I recently caught myself telling someone I couldn’t wait for England’s Six Nations match against Italy on Sunday, which seemed a bit, well, enthusiastic. Clearly, rugby fans of all stripes will be salivating at Saturday’s key clash between Ireland and France. It’s a bit less usual to get excited at the kind of historical mismatch which, in the past, I might have watched as highlights, late in the evening, when I already knew the result.
Is it because I expect the action to be good? Uncertain. Italy pushed England close last year and dominated Wales in Rome last month, which salts the dish. The home team need a sizeable win four tries for the bonus point to stay in the title hunt, which raises the question of whether Steve Borthwick’s reformatted backline can finally cut loose and run in a cricket score. Or will Italy bounce back from a drubbing at the hands of the French and provide a last-minute Twickenham thriller for the third game running?
I don’t know, and right now I don’t really care either way. The true reason I’m invested in this game – along with all the others happening this weekend is because the Six Nations has become, over the past few weeks, the kind of escapism that I want and desperately need. It’s the one genuine safe space I can retreat into while civilization appears to be collapsing in on itself.
This probably began a month ago, when world affairs took another troubling turn. That weekend, sitting on my sofa, I watched the English and French players squirting a soapy ball past and over each other. I realized I had never enjoyed the sight of sporting malfunction more. Sure, the tries were sensational too, not least that killer plot twist courtesy of Elliot Daly. But I got just as much joy out of watching Fin Smith and Matthieu Jalibert kick the ball back and forth to each other like a cartoon tennis match.
A fortnight later, as global tensions heightened, the clash of forward on forward was becoming a vital part of my coping mechanism. The Twickenham faithful may have booed England’s unexpansive performance against Scotland but for me the sight of hulking bodies on the charge proved valuably therapeutic.
There were also fountains of joy in watching Maro Itoje’s ascendancy. A smart and thoughtful man, written off as a potential captain by previous coaching staff, was proving his worth to the extent that his former coach now uses words such as “exceptional” and “fantastic” to describe his leadership. Not only did Itoje help his team prevail in the squeakiest of endings, but his politeness towards referees turned out to be a superpower. Which felt as if it was a tiny victory for civility in a world increasingly run by bullies.
It’s ever harder to turn to sport for pure escapism. Tournaments and leagues have always brought their own politics to bear. But we’ve reached a point in sport’s evolution where every major event arrives dragging its baggage behind it like Jacob Marley’s ledgers and cashboxes. State-sponsored doping at the Olympics. Human rights-washing in football. If you catch the TV screen at the right angle, and squint hard, you can just about block out the glare of moral surrender and naked greed that accompanies so much top-flight sport. But you’ll still end up with a nasty headache.
Even the kind of piquant matchups I’d normally enjoy have begun to cause anguish. Countries playing each other when they’ve got a current political spat usually adds flavor. But it felt a lot less cute when international tensions escalated and political rhetoric became entwined with sports fixtures.
Could cricket offer any relief? Well, no: the much-hyped India-Pakistan clash at the Champions Trophy didn’t offer much of a contest, and the grim specter of politics has haunted the event. England’s fixture against Afghanistan, and the debate surrounding it, was a dispiriting but vital reminder of oppression. Meanwhile India’s march to Sunday’s final while playing all their games in a single location has underlined how skewed sport’s power dynamics have become.
Maybe this is why I’ve been getting twitchy for the return of the rugby this weekend. It’s not that the Six Nations doesn’t have its problems and flashpoints. But I can dial down my internal angst for the current hot-button topic among MPs, the future of Welsh language commentary. Especially when it appears to be, praise be, perfectly assured.
There’s something truly reassuring right now about this familiar tournament, with its clear rivalries, resolved in the time-honored fashion of big blokes knocking lumps out of each other, followed by a handshake and a beer. And for all the colonial and feudal history underwriting the home nations ties we all know that every England match is a grudge match at least we’re not in a situation where rugby players are forced to comment on global crises.
It’s a relief to follow the progress of a tournament that seems so untethered from the world events that are consuming me. Isn’t that, after all, the point of all sporting entertainment? Humans create a literal space, whether on a grass pitch or an indoor court, we leave behind “real life” and disappear into another world whether that’s for 80 minutes, three sets, or five days. After recent events, I’ve never needed a hit of “Borthball” more.
