Wasps or Gloucester
- Written by Keith Thompson, BPSA Secretary, 2003.
Wasps or Gloucester: Who are the Champions?
The facts:
- Gloucester were top of the Premiership table (played 22, won 17, drawn 2, lost 3) with 82 points, 15 points clear of second place Wasps.
- In any previous year they would have been declared Champions.
- But this year the rules were changed, second playing third for the right to meet the team who were first in a one-off final for the Championship.
- Wasps (2nd) beat Northampton (3rd) for that right.
- In the final Wasps dominated and won 39-3.
- Wasps, therefore, were declared Champions and took the trophy.
End of story? Let us look at selected press views.
Stuart Barnes in The Daily Telegraph has no doubt that is and should be the end of the story. Here are some extracts from his column on 3rd June:
- "Wasps being crowned Champions was a fitting finale to the domestic season."
- "All 12 teams knew the Championship rules before the first kick of the campaign."
- "There has been too much talk of 'moral champions'. In professional sport there is success and failure but there is little that is 'moral'."
Several others do not see it in this way. Stephen Jones (Sunday Times 1st June) is one such:
- "It is a matter of scandal that Gloucester had to come and put at stake again the crown they had already won."
- "Gloucester were the team that proved itself to be the best in the country when and when it counts, over the whole season in the week-by-week bid for glory that rugby is supposed to be."
Rupert Bates (Sunday Telegraph 1st June) calls Gloucester "Champions in all but the name to be etched on the trophy."
Paul Hayward (Daily Telegraph 4th June) writes: "Gloucester, who won the league by 15 points, lost the 'title' to Wasps in an 80 minute fiasco". Rugby union has managed to undermine not just Gloucester but its entire league programme."
One more quote, Mick Cleary (Daily Telegraph 2nd June) cites the Chief Executive of Premier Rugby as claiming, before the match, 'a Wasps win would burst the boil of all the complaints against us'.
So what can a philosopher legitimately say? First the claims and counter-claims can be analysed to see where there is compatibility and where contradiction and what kinds of claim are being made.
Barnes refers to success and failure as crucial. Note that the others agree. The dispute is about what is to count as success. Jones is clear that Gloucester had won the league: they had "to put at stake again the crown they had already won", having proved themselves to be the best "where and when it counts". Barnes would counter that they had not won the crown because this year there was not one to be won at that point (the end of the league season) and that they had proved to be the best only where it used to count in previous years. Jones however is fully aware of this. His dispute is not with the facts but with what he regards as an improper shift in their evaluation, as is made clear by his reference to what "is supposed to be". In effect Jones argues that Wasps are Champions only because of a contrived change of procedures. Thus, for him, for Bates and for Hayward the real Champions are Gloucester. Their defeat by Wasps, overwhelming though it was, is irrelevant because this match should never have taken place, the decision to play it should never had been taken. In the light of this the Wasps win, far from bursting a boil of complaint, intensifies the dissatisfaction and, I use the word advisedly, distress.
The central philosophical point, I suggest, is neither one of logic nor of morality, but lies in what is the most basic distinction of all in how we view the world, namely what is given and is thus to be recognised vis-à-vis what is a matter only of convention change the convention and you change reality. Those who defend the new situation, ‘Premier Rugby’ as a body and commentators such as Barnes, create their own reality. This year is different to last year. So what? It has been made different because it is all a matter of convention and conventions can change. Not so say their critics. A league table is a league table is a league table. Look at it. Gloucester won. They really won. They were top, clearly top. The table exists. The failure to recognise it is just that "a failure". It is not that Gloucester (pace Barnes) are ‘moral Champions’ they are Champions. Not recognising this, indeed contriving a system whereby it is not recognised, is not immoral it is just stupid. And establishing it in advance does not alter this.
I stand with the realists. I grant that all sport is created by conventions but once these are established they have their own logic. League tables have a logic which is to be recognised rather than subverted. Gloucester, by coming top of the Premiership table, won a title that is being denied them. So is there a sponsor out there who will give them a trophy, the Reality Cup, leaving Wasps with the gloss?
Update from Author, June 2004
In 2003 I argued that Gloucester not Wasps were the real league champions; that being on top at the end of the normal season was all that mattered. Nothing changes the argument. Bath should have had the 2004 trophy. I repeat my plea for a sponsor who will recognise reality. Please give a 2003 trophy to Gloucester and one for 2004 to Bath. They need not cost much. Better cheap reality than luxury froth.
Keith Thompson
Update from Author, June 2005
Third year - third farce. This time Wasps have the trophy yet again and Leicester follow Gloucester and Bath as victims - mugged by the system. Yes - Wasps were worthy winners at Twickenham but in a match too far, a match that should not have been played. The logic remains the same as it must do. No-one has come up with a ' reality trophy ' so we have to forget the silverware. But heading the table should be all that matters. For me it is!
Thanks.
Keith