News: Money and Rugby - where's the success factor?

By Paul Flatt
October 23 2010

In response to a news item about Bath's new owner, the inestimable Paul Flatt airs some toughts about the correlation beween Money and success. Originally a post, I have taken the liberty of turning it into an article.

Where to start?

Firstly, of course, an expression of pleasure for Bath supporters that for the forseeable future they have no money worries.

Secondly, that the guy appears to have rugby under his skin and understands what it is all about.

And yet, and yet...! We have been on our own voyage of discovery in professional sport and in parallel the big money has coming streaming into football, and I am not convinced there is a direct correlation between cash investment and sporting success.

Exhibit one : Liverpool FC and the Gucci spending powers of Mr R. Benitez. The more he bought, the less he achieved.

I have been away from work for a while and spending far too much time on radio & sports TV channels for my own good. I have learnt the phrase 'Marquee Players' - these are (in football) the Galacticos with which the successful club must be adorned like a lothario's notches clipped into the headboard of the love nest.

We too have gone down that path in our earlier days - and yet our success (still not enough, BTW) has come from the teams that Geech / Steele and Mallinder built. You note that I did not include Wayne Smith in that list. he came close to building 'a team' but at the end it unravelled and could not be put back together again.

For teams to succeed they need to become greater than their collective parts from 1-15 (and perhaps onto 36/40). One bad apple can contaminate the rest and sow mistrust, envy and bad blood - and we had a taste of that too (names, packdrill. of course).

I realise there is a name in that list of coaches we have in common with Bath, which is Sir Ian McGeechan - but whether he has the drive,the energy and the creative originality to still repeat that long term job he did at Northampton is open to opinion - I do not know.

Beyond debate however, is the fact that the very best teams have the very best coaches - and these are few and far between, mostly spoken for, and normally tied to their clubs / Provinces / Countries in a relationship that goes beyond money and material reward. There is - I suggest - a huge amount of luck in any team being lucky enough to find the best coach, who is still 'on the up' and who is available when required. (As was, indeed, the case when we 'acquired' Messrs Mallinder & West).

The alternative is to hit that elusive, perfect outcome of not only home grown playing talent, but home grown coaching talent, and here Bath, and Northampton and most others are decades behind Leicester who are almost unique in that achievement.

The salary cap is intended to protect the majority of clubs who can just about financially survive in the current PRL economic environment, and negates much that Mr Craig might want to do with his dosh. I agree with him that in time we might move to the French turnover model (especially when the 57 farts get bored with waiting for the next HC success for England) - but it will still be based on artificial constraint of expenditure in one form or another.

At which point, we turn to the commercial plans Mr Craig has for his club. It's surely all about bums on seats. Does the team play the sort of game that attracts the bums? Are there enough seats for the bums to perch on, and does the catchment area from which support is drawn contain enough potential bums to be attracted.

There are lots of ifs in all of that (and most apply to us as well) - not least the ability to keep expanding your home ground to occupy all the bums you need to create that turnover base needed.

Put all of these together - and you need to put all these together to achieve long term success - and the task is a formidable one drawing together skill, luck, plenty of investment, luck, great talent, great support, luck and perhaps plenty of luck!

Perhaps the Brian Kennedy investment at Sale is a useful example. For a club to be successful you need success on the field, success at the tills, success in personal relationships, the emotional commitment of all involved (not least the great unwashed in the stands) and you need to keep on doing it until it becomes part of the DNA.

I am not envious of Bath and their new owner, because they (in my opinion) still have a very long way to go, and lots can go wrong along the way.

PS - I have not forgotten the Trinity End urinals, and we would all do well to remember our own heritage, but until the visitors' bogs at the Rec, or the New Rec are a tad more salubrious, then the first measure of Mr Craig's impact remains quite limited - and long before he comes to the realisation that the existing coach is not going to create any world beating dynasty.

Enough, I need to get back to coughing and slputtering and hoping I will be well enough for a slight pesty encounter tomorrow.