With a first Rugby World Cup in Asia and Six Nations offering huge excitement, the sport is in danger of throwing it all away
If ever there was a year for rugby union to show the best side of itself it is 2019. A first Rugby World Cup to be staged in Asia, fresh financial investment offering club rugby a chance to take a significant next step, a Six Nations championship requiring only a sprinkle of on-field brilliance to rank among the most compelling tournaments in recent memory.
So why the slight sense of unease as the New Year fireworks crackled and popped? Partly it is because rugby has a long, undistinguished history of failing to grasp such major opportunities. It is only in 2015, for example, that English rugby was toasting the massive long-term benefits that hosting the biggest World Cup in history would inevitably bring. Barely three years later the talk is of damaging cuts to the community game, clubs struggling to put out as many adult teams as they used to and the Rugby Football Union’s latest winter of internal political discontent.
Written by Robert Kitson
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/jan/02/2019-rugby-world-cup-six-nations-new-year-must-not-trash-qualities-rugby-union under the title “This must not be the year when rugby union trashes its finest qualities | Robert Kitson”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
