Rugby Union: High and mighty matters

HARDLY has the Five Nations' Championship begun when several of my colleagues are writing that the competition is out of date and should be supplanted by one which more accurately reflects the true strengths of the rugby-playing nations.

What these commentators seem to have in mind (though the precise prescription naturally varies from one to another) is a first division of Australia, England, France, New Zealand and, probably, South Africa. There would be a second division of some, though not necessarily all the other, British Isles countries: for example, Wales or Scotland might be replaced by Canada or Western Samoa. And there would be a third division for the rest, with possibly a fourth division as well.

My own instincts here are unashamedly conservative. As I wrote last week, we already have one of the great sporting competitions of the world. Why spoil it for the sake of what the Bankruptcy Act calls a rash and hazardous speculation?

I would be inclined to dismiss the recent calls for a super-league as a typical example of English conceit were it not for the fact that one of its supporters is my colleague, Chris Rea, who is not only a Scot but someone whose thoughts are always valuable.

Yet there is no sign whatever that the Five Nations is going the way of the old football championship. Interest in the rugby competition is, if anything, higher than it has ever been.

The football championship was not killed by the World Cup, by European national competition, or even by European club competition, as such. It was killed by the selfishness of the clubs, who began to put their interests above those of any country.

It will be time to start worrying when Harlequins refuse to release Will Carling and Brian Moore, or Bath Ben Clarke and Jeremy Guscott, because they have a vital fixture on the Saturday England are playing. So far there is no sign that this will happen - though Quins' officials do tend to go on rather about how their teams' frequently underwhelming performances are due to the English commitments of their leading players.

But the real reason why abolitionists want to see the end of the Five Nations in its present form is that there is, so they say, a perceptible difference in class between, on the one hand, England and France and, on the other, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

My advice is the same as H H Asquith's in 1910: wait and see. For goodness sake, we have had only two matches so far.

In theory, Wales could win the Grand Slam, Ireland the Triple Crown and even poor old Scotland the Championship. After all, they won the Grand Slam as recently as 1990, Wales won the Triple Crown and shared the Championship with France in 1988, while Ireland won the Triple Crown and the Championship in 1985.

There is, however, a problem, and I am not (in rugby matters) so conservative as not to be able to see it. It does not concern organisation, for anyone can set up an organisation. Nor does it concern playing-base or catchment area, for New Zealand's is small, and Australia has numerous sports competing for attention.

Rather, it concerns size, in particular height as opposed to weight or strength. Ireland, Wales and, perhaps to a lesser extent, Scotland find it difficult to produce enough high-quality players of sufficient height for the modern game. Even 20 years ago it was enough to have three or even two really tall men in your pack. Today, the aim is to have an entire back five starting ideally at 6ft 5in.

There is a simple though drastic solution: to abolish the line-out, the cause of not only of this but of other troubles, and to award a scrum 10 metres from touch, with the put-in going the same way as the present throw-in.

The less draconian answer, which I favour, would be to restrict line- outs to three forwards from each side. We should then see less of a premium on beanpoles, and no illegal lifting either - which would put several members of the current Welsh pack out of business. Or, rather, they would no longer have any reason to carry on their trade.