Next trick
A change of plans for 2022
Stade Français didn’t often win at Ravenhill in the 2000s.
4 times in 8 years, Ulster supporters took great pleasure in sending them — just another ‘soft’ French side — back home with their tails between their legs.
But it was the Parisian club’s only victory in Belfast over that stretch that really stayed with me — and which my mind has returned to a number of times since I sat in the South Stand of the Aviva Stadium a little over a month ago.
The 2008-09 edition of Stade was not a team renowned for playing expansive, running rugby. Indeed, in their October win at Ravenhill, they completed only 48 carries in 80 minutes — and kicked the ball 38 times.
That day, however, they did have Juan Martín Hernández starting in their pink 10 shirt.
The Argentine playmaker effortlessly stroked spirals up and down the ground during the warm-up, slotted a pair of drop goals and flipped a delectable chest pass to Guillaume Boussès for a try assist.
The chance to watch his footballing wizardry in the flesh was truly one of the most joyful and wondrous experiences I had had as (at that point in time) a 14-year-old sports fan — and, I think, one of the most formative.
When I think about my relationship to sport, ‘wonder’ is a word that I always come back to.
Specifically, the sense of wonder I get when I watch someone who I have very little in common with — a native of Buenos Aires more than a decade older than me, say, or someone from Christchurch a few years younger — do something special with a ball at their feet or in their hands is something I reflect on a lot.
For me, that distance makes it all more, not less, beguiling to contemplate — the mystery draws me in, and the difficulty of fully grasping something that has an inherent otherness brings me back again and again.
As a subscriber to a newsletter that has seen me write many thousands of words about rugby players living and working many thousands of miles from my home over the last 18 months, you might be able to see where this is going.
After watching Ireland beat the All Blacks convincingly in Dublin last month, it wasn’t a moment from any player in green that stuck in my mind; rather, it was Will Jordan’s stunning try.
If I’m honest, however, coming away from the match with the memories I did after experiencing it in the way that I did — surrounded by thousands of other Irish men and women who revelled in drowning out the haka with a rendition of ‘The Fields of Athenry’, and relished being able to “send the All Blacks packing” with a chorus of Olés — left me a bit cold.
It also left me reflecting on how my relationship with rugby has developed over 6 years of writing about it (semi-)regularly — and the way in which I’d like it to develop in years to come.
I had long been drawn to Kiwi rugby by that sense of wonder I’ve just described.
It seemed like the natural subject to devote a significant amount of my time to after making the decision to change careers from accountancy to journalism — and identifying that I needed to hone my writing and visualisation skills before commencing a master’s degree in the latter.
And, although I’d written fairly frequently about rugby in New Zealand before starting this newsletter in June of last year, committing myself to doing so on a weekly basis was a real step change.
Another change came earlier this year, when an opportunity to write for The XV presented itself. That was a chance to get more actual journalism experience under my belt which I couldn’t turn down — and which I’m really grateful to Tom Vinicombe of RugbyPass for initiating.
Now, however, my professional circumstances are different: since July, I’ve been working full-time as a financial data journalist.
In theory, I was planning to continue writing for The XV twice a month alongside the day job, and to pick up this newsletter once more — in a different format — at the end of 2021.
In reality, it’s been a stretch for me to keep up even with that freelance schedule and retain a healthy, balanced life — as well as, if I’m honest, a healthy, balanced relationship with the sport itself.
As a result, I’m going to take a step back from all rugby writing for the foreseeable future — a decision that includes, lamentably, putting my plans for this newsletter in 2022 on ice.
I’ll still be watching, enjoying and thinking about rugby (in New Zealand and elsewhere) on a regular basis — and hope that writing about it is something I can come back to again in the future.
However, I also want to use the additional time I’ve freed up to rebalance the way I consume and engage with sport in general. I want to continue wondering at the magic of Will Jordan — but start devoting more time to wondering at other athletes like Shohei Ohtani, Smriti Mandhana, Gavi and Candace Parker too.
From a professional perspective, I also want to use my time outside of my day job more efficiently to develop additional valuable skills — specifically in data analysis and visualisation.
To facilitate this, I’m going to start another newsletter in January, in which I’ll offer data-driven answers to interesting questions I have about a range of different sports. These will have more of a technical focus: specifically, some thoughts on using the programming language R to obtain, clean and visualise data as I go along, and (inspired by great NBA newsletter The F5) sharing of the code I’ve used to do the work.
If this sounds like your sort of thing, you can subscribe here:
I hope you can indulge me a much more personal post like this one. More than anything, I wanted to explain to subscribers why I won’t be delivering what I’d previously promised — but also felt like I needed an opportunity to work through some of the feelings I’d had about rugby and sport in general in recent months.
If it wasn’t to your taste, I hope at the very least you enjoyed the opportunity to fill a few idle minutes of your day thinking about Juan Martín Hernández kicking a rugby ball.