Super Rugby: Contest of Twickenham annoys local clubs
The Super Rugby match played between Crusaders and the Sharks at Twickenham, London on 27th March, has been annoying the local clubs of England.
This was the first ever match of Super Rugby to be played at other than SANZAR soil. The contest was organised at Twickenham for fund raising at the appeal of Red Cross to help the earthquake hit people of Christchurch.
The contest was remained highly successful as it produced more than ₤1million for the rehabilitation of the quake-affected people but at the same time it has fumed the English rugby clubs. The local clubs are angry as it has disturbed their tempo and they
don’t want it happening again in the future. Earlier on the clubs had unanimously decided to allow the Crusaders, a Christchurch based team to play a charity game at Twickenham. The same match was denied by Rugby Football Union of England as it pretended that
there was already a fixture of a local club on the proposed date but later the union approved the match.
Interestingly after the game was successfully organized the English clubs took an uncertain turn and showed their immense anger as they think that it was a ‘commercial venture dressed up in charity clothing.’
On the other hand, the Crusaders were left nomads after the deadly tremor of February 22. Their home city Christchurch was heavily damaged by natural disaster in the central and suburban areas. The AMI stadium in Christchurch was turned turtle and was declared
unfit to host any match, so they made a request to RFU to allow them to play a charity match in London.
The local clubs have declared the act a matter of attention seeking as they said, “Teams from Super 15 have been trying for the last three years to get a game played in London and there were other options, such as Durban and any of the other stadiums in
New Zealand for this game to have been played.”
However, the RFU has no repentance over its decision as they found the match was played for a noble cause.
Tags: