There's still a lot of politics in French rugby. It's just that in Europe our major rugby teams tend to be part OF the community instead of just being IN the community as a new franchise tends to be.
Look at the new franchises up north, they also struggle to attract the level of support that the traditional club/provincial sides do. It takes a long time before a team is considered genuinely part of a community.
It's something that's built up over generations not just mere years. Where the baton is passed from father/mother to son/daughter because the club actually means something to the people of the community outside of match day.
We're talking about clubs with over 100 years of history that have been around through countless tragedies and good times. That have bleed and cried with the people because they are the people.
Where pubs and businesses are owned by ex-players. Where that old guy who cuts the grass where a junior team play used to run out for Munster/Perpignan/Leicester.
Players, ex-players, coaches, officials etc. do huge amounts of work in the community to maintain that link and build it up further. Years upon years of this leads to a situation where it's very difficult to tell where the club ends and the community begins.
You can't create that kind of history with a snazzy name and a shinny marketing strategy. It's the kind of history that's soaked into the earth of the entire community and into the bones of it's people.
I know so many Munster fans who plan their entire year around away trips in the HEC. Where tickets to away QF, SF games are like gold dust and a ticket for the final is something on par with the worth of your firstborn (the relative value determined by the ultimate result).
Match day becomes an event in itself. Sometimes it's what gets you over a shitty week at work or it's the trip you've been looking forward to all year. The mixing with the fans of the other team in the pubs, the songs, the banter, the slagging, the hatred of local rivals, but at the end of it all it's all goodhearted and you can sit down and have a drink with a rugby fan of any team without fear of football like loutishness.
We don't switch over because the game is "shit-house" with not a try to be seen for love nor money with a score of 9-6. We watch on the edge of our seats/barstools for every last second. Every awarding of a penalty inspiring near heart attacks or relief of a tension that's so thick you could cut it with a knife, depending on which arm the ref raises.
To most of us up north rugby isn't a shirt to be put on of a game day. Something that can be easily changed from AFL, Football, NRL or w/e else. No rugby is simple something that you are, it's part of your being.
Yes we also follow other sports, you'll find many a Corkman who's a huge Munster fan but also a Man Utd fan and wears his Cork jersey come all-Ireland time. I myself am a Leinster fan along with a lifelong Evertonian and Dublin fan. But I never seen it as a choice.
To rugby fans up here (at least those from the established clubs/provinces) it's not a form of entertainment that we can take or leave depending on the quality of the product on offer. It's much more than that, it's like a member of family. It provides moments of unbridled joy when the rest of the world has gone to shit, it moves you to tears, you sulk and are depressed after a loss, especially if it's to a rival or in the knock-out stage of the HEC.
It frustrates the hell out of you at times. Yes there are times you wish it were better but like any member of the family it's capable of producing those near perfect moments when all the complaining is forgotten. Just like any family member we may not always like it but we never stop loving it.
Overall it's a sense that the club/province actually give a shit about their community and we the community give it back in spades.
That's what NH rugby is all about, at least to me anyway.
