Advertisement
Billy Stickland/INPHO

Pandemic-imposed time-out a world away from rugby's successful sabbaticals

Richie McCaw is one of a few high-profile rugby players to sit out six months to prolong his career. Covid-19 provides no such certainty for the current crop.

โ€œI HAVENโ€™T MISSED being stiff and sore on Sunday mornings,โ€ said Richie McCaw as he prepared to make his comeback from a self-imposed sabbatical in 2013.

McCawโ€™s case has been the bad penny, continuously turning up while weโ€™ve been rummaging around in search of positives for athletes during the ongoing absence of sport amid the Covid-19 crisis.

The All Black captain looked like a man eking the last droplets of willful energy from his body as he helped New Zealand win the World Cup on home soil in 2011. Four years on, he was in better nick, unburdened now by a foot injury, when he repeated the achievement in Twickenham.

The common consensus is that the six-month stint away from rugby served to replenish McCawโ€™s powers enough to bow out with that second Webb Ellis on the table in 2015.

Dan Carter wore the black jersey for the last time on the same night in London having also exercised a clause in his NZRU contract to take six months off. The captain in opposition, David Pocock, then took time away from the game in 2017.

In sportswriting, we may routinely refer to a playerโ€™s miles on the clock, the mounting toll on an athleteโ€™s body is not so easy to measure as the odometer on their cars.

โ€œPeople say it must be great, you must be feeling good, well, I donโ€™t actually feel that different,โ€ McCaw said in an interview with Otago Daily Times before his return.

While itโ€™s hard to avoid the assumption that there must a boost to be taken from the absence of numerous body-on-body collisions week after week, the Coronavirus pandemic presents a different set of circumstances for players and athletes.

There is not yet anything like clarity over how long social distancing will have to be sustained. So there is no finish line in sight for when life, never mind sport, will get back to normal. The current crop cannot relax on the comfort of anything resembling concrete timeline.

ireland-players-dejected Billy Stickand / INPHO Billy Stickand / INPHO / INPHO

It may feel like an age, but tomorrow marks five weeks since Irelandโ€™s elite rugby players last took to the field and suffered another dispiriting defeat to England. The provinces (bar Ulster who were scheduled to visit northern Italy) played a week later. So even amid all the necessary disruption, professional players on this island remain a long, long way shy of the six-month reprieve taken by the trio of 2015 World Cup finalists.

Physically, a break in play would absolutely have value when viewed as a part of the season as a whole: after pre-season began in June, Tests began in August and the draining World Cup season was then set to run right through to Irelandโ€™s tour of Australia in July.

Recovery for athletes is an ongoing process between taxing sessions and events. Though their peers in other nations are often expected to wear their boots week in, week out for the full extent of a season with club and country. Rugby players in the Irish system are continually assessed, monitored and managed with rest windows built in. The same management will apply, imposing rest windows if and when an intense series of fixture catch-up is to be played.

To walk into a bar or restaurant and for no one to give you a second look was actually really nice,โ€ said McCaw, summing up his refreshed feeling after his hiatus, โ€œafter a while the constant stuff here got on top of you. But you come back and you realise itโ€™s not that big a deal at all, really.โ€

There can be major mental benefits to this break for rugby players, particularly after a disappointing World Cup. However, as we touched on in these pages last week, social distancing presents its fair share of challenges for athletes. Irish rugby players are figuring out ways to entertain cooped-up kids, sustain a work-out routine and team unity withou proximity. McCawโ€™s time away saw him travel to the US, catch up with friends, take in a David Letterman show and go skiing.

Pocock used most of his time to join up with an anti-poaching group in his native Zimbabwe and showcased some ingenious ways of getting a workout done with a rope acting as the most state of the art equipment on show.

Carter, who was somewhat unfairly said to have taken a sabbatical when he signed for Perpignan in 2008, used his time in 2014 to follow McCawโ€™s path to the US, though his scene was more Coachella. There will be no such grand tours for players here, no matter how long the restrictions are in place.

And while the break away may well be timely for experienced players, giving them a break from the treadmill โ€“ metaphorically if not physically, stopping the odometer in the final third of their career, there must be a danger that development for younger stars may also slow.

For every trial for the individual then, there are multiple complications when attempting to slot them back within a team. Pocock and the Kiwis then had the benefit of returning to sides who had remained ticking over throughout their absence. Rugby teams in the current climate will have to effectively begin their season anew whether the fixtures before them are at the business end of 2019/20 or not.

Some players who were struggling with injury will take solace in the fact that they are not missing out on big matches. But when they resume training their fit and well team-mates will be working up from a similar base and it will be intriguing to see which sides settle back into cohesive patterns of play quickest.

Or, indeed, if they alter their gameplans to accommodate any rust accumulated during the shutdown.

Thereโ€™s no fun to be found in waking with a stiff and sore body every weekend, but players will be forgiven for missing the reassuring familiarity of it.

Close
3 Comments
This is YOUR comments community. Stay civil, stay constructive, stay on topic. Please familiarise yourself with our comments policy here before taking part.
Leave a Comment
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute gerrygag
    Favourite gerrygag
    Report
    Mar 19th 2023, 9:35 AM

    Excellent analysis of all the pieces of the jigsaw of moves leading to great tries

    122
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Kenneth O Connor
    Favourite Kenneth O Connor
    Report
    Mar 19th 2023, 9:41 AM

    Great analysis as always. What an atmosphere yesterday. Delighted for Sexton and Healy!!! What a Six Nations send off

    85
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Noel Lynn
    Favourite Noel Lynn
    Report
    Mar 19th 2023, 10:47 AM

    @Kenneth O Connor: Healy not getting a run was disappointing and strange

    20
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Gary
    Favourite Gary
    Report
    Mar 19th 2023, 11:06 AM

    @Noel Lynn: He didโ€ฆ only about 4 minutes but he did play.

    54
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Gary Donlan
    Favourite Gary Donlan
    Report
    Mar 19th 2023, 9:54 AM

    Yesterday(and last week) should put to bed any doubt about Conanโ€™s value. Every bit as effective as Doris imo.

    71
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Gary Galligan
    Favourite Gary Galligan
    Report
    Mar 19th 2023, 11:10 AM

    @Gary Donlan: doris level ahead

    52
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Bill Smith
    Favourite Bill Smith
    Report
    Mar 19th 2023, 1:23 PM

    @Gary Donlan: Iโ€™m a big, big fan of Conan โ€“ heโ€™s an outstanding player โ€“ but Iโ€™d have to acknowledge that Doris is at the very top of the global tree. And he has so much more to grow, being so young. Arguably a future World Player of the Year nominee, if not winner.

    44
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Cian O'Toole
    Favourite Cian O'Toole
    Report
    Mar 19th 2023, 11:04 AM

    I see lots of people saying how England really used line speed yesterday to get in Irelands face, thatโ€™s not what happened at all. England played a soft drift defence, not putting too much pressure on the first carrier / passer, and not committing too many men to the breakdown, opting to be more disruptive and messy rather than look for turnovers. It was an interesting tactic and one that threw a lot of the Irish players off, particularly Furlong who takes the first pivot option quite often. Ireland will need to learn how to adapt to it by World Cup, I canโ€™t imagine South Africa or France would try it, they would trust their line speed, but I wouldnโ€™t be surprised at all if Scotland or even New Zealand thought about using it.

    51
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Noel Lynn
    Favourite Noel Lynn
    Report
    Mar 19th 2023, 10:22 AM

    Great analysis there. It shows really how intelligent this group are. Dorris, JVF,, Aki, Sexton, Hansen running subplots and dummies lines and how they build a try 3 phases out. To have so many on the same page is extraordinary and as Farrell said, they will get a lot better over the next few months with more time collectively in camp.
    Roll on the WC

    40
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Eamon Holly
    Favourite Eamon Holly
    Report
    Mar 19th 2023, 10:32 AM

    It was squeaky bum time for much of the game. England gave it everything. Ireland found a way to win. Work done with decoy runners is magnificent. Enjoy, upwards and onwards to France

    24
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Jb Walshe
    Favourite Jb Walshe
    Report
    Mar 19th 2023, 4:25 PM

    That was some offload by Conan for sheehans try.

    19
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Gary Galligan
    Favourite Gary Galligan
    Report
    Mar 19th 2023, 1:53 PM

    Sheehan is a pure speed merchant

    18
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Paul Mcnevin
    Favourite Paul Mcnevin
    Report
    Mar 19th 2023, 11:33 PM

    @Gary Galligan: Heโ€™s a 4ร—4 at full speed.

    1
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Padraig Fallon
    Favourite Padraig Fallon
    Report
    Mar 19th 2023, 12:11 PM

    On the strike plays which Ireland use we have seen a few of these in this 6 nations I believe they have only used a small number of these in this 6 nations and there are many more which they had no need to use and they are been reserved for the later stages of the world Cup.

    16
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Pud
    Favourite Pud
    Report
    Mar 19th 2023, 12:11 PM

    I would imagine when Farrell and his team review this game they will be a little concerned. Obviously the short term gain here, winning a grand slam, is brilliant. But there was a lot of pressure going into the game and we did not handle it well. Ultimately a red card may have won it for Ireland and whether you agree or disagree with the card the nature of it shows it can how easily happen under current rules. (There was at least 1 red card possibility for us that was missed by the ref and TMO). This team will ultimately be judged on how it performs in the World Cup. When they meet Scotland on the 7th of October it will more than likely be a knock out game. The pressure on them will easily be as intense as yesterday, probably more so. They will need to be a lot better. If we donโ€™t make it out of the group, this Grand Slam will lose a lot of itโ€™s shine. Of course hopefully by the time we meet Scotland SA will have 2 losses so it wonโ€™t matter :)

    14
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Bill Smith
    Favourite Bill Smith
    Report
    Mar 19th 2023, 1:35 PM

    @Pud: OTOH, the experience of yesterday, a real pressure cooker, will stand to them. Plus, those guys played a lot of intense rugby over a short period of time. Some were definitely not at their best, following injuries (Furlong, for example, looked rusty; Henshaw wasnโ€™t fully up to speed; Ringrose in and out). Farrell took some risks, playing guys like Porter, VDF, Keenan, Hansen and others to their limits (Keenan looked tired yesterday, as did others). The player management plan for the RWC needs to cater for the interactive effects of physical endurance and how it affects mental/emotional resilience. Iโ€™m pretty confident theyโ€™re on top of that. And again, all the players will be better for the experience of this 6N.

    21
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Seamus Kelly
    Favourite Seamus Kelly
    Report
    Mar 19th 2023, 9:11 PM

    @Pud: South Africa then Scotlandโ€ฆfollowed by France or New Zealandโ€ฆthree massive banana skinsโ€ฆ.I donโ€™t think if we are stopped before semi final, yesterdayโ€™s outstanding achievement will be diminishedโ€ฆ.cruel world cup draw.

    7
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Name can be blank
    Favourite Name can be blank
    Report
    Mar 19th 2023, 3:16 PM

    Herring sealed victory over the All Blacks with a similar try in the third test .. hooker is definitely a position we donโ€™t need to worry aboutโ€ฆ bench again made the difference yesterday

    21
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Paul Mcnevin
    Favourite Paul Mcnevin
    Report
    Mar 19th 2023, 11:29 PM

    Murray Kinsella, single handedly helping other teams work out Ireland!!

    7
Submit a report
Please help us understand how this comment violates our community guidelines.
Thank you for the feedback
Your feedback has been sent to our team for review.

Leave a commentcancel