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Put plainly and simply, having 24 national championships is a joke. It’s way over the top, and a nonsense. Having so many flaky ones takes the gloss off the legitimate ones.
Of the 24 titles to be decided, there are really only a handful that are legit, for the rest it’s a case of how absurd is this? Men’s Division III, women’s DII, high school, sevens, and a bunch of All-Star championships all fall into the latter category. When you figure that Super League is the premier division, DIII is actually fourth grade, so is it really necessary to determine a so-called national champion in fourth grade? No, of course not, it’s ridiculous.
And what about women’s DII? Come on, have you seen the product that’s put on the field? As for sevens, well, it’s sevens. It was dreamed up one day by some Scottish butcher with too much time on his hands, although don’t tell that to the IRB because they’re smitten with the abbreviated version of real rugby and we wouldn’t want to burst their bubble.
The most stultifying of the lot must be the national high school championship. No other sport in this country has one, much less feels the need to have one, so why is it that rugby, which is barely a blip on the American sporting radar, makes such a big song and dance about it?
The legit national championships are these; Super League, men’s club DI, college men’s and women’s DI. Then there is the collegiate All-Star event because it’s part of the All-American selection process, and even though it’s a bit dodgy, for argument’s sake we’ll throw in the women’s club DI too. And that’s it, forget the rest, they’re unnecessary, not to mention costly for teams involved. And that’s a very salient point isn’t it. It’s ludicrous that teams can end up spending tens of thousands of dollars that they don’t have to go to a thriving metropolis such as Grand Rapids, MI, Columbia, SC, and Blaine, MN. And for what, bragging rights? Yeah, we’re the best fourth grade team in the country baby. Well, that’s just fantastic but you know what, the majority of us could care less.
No other rugby playing nation OD’s like we do on national championships. In most cases, there are one or two genuine competitions and folks are okay with that. Sure, there’s the stale old argument that it’s what we’ve been doing for the longest in the US and it’s the American way. At least we know that an American team is going to win, and guys feel good about themselves. Here’s a news flash, that’s a crock. Just because that’s the way it has been doesn’t mean that it should continue ad infinitum. That’s the kind of flawed logic one would expect to hear from Will Carlings’ 57 old farts.
Some might not like to hear it, but even the Rugby League guys have got it going on, at least to a degree. They have one league, one main division within that league that culminates in one meaningful Grand Final, and they don’t get sidetracked by a lot of hyperbolic filibustering by people trying to justify their fiefdoms.
Consider this; Canada has one legitimate national championship, their Super League. They dabbled last year in a club championship although it wasn’t a truly nationwide competition and who knows if it’ll continue, but the point is the Canadians have been doing better than us internationally and surely the end goal is to improve the Eagles’ competitiveness.
So, it would seem that even by having a plethora of national championships, and focusing so much of our time, money and energies on them, we still haven’t been able to achieve the end goal. But apparently that’s okay because at least an American team has won something. Hey, wake up and smell the coffee.