Simon Shaw has seen a few England squads. He says the one at this Rugby World Cup is the most sociable he’s been involved with.
That might not necessarily be a good one considering last week’s tabloid headlines about Mike Tindall’s night out in Queenstown, but the 38-year-old lock said yesterday that the camaraderie is helping solve the on-field problems that blighted England’s opening two matches.
England beat Argentina and Georgia, but conceded a penalty on average every 6.4 minutes, a rate of offending that would almost certainly spell defeat against a top team.
“The guys get along with each other and socialize together a lot more than I’ve ever known in previous squads, which I think is a good thing,” Shaw said. “It’s a very tight-knit squad and we are all working as hard as we possibly can to make things better.”
As someone who made his international debut in 1996 — just a year after rugby union fully embraced professionalism — Shaw worries that the sort of headlines that followed England about last week will ultimately force teams to shed the last remaining vestiges of the amateur era.
Until the 1990s, players were still supposedly unpaid by their countries and many held down full-time jobs while playing Test rugby. Top England internationals Mike Teague and Dean Richards were a builder and a policeman, respectively.
While that has changed dramatically, rugby players are still far more likely to socialize alongside the fans that pay to see them on the field than their soccer counterparts.
However, Shaw said that would soon end if people are prepared to use mobile phones to capture photos and videos with a view to selling them to media.
“I truly hope that doesn’t happen, but I fear it probably will,” Shaw said. “What I have always loved about rugby and what the spectators have always loved is the fact they can gain access to players.”
“The more this continues, the less and less access the supporters will have to players because players will just hide away,” he added.
The rugby World Cup only began in 1987, but the International Rugby Board now refers to the tournament as the third-biggest sporting event in the world behind only the Summer Olympics and soccer’s World Cup.
“The attention is a lot bigger than it ever was,” Shaw said. “It all brings about that kind of element of people trying to make a buck and trying to make a story.”
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