The Blog is Back

Gentlemen

The Blog is back for its second season of crisp analysis and aimless banter. There are rumours that we will shortly be taking this content to a newly revamped Rugby Section website masterminded by Brother Paul McGee, who has recently taken a vow of silence, but for the time being, we are live again at http://www.hkfcrugbysection.blogspot.com/.

I am quite happy to take the Blog's content into an official HKFC portal. After all, this Blog has been officially sanctioned from its beginning. And I love the idea that PT is pushing of an integrated web platform for the section: one that will allow information, team lists, results and so on to be easily distributed to the whole section and that will enable the build-up of an invaluable archive of data. But whether we are here or on a new uber-website, the Blog will never become a tame noticeboard for the section's leadership, even though it exists to support, celebrate and inform the HKFC rugby section. I may be a bit of a weapon, but I will never be a tool...

Because it would be a sad day if 'we' at the Blog felt uncomfortable to be critics when criticism is a fair response, either in assessing performances on the pitch, or decisions made in the Club's boardroom, more normally known as the Sportsman's.

Indeed, I would like to start this season's Blog on the offensive. It is my understanding that the noble and ancient team names within the section will be abandoned in favour of depressingly bland team numbers. That is to say: firsts, seconds, thirds and so on. For those new to the club, and for clarity, the six club men's teams, in order, are: Club, Dragons, Scorpions, Select, Sequins and Bulls. The ladies' team is called Ice (and I confess I am not sure what happens to that under the new numbers system).

The reasoning behind abolishing the team names (as if it were possible) is that having team names and strong identities for each team discourages movement of players between the teams and restricts players' and coaches' thinking to their own little world. In short, so the argument goes, the team names are divisive, create silo mentalities and hold back the section as a whole.

It's easy to follow the logic of the argument, but there are two powerful reasons why it is a misguided initiative and destined to immediate failure.

Firstly, consider the motivations of a rugby player taking the field. He or she plays for his or her own pride in what they do; they may play for a coach sometimes; but I believe that, for the largest part, they will play for their team. They will play for the people around them and for the identity of the team and, without wishing to become too prosaic, its spirit. The spirit is created by the people that get together with our player every week to train and play rugby. But the spirit of the past players, in the way that it influences the players still there who remember them and what has gone before, means that every rugby team is, if you like, a distinct fabric into which a large number of personalities, past and present, are woven.

It sounds rather obvious, but the idea of the team is the essential building block of rugby life -its DNA. And a team is not effective as some kind of loose, technical grouping that serves an abstract greater good. When people go out to play, they cannot be expect to think of and play for several hundred other people in the rugby section. They cannot be expected to think of themselves as part of one team of 105 players lining up in seven matches on Saturday. They are part of a squad, a team, that can only give its all in its own game. Ask rugby players to think beyond that, or to play for more than that, and you are missing the point of the game.

The team name is like a flag or battle standard. It's what the captain shouts to rally the team on the pitch. The aura of the name creates a strangely potent bond between the players that it joins together. If you've ever played the game, you will know exactly what I'm talking about. The Club is full of teams that have attracted incredible loyalty down the years and developed quite distinct cultures of their own. These distinctions aren't big but they are important. It's to do with they way you play (or the way you think you play) and the personalities in your team and the kind of chatter they create.

In HKFC, teams have always defined themselves against the other teams, which isn't surprising. Every team - maybe every group of individuals - naturally likes to differentiate itself and stand out. Remember Bulls' red socks; Select's "Mighty" sobriquet and their bauhinia jackets; Sequins' Corner and their preposterous waistcoats; Dragons' sense of us-against-the-world-when they were the Dvision One whipping boys and no-one wanted to play for them. When I thought I would have to leave Hong Kong a couple of years ago, the-then Scorpions captain wrote me a very kind letter with a Scorps' letterhead and implored me to remember that I would always be a Scorp.

I clearly remember one player declaring to anyone who would care to listen at a Captain's Dinner that he "embodied the spirit of Bulls." I have no idea what he meant (although I bet I would if I were a Bull) but it's hard to imagine anyone saying "I embody the spirit of co-operation across the rugby section" and feeling proud of it. It's a worthy ideal, but it's empty when we consider why we play the game. We all love the rugby section as a whole and we all want the whole Club to do well. It's just that we play for a team, not a section, and that team should have a name, an identity and a spirit.

The second reason follows on from that and is less fundamental, less philosophical and more practical. It won't work. At a very simple level, people will continue to use these team names for ever and aye. I went to university in a city where the biggest, nastiest and best nightclub was still called Sindie's despite the fact that it had been called about three other things in the twenty-odd years since it was last Sindie's. When people like names, they stick.

And it's not going to alter players' willingness or ability to move up the teams. There are plenty of players in the Club and Dragons teams today who started in Scorps, Select and Bulls. Good and committed players will always be ambitious to play for the best team that they can.

Nor, I fear, is such a cosmetic change going to alter coaches' attitudes much. Coaches are naturally dedicated to their own team, and so they should be. I don't think the following conversation will ever happen:

Coach A: Right, I am delighted that four of my best players have been asked to play for the team above me. It's always a great pleasure to support the section as a whole. May I ask you if you will kindly provide me with your four best players to replace them?
Coach B: Why, certainly good sir. It would be my honour.

Nope, there will always be wrangling and fighting and coaches trying to hang on to their best players. It was ever thus. But it will essentially work as it always has - the best players will move up as demand requires. It hasn't always happened as quickly as it should have, but it happens.

Alright, for anyone still listening, that is the end of my rant. I would be very interested to hear from anyone who feels differently and can assure you I will start writing about rugby again soon.

In the meantime, please let us (and the section) know how you feel about these changes by voting in the poll below...

Harps

England Great Will Carling Endorses the Blog

Carling and an Irishman play one-versus-one rugby at Twickenham. Goodness knows who Will thinks he will pass it to. Note the old school, unadorned white jersey - could we not ditch the rugby league-meets-Arsenal one and get back to plain white? I doubt it.

Gentlemen

I'm not seeking the Democratic nomination but I am pleased to say that the Blog has just received a highly sought-after endorsement. Yes my friends, this humble website has received a great man's seal of approval, and I don't mean Bouch. It has been acknowledged by the man who led England out of the rugby wilderness in the early 1990s and who captained England's first Grand Slam in 11 years back in 1991. As it happens, that was the first Five Nations I remember watching and - unbelievably - the occasion of our first victory in Cardiff for about 25 years. I became conscious of rugby just as England stirred from its long slumber. To me, this guy personified the success and winning attitude of England rugby in the 1990s. Though he's not even a forward, let alone a prop, he's a rugby hero of mine.

He took England to the World Cup final in 1991 and suffered at the hands of Jonah Lomu in 1995, not to mention representing the British and Irish Lions. The last England captain of the amateur era and the first of the professional age, he famously denounced the grandees of the RFU committee as "57 old farts." Yes, gentlemen, I am talking about the first showbusiness England rugby captain. I am talking about Will Carling, who has - as I may have mentioned - just endorsed the Blog.

And he's a modest chap too...

"Chris [he means Harps but mever mind] - how the hell can you refer to me as 'great' !!?? [er perhaps I had been flattering the great man somewhat on http://www.rucku.com/] Either you are very sarcastic - which I like, or you are referring to my waist line!! Great Blog by the way."

So there we have it. Naturally I have extended an offer of the Club's fullest hospitality to Mr Carling. Should he visit, I would propose a lecture on his life in the game and make non-attendance by Australians an offence punishable by mandatory expulsion from the Club.

Otherwise chaps, I hope the May Ball was good although my usual sources are fairly muted on the topic. Please do drop any red hot news into the comment box. Strange to say, I am missing rugby already. Golf just isn't quite the same. Roll on the beginning of the 2008/09 fitness regime I say.

Harps

Join Rucku!

Chaps - quick post from your correspondent, who is currently relaxing in the Yorkshire sunshine. Chris Howard has brought the excellent rugby "virtual clubhouse" www.rucku.com to our attention here at the Blog and I wholeheartedly recommend it. It works quite like Facebook (apparently, never usedd FB myself) so you have a wall, rucku friends, photos, videos etc. Plus there won't be many girls using it to waste time.... Some rugby greats are involved and are happy to chat - I have been corresponding with the great Will Carling himself. There are also some good articles and lots of other fun stuff so sign up pronto. Ta ta for now. Harps