It’s that time of the year again. Get the tribal juices flowing, Gunnesses poured, and fantasy teams selected, the Six Nations is back. But is it just me, or is this year feel a bit odd with all the absentees.
Sexton, Farrell, AWJ, Biggar, Lawes and even Dupont missing this years tournament makes me feel numb. These totemic giants of the Six Nations epitomised all of what the tournament is about. The tribalism, the will to win, laying it all on the line, the pride, these were the attributes of these stars that have defined the tournament for well over a decade. Without them, it seems rather flat and clean.
I have always been drawn the grittiness of rugby, the gamesmanship. Sexton, Biggar and Farrell symbolised those traits. Each player is treated like marmite, but that’s what made them so compelling to watch, support, and also jeer.
You now look to their successors, Crowley, Costelow, and Smith, and they just don’t walk or talk with the same edge or swagger. You can say it’s because their only early in their career, but Farrell, Sexton and Biggar owned their abrasive styles from day one on the international scene.
We all liked to gripe about their moaning at refs, causing scrapes and being a nuisance, but it created theatre and added that edge, which for me is what the Six Nations is all about.
Maybe rugby overall has lost this ‘edge’; a cleaner, sterilised game is now upon us. But it’s a shame to recognise that these players may be the last of a dying breed. (Admittedly O’Mahony still very much counts.)
Comparatively other sports have lost it too, Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, Roy Keane and Ricky Pointing, all these giants shared the same star quality of the pure desire to crush their opponents. I don’t quite see that to the same extent in any up and coming Six Nations stars.
But not all should be lost, while the competitive edge may be lessened by seeing the back of these legends, it now provides the chance for new stars to take the stage and define the tournament for the next era.
Those new flyhalfs of Smith, Crowley and Costelow may provide that, but what I want more than anything this tournament, is rivalries to be fostered, personalities to be shown and stars to be born.
And if nothing else, I want shithousery to the max.
The prize of being the face of Six Nations rugby is to be won, who wants it?
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