Rugby 2016 (inlägg direkt från Exiles hemsida)

Följande lilla uppsats hittade jag på exiles hemsida idag:

Rugby 2016	27 Jan 2016
A long report (1500 words) which I hope at least a few people will manage to complete.
Swedish rugby enthusiasts will know that no information of any description has been provided by the Union since the end of the season in October. A great deal is of course happening, but the Union devotes itself to trivia instead. An Annual General Meeting is due soon. Do any of those seeking re-election feel that they have done enough to justify continued support? I can think of a couple, but none of those in leading positions at present.Returning to rugby matters. Rugby Europe (RE) has made several changes to already announced schedules, as usual with no explanations whatsoever. I noted before that Sweden was not entering a XV-a-side team in the Men U18 European tournament which I thought was the right decision. But it turns out that there will also be a new Men U18 VII-a-side European tournament for which Sweden has entered in the second and bottom group. No idea about the Swedish reasoning, the rugby public is treated as usual with utter contempt by the as always silent Union. The Swedish Senior men will be playing in Group A in the Sevens, but still not clear if there will be one or two rounds. The only scheduled round was located outside Prague (Ricany) in early June, but it now turns out that that still single scheduled round will be played in Malmö instead. In theory this gives Sweden a home advantage although playing on a football pitch surrounded by a running track at Hästhagen IP in Malmö when almost the whole team will be from Mälardalen is not the most obvious venue. A further RE-clarification has been that the U18 Girl´s tournament has been extended to 16 teams. The four newcomers to this European tournament are Canada, USA, China and Japan with Japan since dropping out and being replaced by Andorra. And with France also wanting to play, they have been allowed to replace Belgium who came last in 2015. Three teams from outside Europe now take part, while at least one European team which wished to participate is excluded. There were hopes that the new Romanian president of the RE would bring a breath of fresh air to the organisation, but the fiasco of last year´s Olympic qualifications and the juggling of teams and locations for this Summer suggests that they are still the lackeys of World Rugby. In general, however, there are more interesting ramifications. The Six Nations entered the U18 European Championship some years ago as an effort was made to coordinate all European rugby playing nations. The 6N formed an Elite Group along with the two best other nations, often Georgia and Portugal. This progressed well, with the 6N taking the top six places, but in the last couple of years competition has become harder with Georgia, especially, threatening Scotland and Italy. Last year Georgia finished ahead of Scotland, who would have been relegated from the Elite Group and/or had to requalify. Result: the 6N have decided not to compete any longer in the U18 European Championship with only France remaining this year, plus Italy in the new VII-a-side version. Pathetic, but there are other more important issues at stake. The World Cup last Autumn showed that the gap between the Tier 1 and Tier 2 nations was shrinking. The famous highlight was the Japanese victory over South Africa, while both Georgia and Romania put up very creditable displays as well. The seeding and draw for the 2015 World Cup was laughably made three years before as that suited the eight founding nations who expected to be seeded to make the quarter-finals. Wales through sheer greed arranged an extra match against Australia with a slightly weakened team which they lost. This pushed them down to ninth place and Argentina were now seeded second in one of the pools instead. This was why we had the ”pool of death”, perhaps ”pool of greed” would have been a better term, with Australia, England and Wales. As it turned out, Wales made the Quarters anyway at the expense of England. It has not been determined when the seeding and draw will be made for 2019. It is unlikely to be three years before again, i e this Autumn, but you never know. And this is the point of my long, rambling account. It was expected after the RWC 2015 that there would be many more games now between Tier 1 and Tier 2 games. But seeding places are up for grabs again and this is clearly not going to happen. The 6N and Big Four in the SH are all avoiding Georgia, Romania, Japan and the Pacific Islanders like the plague. One defeat against any of them, definitely a possibility, and they could find themselves out of the top eight for 2019. This is probably the real reason why the 6N have withdrawn from the European U18 tournament. If Georgia can beat them at that level, why can´t they play them regularly at senior level? And of course, the elephant in the room; all other European tournaments have promotion and relegation. Isn´t it time for the 6N to be included in that structure? The cutting of links at U18 level is just a little gesture by the 6N to make it clear they will never become an integrated part of European rugby. But they don´t mind using the European Sevens Grand Prix this Summer to field two GB teams for both Men and Women. The background is that neither the GB-men or GB-women are likely to do well in the Olympics judging by recent performances. The men especially are desperate to get som star XV-a-side players into the Olympic squad, but the clubs have no obligation to release them until their club seasons are over. Hence the appearance of GB 1 and GB 2 in the weeks before the Olympics in August when the XV-a-side stars will get a last minute chance to show what they can do. I stated initially that we have the usual news blackout about Swedish rugby. It is clear the Union has little interest in supporting male national teams, a scandal in itself, but this doesn´t seem to bother many people, perhaps because almost all the players come from a single club. The Senior team in two years has dropped from 34th to 54th in the world rankings, but this has not been mentioned among the many triumphs reported by the Union during that period. I´ll come back to that team in a later analysis. In the meantime attention is focused on the VII-a-side team. After the Olympic fiasco, it now looks as if Sweden can put together a representative team this Summer. The Union seems prepared to make a minimal amount of cash available and attempts are being made to obtain external sponsoring. Why money is very restricted for the best Swedish team at present but seems to be freely available for the no-hopers is one of the many mysteries buried deep in the Union and never to be openly discussed. Another worrying situation concerns the Leagues this year. Efforts are being made, but there is a news blackout here as well. Readers will recall that Enköping were relegated and Hammarby promoted to the male Allsvenskan. But Enköping were entitled to reapply to play in Allsvenskan, which they did. First this was refused and then accepted. So would this provide six teams for Allsvenskan in 2016? Well, no. It turned out that Hammarby had played an unregistered player in a game last year so they were disqualified from promotion and Allsvenskan was back to the five teams which provided a very mediocre tournament in 2015. I feel that Hammarby have every reason to feel aggrieved. First they were relegated for refusing to travel to Trelleborg for an expensive and fairly meaningless match for 3rd place in 2014. They fought back to win the qualifying in 2015 only to be told that a minor offense many months before disqualified them. An appeal is pending, I believe, and like many others I hope it is upheld.A few words about Exiles. There was little to play for last year and this definitely affected the spirit in the club. They still won their fourth title in a row, but did not play at the same level as before. Training starts next week and I expect to see the old fire back as many fight for positions in the Ones. The Ladies took a deserved silver in SM and the gap to Göteborg narrowed yet again. With the two best players in Göteborg now 43 years of age, hopefully 2016 can be the year when the tide turns.
Author: HM Sr