would be dangerous to draw conclusions from the rugby I played in the rarefied atmosphere of Eton and Oxford—I didn't do the hard yards in a club, which would have been a better indicator of what English rugby was really like—but I was struck by the attitude of team-mates and coaches. In England, we were 'playing games', which was a healthy activity, and if you won that was great but if you didn't, well, that was all right, because it was the taking part that was important.
I had been brought up on competitive sport, which wasn't quite win-at-all-costs, but nearly. You would be criticised for cheating, for example, only if you were penalised—that is, if you were caught. Sportsmanship meant shaking hands at the end, and wearing the same mask whether you won or lost. In my first match for the Eton First XV, I was threatened with never being allowed to play for them again because I rucked a player who was lying all over our ball. The referee, a Scotsman, didn't blink, but the coaches considered this kind of behaviour deplorable.
Every boy had his own room at Eton, and there were no communal changing-rooms. Just before our first home game, I was stunned to discover that we were supposed to meet the visitors' bus, pick up our opposite number, and escort him to our room to get changed. I couldn't quite bring myself to do this. Once, after we had played Marlborough, a player whom I had been marking refused to shake hands with me, saying loudly, 'I would have enjoyed that game if you hadn't been cheating all the time.' He hadn't left the ground all day in the line-out because I had been jumping off his shoulder, so I felt this was something of a compliment. But what would we have said to each other if I had had to lend him a towel?
Oxford was a big step up from this in every way, but there was still dilettantism in the way things were done, not helped by the fact there was only one official game on the calendar: all the others were friendly matches. The Varsity Match against Cambridge is an anomaly in world rugby, a throwback to the glory days of gentlemen amateurs, when the two universities could field some of the best players in the British Isles. In the professional era it has become something of a sideshow. That said, it is a sideshow that packs 50,000 into Twickenham on a Tuesday afternoon in December, and attracts a television audience of a million people.
The players take the game seriously, but it is the sense of occasion that predominates. The Varsity Match is the last remaining bastion of rugby that bears some resemblance to the intentions of Dr Arnold, principal of Rugby School, and his fellow educators from the nineteenth century: an amateur ethos that is about training young men for life, where the rigour of competition is important, but winning is secondary to larger ideals. I had plenty of fun in my three years with the Oxford team, and made a number of lifelong friends, but the relaxed atmosphere away from the ruthless pursuit of excellence that I had known in New Zealand did not do my rugby any good. I emerged feeling I had gone backwards.
My first tour with Oxford took me to Japan and Hong Kong in 1992. Japan was, and still is, a relative minnow in the rugby world—it is currently sixteenth behind Romania and in front of Georgia on the IRB rankings—so I was astonished to find massive interest in a touring university side. The last of our three games was played against Japan's national Under 23 side in front of 40,000 people. (In Hong Kong, no one outside the expatriate community had seemed interested.)
Rugby's spread around the rest of the world is less obvious, but there are now 95 countries listed on the IRB world rankings. In Sri Lanka there is a 100-year-old tradition of rugby, and schoolboy games can attract crowds in their thousands. In 2005, 40,000 spectators saw the Madagascar Makis beat the South African amateur side at the national stadium in Antananarivo. In Georgia, 65,000 people watched their country play Russia in the 2006 European Nations Cup tournament. Japan has enough money to attract big-name players to its national competition, but poorer countries make do with the resources they have. The Georgians used to make scrum machines out of old Soviet tractors, while in Madagascar children in poor urban areas can be seen using scrunched-up plastic bottles as balls. Finland is ranked 95th of the 95 unions, but has bragging rights to the world's only annual Arctic rugby tournament.