With the Rugby World Cup taking a breather as a typhoon swept in, the time was right for a reflection on the way the game thrives when the winds of change are raging all around it
Rugby, like all sport no matter what the level, is at perhaps its finest when chaos sneaks through the predictable and the drilled. When the unexpected drives and allows instinct to take control. When chaos rules, when the rules become chaos, sport becomes a manic joy to watch.
We have seen a fair share of chaos in this Rugby World Cup in Japan. It has come through luck and fortune, and, in the way of professional sport, it has been manufactured and embraced. And on the fourth weekend of the tournament, as the pool stages rollicked or strolled towards an end, Mother Nature huffed and puffed and blew the house down.
Japan is a nation that has been ripped apart and levelled by the greatest forces the world has ever seen. This is a land that feels the breaking force of typhoons and earthquakes, the overwhelming drive of tsunami waves and the evil forces of bombs that no nation should feel.
This is a land of incredible order and duty that has known chaos. This is a land that knows how to stare chaos in the face and roll with its punches. It embraces chaos, whispers that it understands it and then waits for it to pass. Mostly.
At this World Cup, Japan, the team, and Japan, the country, has seen chaos like few other tournaments have seen. Typhoon Hagibis, described as “violent”, arrived like a bouncer intent on breaking up the party for no good reason.
World Rugby cowered and made noises about contingency plans they would not reveal and could not put in place. Two big matches, New Zealand against Italy and England against France were cancelled, the first time games had ever been nullified in a World Cup.
International headlines spoke of a tournament thrown into “chaos”. They were just a little exaggerated. World Rugby’s explanations were valid in seeking safety first, but their inability to change their rules, to think on the move and allow for change, also spoke of an organisation trapped inside its own bureaucracy and intransigence. They could not adapt. They could not bend. They could not be Japan and embrace the chaos and turn it to their advantage. It will mark them for World Cups to come.
Chaos and rugby have been bedfellows for years. A short, far-too-modern and abrupt history. The ACT Brumbies, as they were once were known, played a style of rugby that relied on patterns. They divided the field into blocks and the players were drilled into playing according to what block they were in depending on where they were on the pitch. It was highly effective and admired. Until it was worked out.
New Zealand teams began to focus on attacking from turnover ball, which was, essentially, chaos rugby. You wait for the turnover, the soft kick, the knock on, and roar into a defence still intent on attack. It was basic and simple, rugby that was unexpected and extremely effective. They called it “organised chaos”, hitting the soft spots with direct running, quick offloads, grubbers, fast recycling, skip passes. It was about reading the chaos in front of you and creating your own. And it was glorious.
The British Lions of 2017 spoke of it often. Rob Howley, the Welsh assistant coach on that tour who is now wondering if he really should have been a gambler, mentioned it often. It became a theme in the team.
“We want to have a framework whereby players have the ability to play what’s in front of them,” Howley told the New Zealand media. “Rugby is dictated by speed of ball, and by numbers in the defence line, and it’s important we are able to adapt and play what we see. One thing which the players really enjoyed, we call it rugby chaos, 15 against 15, it’s really unstructured. We’re all aware of the pace of the game in the southern hemisphere, and it’s important we get up to speed as quickly possible.”
Howley has been sent home to face up to charges of wonky betting, but his Welsh team discovered, almost to their cost, that the rugby of chaos is alive and well in Japan. Fiji, undone by Uruguay, rushed them in a fury on the second Wednesday in October. They were up 10-0 in a heartbeat. Wales were shell shocked. The rugby world took a breath. So did Wales. They have a history of players who can cause chaos, and they needed organised chaos to win.
The quarterfinals are to come in this ninth World Cup. There is little indication as to how they will roll. That is just perfect. That is chaos.
Leave a Reply