There is no place for inflammatory language in rugby
Last week Peter Brown, a former Scotland rugby captain, wrote a letter to The Times deploring the animosity, even expressions of hatred, and threatening language which now disfigure international rugby’s oldest fixture, the Calcutta Cup match between England and Scotland. Among spectators and followers the Scots are, I’m sorry to say, the worst offenders, but they are matched and provoked by England’s Australian coach, Eddie Jones, who seems to take a warped relish in stirring things up – not only in matches against Scotland. Three weeks ago before England played in Paris, he warned a young French team that they would meet with a brutality they had never experienced before.
I never know how serious Jones is and wonder if he merely delights in the limelight, but I am pretty sure that a generation or two ago any coach, official or player who spoke as he does would have been reproved, disowned and possibly dismissed by the Union which employed him. But the RFU seem indifferent; certainly they tolerate his provocative language.
One of the agreeable features of rugby at both club and international level is that there has never been any need or even wish to segregate supporters. There are no Home and Away ends and police are not required to escort Away supporters to the grounds. On the contrary, one often finds oneself sitting beside supporters of the other team and friendships have resulted from such chance meetings. At Calcutta Cup matches at Murrayfield I have always found English fans to be agreeable, fair in their judgement and generous in their appreciation of good play by their opponents. I am sure they deplore talk of “brutality”. The most common post-match remark in defeat from rugby supporters of any country is on the lines of “good match, pity we lost, but you deserved to win”. Emotions naturally run high, but good feeling between opposing fans is characteristic of rugby. And, to be fair, even Jones is usually generous in defeat.
No doubt captains have often delivered inflammatory speeches before their team takes the field, but what’s said in the dressing-room should stay there. It’s this well-publicised pre-match talk of hatred and brutality which is new or at least recent. International Players themselves know and mostly respect each other. Some even play for the same club, others have toured with the Lions or played together for the Barbarians.
The paradox is that while many of us share Peter Brown’s disquiet and agree with what he wrote in that letter to The Times, professional rugby today is much cleaner and, despite the often alarming size and power of modern players, much less brutal than our old much-loved amateur game often was. Players are better-behaved because the game is better policed, and the consequences of illegal acts are more certain and more severe. Every player knows that what may escape the referee’s eye will not escape the camera. It was different in the amateur days. I recall, for example, a Calcutta Cup match in the early 1990s at which Doddie Weir, now known even by people who don’t follow rugby because of his gallant struggle against Motor Neurone Disease, was struck from behind by a large England forward, poleaxed and laid out. I won’t name the Englishman because he is probably still ashamed of this assault, merely remark that in his daily life, he was, as I remember, a policeman. The referee didn’t spot the offence, probably because it took place nowhere near the ball, but now it would be caught on camera and the perpetrator would be given a red card, dismissed from the pitch and subsequently suspended for several weeks.
Rugby is a tough, even ferocious, physical sport, and there have always been hard men who played not just to the limits of the law but quite a distance beyond. Some were described as “psychopaths”, others as “wild beasts”, this judgement delivered with, perhaps, a degree of affection and humour. Nevertheless what went on in the front row of the scrum was often nasty and even brutal, (One recalls that Eddie Jones was a hooker in his playing days; so I daresay he was sometimes a victim himself). Still there was, as I say, humour. I remember Peter Brown himself telling with considerable relish, in an after-dinner speech, of a match between Gala and Langholm in which a Langholm flanker, a notorious but, in Langholm anyway, much-loved hard man, issued a series of lurid threats to the Gala (and Scotland) scrum-half, Duncan Paterson, describing what he had in store for him. Eventually Dunky complained to the referee and asked him what he was going to do about it. “I’m doing nothing,” was the reply, “but if I was you, Dunky, I wouldn’t try making a break on the blindside.” And I recall a genial prop at my own club, Selkirk, who had been suspended by the SRU for punching an opponent and ruefully remarked to me that the pity of it was “it wisna’ even a good punch”.
Rugby is by its nature as a contact sport a violent game, even, as was once said of fox-hunting, “the image of war without the guilt”, and indeed many professional players combine the power and mobility of a tank while defences are built like a Roman wall. Nobody would wish it otherwise; touch rugby is a poor anaemic alternative. Yet it is the very physicality of the game which makes restraint of language desirable, even necessary. Incitement to violence is too easy and increasingly common. We should all remember that even at the professional level it is still only a game, offering recreation and enjoyment for players and spectators alike. There should be no place for inflammatory language, for talk of brutality, or for expressions of animosity or even hate. It is surely incumbent on coaches and pundits to guard their language. Rugby is not a matter of life and death; it’s much less important than that. It should promote good fellowship, not enmity. Every coach would do well to read Peter Brown’s letter to The Times, and take his message to heart.