Rugby Union: England To Play A Six Nations Match In The North

By Jeff Ball / January 3, 2012

A Home Away From Home The news that the RFU is pondering the exciting possibility of playing a 2013 Six Nations game away from Twickenham has been a long time coming. The last time the men in white were seen north of the M25 was back in 1997, and only because Twickenham was undergoing a make over at the time. With the England hosted 2015 Rugby World Cup already looming large on the minds of organisers, the four Northerly stadiums of Old Trafford, St. James€™ Park, Elland Road and Anfield will be used for that tournament and of course, will need filled. The concern of the RFU is whether the support for rugby is sufficient to make use of the capacity of these stadiums that are set to be used, as a minimum, as venues for the Group Stages. England and Wales have already called dibs on there respective home venues meaning there is a smattering of the big name sides left to share amongst the other venues to draw the crowds. The savvy amongst you will notice all of the above named stadia of course are in areas where football (or rugby league) is king, while a glance at recent paltry attendance figures of the Northern triumvirate of Leeds Carnegie, Sale Sharks and Newcastle Falcons all being low enough to send shudders down the spine of the RFU€™s accountants. All of these sides either are/have languished at the wrong end of the Premiership table for a few years now. The frustrating thing is all of these sides are ripe with potential: Sale and the Falcons have both lifted the Premiership trophy in the professional era, whilst Leeds are the premier rugby union side in England€™s biggest county, Yorkshire. Around 50% of England internationals could be considered to originate from the North, though they may not have had their breakthrough until moving to a €˜big€™ club, as is so typical these days.

So the RFU€™s effort to include their forlorn castaway cousins in the North is definitely a step in the right direction but more needs to be done. It needs to be a sustained effort, not a one off gesture with one hand whilst a flyer for the 2015 World Cup is waved in the other. England have five home Six Nations games every two years and at least three Autumn Internationals annually. Along with the other games such as the Barbarians, there is no reason why the RFU could not play at least one game a year away from HQ, much like the England football team has started to do. The next logical step would be to have one of the landmark domestic games, like the Premiership final, somewhere like Manchester. The barrier has always been less the distance, more a state of mind, with a dash of out of sight€ thrown in for good measure. Ask many Premiership players where their least favourite away trip is to and Kingston Park will be high on that list €“ the perception of distance coupled with a seemingly unique arctic ecosystem at the ground have helped ensure Newcastle have got one over many top sides over the years, their most recent victory over Toulon (from France€™s slightly warmer Riviera) being a case in point. The revenue generated from the home games at Twickenham provides a big boost to the coffers of the RFU and thus the grassroots game, so it is understandable that there is some hesitation, especially over the cost of lost corporate revenue. It is the battle of the professional age, between the rugby purist and the finance officer €“ all too common these days. But the cost of neglecting half your audience is not something the RFU can measure in its end of year accounts. We will never know how much potential has been lost through a young lad not been taken to watch England play, how could we? But anyone who went to a sports match as a child will know the awesome impression it can have, the crowd baying and cheering in an amphitheatre of sport, everyone there for the same reason, the sense of belonging, of being part of something. It€™s infectious. As soon as that bug bites, that child can become a fan, a season ticket holder, a casual player or even a professional. The more people that are given a taste of top flight live action, the better. Exotic Performance Enhancers Aspiring teenage rugby players rejoice. Yes, snigger as you may, but a UK Sport study has found that watching an exotic video (and admittedly Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC)) improves a rugby player's performance. I, of course, mean their performance in strength based exercises (it wasn€™t that kind of study). When shown a four minute video of either type, it was found that 12 professional rugby players taking part in the study experienced a peak in testosterone levels and a rise in power output. The experiment involved the players watching erotic, funny, aggressive, sad and control clips, with saliva samples taken to test the testosterone levels. Christian Cook, a sports scientist at Imperial College London, commented: "Testosterone is a feel-good hormone and most people perceive this and perhaps perform better because they feel better." Several of the England squad are known to be fans of UFC and it is in fact used as motivational videos already by some clubs. With the game constantly evolving and the smallest details making a big difference, it is good to see a bit of creativity by clubs in their approach to motivate their players. But I wouldn€™t put that blue movie on in the team bus just yet.