Cold water on a good idea

The worthies of Sanzar deserve some credit for wanting to find a way around a season that is too hard for players to sustain, but it seems they will spend a lot of money on outside consultants and end up being no nearer a solution.

This, I’m assured by some of my highly placed friends, is not unusual when organisations get in consultants to show them how to run their own business, so it is puzzling that the men of the south don’t simply have a meeting with their counterparts in the north to discuss their ideas.

At the moment it seems that Sanzar officials are in favour of a six- to seven-month season to take the pressure off players who are becoming increasingly militant.

To do this they suggest that the countries who make up the Six Nations – England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France and Italy – change their season from the European winter to the northern summer to ensure that the two hemispheres play in the same time frame.

The logic of this, say Sanzar, is compelling. The weather will be better in Europe, fields will be drier, the rugby will be faster and all-in-all the game will be more entertaining.

Arrogantly forgetting that France have had the measure of New Zealand and that England have recently beaten Australia and South Africa the gentlemen of the south even suggest that the standard of northern hemisphere rugby will improve.

They are in for a big shock. France and Italy might go with their idea but the Home Nations will give it a big thumbs-down.

Not because they don’t want to co-operate, but because they have to face reality. For reality, read pounds, shillings and pence.

Rugby in the UK will stay in the winter for one very important reason – television.

Up against the might of soccer, rugby officials possess one very important card when it comes to signing broadcast contracts. They can put their game on in rain, snow, mud, frost, sleet; in fact almost anything you can expect on a mild winter’s day in Britain.

In those dark, cold days when golf courses are closed, tennis courts have turned to sludge and even soccer gets bogged down the hooligans of rugby can still get down to it and produce a fine spectacle.

The last thing rugby officials in the UK can afford is to go up against the FA Cup, Wimbledon and the British Open in their battle for the TV pound. No, they would prefer to have the field to their themselves and their advantage is that they can play at the height of winter.

And I can tell Sanzar officials this for absolutely nothing!