The LV Cup has developed into something very different to what it originally was. In its previous incarnation in the amateur days of the John Player/Pilkington/Powergen Cup it was the premier domestic rugby competition, indeed until the advent of a league system it was the only senior domestic competition. From 2006, it evolved into the Anglo-Welsh Cup between the Premiership clubs and the Welsh regions and initially attracted glamorous double-header semi finals and heavily attended finals at the Millennium Stadium or Twickenham. In its latest incarnation as the LV Cup, it has become a competition that exists to fill the gaps of the domestic schedule during the international periods.
The LV Cup will not run for the 2015/16 season due to the Rugby World Cup, but its return for the following season would please those followers who have enjoyed the opportunity to see young up and coming players given game time on a bigger stage, particularly in an era where second string fixtures are becoming few and far between.
Since the LV Cup became something of a developmental competition, there have been numerous examples of young players taking the opportunity to step up and stake their claim for first team inclusion. As a Leicester fan, one such example that comes to mind is that of young Harry Thacker: a hooker who unusually is equally adept as an openside flanker. His profile on the Leicester Tigers website lists his weight as 12st 12lbs, which in this day and age is unusually small, particularly for a front row player.
Being lighter ought not to matter to the traditional role of the hooker. Thacker throws in to the line out well, is nimble enough at hooking the ball and his added mobility is a real bonus away from the scrum too. And yet the common consensus on Thacker’s credentials seems to be “yes, good player. But he’ll have to bulk up to make it, and he’ll probably never be big enough for the front row.”
Unfortunately, this is the era we have landed in. It seems that finesse and skill is all well and good, but needs to be backed by sheer bulk too. It has always been claimed that rugby is a game for all shapes and sizes but it has become increasingly difficult to see where a small player fits in at the top level. Even in the backs.
Graham Rowntree, the England forwards’ coach and formerly the A in Leicester’s famed ABC club, recently claimed that we were at a point where coaches do not want players to get any bigger; that we have reached a plateau on that front and that the focus should be on skills and fitness winning games. Many attached to the game will have breathed a huge sigh of relief upon hearing this assertion. Rowntree will of course be looking at this transformation from the viewpoint of winning international rugby matches and competitions, which if he’s right will be done in a fashion that should be much more pleasing on the eye than the heavy impact, pack dominated rugby that we’ve become accustomed to in recent years. The wider implications of his view, however are equally significant.
When Jonah Lomu leapt to global attention in the 1995 Rugby World Cup, notably swatting aside Tony Underwood and bulldozing over Mike Catt for the first of his four tries in the semi final against England, coaches the world over saw this unusually large and powerful winger and thought “wow! I’ve got to get me one of them!” And so was born the era of power and bulk in backs play on a wider scale.
The advent of professionalism meant that players were able to dedicate hours of training on conditioning and bulking up, and over the years we have become used to seeing much larger players than we ever used to see, even since the turn of the millennium. The Daily Telegraph recently claimed that on average, players today are as much as three stones (19kg) heavier than they were fifty years ago, which should raise some eyebrows. Whichever way this is happening, it is with a level of disappointment.
One way this could be happening is by players spending more time in the gym than ever before building muscle mass. Understandable in a professional era where there’s time to do it, but one hopes not to the detriment of the coaching and training of skills.
Another reason for the raise in average weight of the top players could be through selection: that the smaller young players just aren’t being signed up and selected. A disappointing state of affairs for a game that claims to be one for all shapes and sizes if true.
The third way, and I do hope this is not the case, would be by the use of steroids or other performance enhancing drugs. Let me be clear before I say any more on this matter: there is nothing to suggest to me or anybody else that the use of such substances to bulk players up is widespread and neither am I necessarily accusing anybody of administering such tactics. World Rugby’s drug testing procedure, which outlines a stringent and in theory tamper proof method of collecting urine and/or blood samples from both random and targeted athletes, is stringent enough to suggest that you shouldn’t get away with doping. But it would take a naive commentator to assert that this doesn’t happen at all when the pressure is so great on young players to bulk up to be ready for the rigours of top level rugby. Top level cycling teams were able to fool drug testing authorities for a long time, but with greater resources available than that of the average top level rugby club.
The risks of doping are severe. The standard World Rugby sanction for missing a test or failing one is a four year ban, give or take any mitigating or aggravating factors. Perhaps this is why we are now seeing a greater association of off the shelf dietary supplements with the sport by way of advertising placement or sponsorship.
Legally or otherwise, the bulking up of players naturally leads to a more impact based game where impacts are getting bigger. The spotlight in the past year has been on concussion injuries from impact, with the plight of George North leading to some rather worried looks from medical practitioners in particular. As cases of concussion get more prevalent, the size of players and the subsequent force of impacts at the top level is a concern.
The unspoken concern with regards to the size of the collisions in the game is a sobering one. It is only a matter of time before somebody is killed on the field in a top level match when a big collision goes wrong. That is unless something fundamental changes in the game. It doesn’t bear thinking about it, but this is the bottom line and the more you consider the impacts that occur, the more it’s actually remarkable that there hasn’t been a high profile tragedy under the eyes of the watching world.
Of course, you cannot outlaw players getting bigger so the only way a change is going to happen is for a change in attitude of coaches. If Graham Rowntree is correct and coaches are going to start focusing more on brain over brawn then he may just have inadvertently stumbled across one of the most important moments of evolution in the sport.
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