Competing codes sustain strife in rugby

A significant problem for union is the intransigence of the International Rugby Board and its refusal to trial the experimental law variations that have been tested in the southern hemisphere to near universal acclaim.

Australia's rugby union supremo John O'Neill, after pointing out that the ELVs (experimental law veriations) had ensured that the recent tests between the Springboks and the All Blacks were the best games in years, chided the northern hemisphere nations for their refusal to trial the new laws. He warned them of the possibility of a further split. Just what rugby needs: another split.

Former England hooker Brian Moore, displaying that patronising arrogance the Poms reserve for former colonies, disagreed. They were good games, he asserted, only because they were the best two teams in the world, but the claims about ELVs had not been subjected to "intellectual scrutiny". Australia, he claimed, supported the ELVs because of the competition from league.

That a hooker, and an English one at that, should intellectualise about rugby suggests Moore has played too many games without headgear. He failed to mention that South Africa and New Zealand, where there is no threat from league, also supported the ELVs. He concluded: "If you want to go your own way, then go; see how far you get without the economic power of England and France. Our game will be poorer without you but we will always have one."

O'Neill must have been tempted to respond: "And see how far you get without the five best rugby teams in the world. Imagine your World Cup final: Ireland v Romania? That should have the turnstiles clicking."

A hundred years on and the descendants of the blockheads who originally stuffed rugby are alive and well and on the verge of creating another split. Now more than ever rational heads are needed, not just to end this nonsense but to bring rugby devotees together again.

It won't be easy but if there is a spirit of compromise, it can happen. It's not merely a question of staving off threats from other codes. What should be foremost in the minds of those who love rugby is to gradually unite the codes under one umbrella.

The first step should be to create a world rugby body that would oversee both union and league to ensure that they worked towards ultimate amalgamation rather than endless conflict.

Soccer will always be the premier code but rugby should be a close second.