Lyon, France – The Rugby World Cup is in full swing in France, but once again Central European teams are conspicuously absent. Rugby tries to slowly make its mark in the region and faces various challenges, explains Tomasz Putra, former coach of Poland (2006-2013) and the Czech Republic (2014-2017).
Kafkadesk: Rugby in Central Europe is not well developed yet, at least not at the most professional level. If you compare it with Romania, or Georgia further afield, the gap is considerable. How do you explain this lag?
Tomasz Putra: It’s a complex subject. First of all, it has to be said that there is strong competition between sporting disciplines for investment, media attention and public success. In this respect, some disciplines are much further ahead than rugby: in Poland, we talk about soccer, handball and volleyball, and in Czechia, it’s soccer and hockey. These are very popular sports, and it’s hard for rugby federations to compete on the media and financial frontlines.
I’ve been lucky enough to coach two national teams, and I can say that there’s enormous potential and that both nations have the sporting and political means to progress. Just look at the players: the Poles are physically strong, they have a very emotional game that fits well to rugby… The Czechs, on the other hand, are big fellows and hard-working, some great assets when you play this sport.
If I look at the progress we’ve made with the Czech team, I see that when I arrived in Prague, the Reprezentace was 50th, when I left they were 30th. They moved up 20 places after three years because they worked hard, seriously and not always with a lot of resources, but discipline paid off. Unfortunately, not everyone felt the same way: rugby’s success generated some kind of jealousy and disagreement within the federation. When I finished my term of office, my successor Phil Pretorius, a South African, took over. He was a good player and a good coach, but he had to deal with a team that had a different rugby culture to that of the big nations.
His working methods weren’t the same and weren’t always well adapted to the new game of the Czechs, who quickly lost 10 places. After that, I came back to carry out audits within the federation on players, coaches, resources… At that point, we made progress with the coaches, and we created methodological commissions which developed well. But then COVID came along, and the whole process fell behind schedule and even collapsed. We weren’t able to develop everything we wanted. The result is that today, very young players are very well looked after up to the age of 14, but beyond that it gets more complicated, the methods are no longer the same and sometimes don’t even match the expectations of modern rugby.
As far as Poland is concerned, it’s a similar story. We had managed to reach 25th place in the world rankings. World Rugby then allowed us to play test matches with bigger nations, and at that point the federation felt a little overwhelmed. Everything was getting very serious, with a lot at stake! Sometimes it’s when it’s time to really work that things start to fall apart… In this situation, we can talk about a real lack of ambition: the federation chose to give priority to the level of the national championship rather than that of the Polish team. That’s not a bad thing in itself, but if we want to go further, we need to move up a gear.
Listening to you, one gets the feeling that the problem here is primarily political, even though the human and technical resources are there.
That’s true. To make rugby progress in Central Europe, you have to be willing to fight, because nothing can be taken for granted. The federations have a lot of work to do on coaching: that’s where we need to start. In Poland, rugby coaches are not self-taught, but frankly not far off, it’s day and night if you compare with the level of handball coaches, for example.
There was a time when we had good players who played in Europe and came back home to develop rugby, like Gregory Kakala in Poland for example. They came with utopian ideas and thought they could reproduce what they’d seen in France, but they quickly crashed into a wall.
What room for maneuver is there for the development of rugby in these countries then?
Today, the clubs are the driving force behind the development of rugby in Central Europe. There are good teams and a good dynamic. If you look at the Polish championship and its 9 clubs, you’ll see that they’ve managed to attract private sponsors. That’s why we need to start with them. With their resources, they attract young foreign players from Fiji, Tonga, Namibia… Danco Berger, who plays in the Namibian team, used to play in the Polish Ekstraliga for the Sohaczew club, for example. All these players also come here to start a European career, which proves the attractiveness of Polish clubs at least at a first level.
Now, we shouldn’t overestimate the power of the clubs. I think we’ll have to wait a while before we see a Czech or Polish club playing in a European Challenge or Champion’s Cup match, even if there is progress like the Bohemians Warrior youngsters who will be taking part in the European Super Cup.
However, it’s the federations that have the money, and it’s up to them to invest wisely in developing rugby, which they don’t always do. I’ll give you one example: for some time now in Poland there’s been a huge boom in rugby-tag [rugby league where the tackle is replaced by a scarf system]. Now, all this requires investment and commitment, and they’ve managed to get over 10,000 people involved! It’s a good figure, but we haven’t seen any impact on the number of rugby licensees in Poland, so it’s a bit of an artificial discipline, which doesn’t contribute to the development of rugby and costs the federation money.
The oval ball is now in the hands of the federations, but we need to be much more ambitions if we want to see some kind of solid development for rugby.
We’re talking about rugby union here, but what about rugby 7s?
That’s a good point, because the situation is different. From 2016 onwards, when rugby 7s was reinstated as an Olympic sport, there has been a real boom in this discipline. There are a number of reasons for this success: firstly, it’s an Olympic sport, which means it’s an important sport for the public authorities, and it’s part of a sporting event that interests them, so the resources have been made available. Secondly, people were interested in the sport and hoped it would be less difficult than rugby union: less logistics, less contact, more speed and dodging… and therefore easier to play. As a result, many amateur clubs were set up and people finally started playing rugby!
After a few years, of course, the whole thing died down a bit. It’s difficult to sustain sporting projects over time without strict supervision. And then people came to realize that it’s a very technical sport: you have to make extremely precise passes while running at full speed! In truth, you can’t play 7s too far away from rugby union. Especially as some people have tried to pit them against each other for a few years, in order to attract investment or that sort of thing, as quite often these are people who don’t know much about rugby.
Nevertheless, there were a few successes. Poland played well and made it to the Trophy Series, and Czechia to the Championship. But above all, the Polish female team is playing extremely well. They were European champions last year, competing with traditional rugby nations and beating teams like Spain, Portugal, Italy… In May, they’ll be taking part in the qualifiers for the Olympic Games. We’re talking about twenty girls who play at a high level, who have the means and who are supported by the Ministry of Sports so that they can become professionals. It’s a bit ironic in terms of investment when you consider the number of players involved throughout the country – around a hundred – but it’s a real success in the end. Of course, there’s still work to be done, but the momentum is right.
On the Czech side, they’ve found a good system via ASC Dukla Rugby, a multi-disciplinary military club. The players are paid, so it’s almost professional. Even so, there’s a slight lack of coaching, and they’ll have to keep it going over time to get real results, but the foundations are there.
This year, the Polish team has qualified for the Rugby Europe Championship [European B Tournament, below the Six Nations], what are their hopes?
Well, first of all it’s worth remembering that they initially went up because the format was reorganized from 5 to 8 and because Russia was excluded. That doesn’t take anything away from the value of the Polish players, but you have to keep that in mind to have a good sporting appreciation of the competition. It’s a tricky situation, and it’s going to be difficult to stay at this level, especially in a new system that works over two years.
There are two big guns in the group: Romania and Portugal. Then there’s Belgium, who are within reach of the Polish players. In any case, the challenge is relegation, but the players have what it takes to beat the Belgians and stay up, even if the match will be in Brussels.
Let’s talk about one of rugby’s key protagonists, essential to its success: the public! Would you say that rugby is not well known in Central Europe, and that people still have a ‘violent view’ of the sport, which is holding back its development?
No, I don’t think so! In Poland, Polsat now broadcasts all World Cup and Six Nations Tournament matches, so people have wide access to rugby, and can form a genuine opinion of the sport. It also makes them realize that it’s a major sport, attracting spectators, sponsors and audiences from all over the world.
And people can realize that it’s a sport with educational values! The problem now is that the more popular sports aren’t necessarily happy to see a challenger on this field (laughs).
Does that mean that Poles and Czechs are following the World Cup with interest?
Well, I’ll tell you, I go to all the matches taking place in Saint-Étienne and Lyon, and I see lots and lots of groups of supporters from Poland and Czechia! Groups that sometimes number between 20 and 30 people, and not necessarily rugby fans! This just goes to show that rugby is a sport that attracts people despite the poor results and low standards in Central Europe – another paradox. It’s also proof that we need to rework the organization of this sport there, because there are supporters ready to follow. A major project to be undertaken with Rugby Europe and World Rugby…
A major project that will need a major architect! Perhaps you? Would you respond favorably to a call from the Czech or Polish federations to resume your coaching role?
(laughs) I don’t think the question arises! I’d need a real, concrete and ambitious project for me to come back: I have a precise way of doing things, and no time to lose. Under the current conditions, there’s no way I’d consider coming back.
By Sébastien Cazabon
Based in France, Sébastien is a politics and administration graduate of Sciences Po – and studied on the Eastern and Central Europe Campus of Dijon. He now works as an influence strategy and economic intelligence consultant in Paris.
Kafkadesk 
Lyon, France – The Rugby World Cup is in full swing in France, but once again Central European teams are conspicuously absent. Rugby tries to slowly make its mark in the region and faces various challenges, explains Tomasz Putra, former coach of Poland (2006-2013) and the Czech Republic (2014-2017).
Kafkadesk: Rugby in Central Europe is not well developed yet, at least not at the most professional level. If you compare it with Romania, or Georgia further afield, the gap is considerable. How do you explain this lag?
Tomasz Putra: It’s a complex subject. First of all, it has to be said that there is strong competition between sporting disciplines for investment, media attention and public success. In this respect, some disciplines are much further ahead than rugby: in Poland, we talk about soccer, handball and volleyball, and in Czechia, it’s soccer and hockey. These are very popular sports, and it’s hard for rugby federations to compete on the media and financial frontlines.
I’ve been lucky enough to coach two national teams, and I can say that there’s enormous potential and that both nations have the sporting and political means to progress. Just look at the players: the Poles are physically strong, they have a very emotional game that fits well to rugby… The Czechs, on the other hand, are big fellows and hard-working, some great assets when you play this sport.
If I look at the progress we’ve made with the Czech team, I see that when I arrived in Prague, the Reprezentace was 50th, when I left they were 30th. They moved up 20 places after three years because they worked hard, seriously and not always with a lot of resources, but discipline paid off. Unfortunately, not everyone felt the same way: rugby’s success generated some kind of jealousy and disagreement within the federation. When I finished my term of office, my successor Phil Pretorius, a South African, took over. He was a good player and a good coach, but he had to deal with a team that had a different rugby culture to that of the big nations.
His working methods weren’t the same and weren’t always well adapted to the new game of the Czechs, who quickly lost 10 places. After that, I came back to carry out audits within the federation on players, coaches, resources… At that point, we made progress with the coaches, and we created methodological commissions which developed well. But then COVID came along, and the whole process fell behind schedule and even collapsed. We weren’t able to develop everything we wanted. The result is that today, very young players are very well looked after up to the age of 14, but beyond that it gets more complicated, the methods are no longer the same and sometimes don’t even match the expectations of modern rugby.
As far as Poland is concerned, it’s a similar story. We had managed to reach 25th place in the world rankings. World Rugby then allowed us to play test matches with bigger nations, and at that point the federation felt a little overwhelmed. Everything was getting very serious, with a lot at stake! Sometimes it’s when it’s time to really work that things start to fall apart… In this situation, we can talk about a real lack of ambition: the federation chose to give priority to the level of the national championship rather than that of the Polish team. That’s not a bad thing in itself, but if we want to go further, we need to move up a gear.
Listening to you, one gets the feeling that the problem here is primarily political, even though the human and technical resources are there.
That’s true. To make rugby progress in Central Europe, you have to be willing to fight, because nothing can be taken for granted. The federations have a lot of work to do on coaching: that’s where we need to start. In Poland, rugby coaches are not self-taught, but frankly not far off, it’s day and night if you compare with the level of handball coaches, for example.
There was a time when we had good players who played in Europe and came back home to develop rugby, like Gregory Kakala in Poland for example. They came with utopian ideas and thought they could reproduce what they’d seen in France, but they quickly crashed into a wall.
What room for maneuver is there for the development of rugby in these countries then?
Today, the clubs are the driving force behind the development of rugby in Central Europe. There are good teams and a good dynamic. If you look at the Polish championship and its 9 clubs, you’ll see that they’ve managed to attract private sponsors. That’s why we need to start with them. With their resources, they attract young foreign players from Fiji, Tonga, Namibia… Danco Berger, who plays in the Namibian team, used to play in the Polish Ekstraliga for the Sohaczew club, for example. All these players also come here to start a European career, which proves the attractiveness of Polish clubs at least at a first level.
Now, we shouldn’t overestimate the power of the clubs. I think we’ll have to wait a while before we see a Czech or Polish club playing in a European Challenge or Champion’s Cup match, even if there is progress like the Bohemians Warrior youngsters who will be taking part in the European Super Cup.
However, it’s the federations that have the money, and it’s up to them to invest wisely in developing rugby, which they don’t always do. I’ll give you one example: for some time now in Poland there’s been a huge boom in rugby-tag [rugby league where the tackle is replaced by a scarf system]. Now, all this requires investment and commitment, and they’ve managed to get over 10,000 people involved! It’s a good figure, but we haven’t seen any impact on the number of rugby licensees in Poland, so it’s a bit of an artificial discipline, which doesn’t contribute to the development of rugby and costs the federation money.
The oval ball is now in the hands of the federations, but we need to be much more ambitions if we want to see some kind of solid development for rugby.
We’re talking about rugby union here, but what about rugby 7s?
That’s a good point, because the situation is different. From 2016 onwards, when rugby 7s was reinstated as an Olympic sport, there has been a real boom in this discipline. There are a number of reasons for this success: firstly, it’s an Olympic sport, which means it’s an important sport for the public authorities, and it’s part of a sporting event that interests them, so the resources have been made available. Secondly, people were interested in the sport and hoped it would be less difficult than rugby union: less logistics, less contact, more speed and dodging… and therefore easier to play. As a result, many amateur clubs were set up and people finally started playing rugby!
After a few years, of course, the whole thing died down a bit. It’s difficult to sustain sporting projects over time without strict supervision. And then people came to realize that it’s a very technical sport: you have to make extremely precise passes while running at full speed! In truth, you can’t play 7s too far away from rugby union. Especially as some people have tried to pit them against each other for a few years, in order to attract investment or that sort of thing, as quite often these are people who don’t know much about rugby.
Nevertheless, there were a few successes. Poland played well and made it to the Trophy Series, and Czechia to the Championship. But above all, the Polish female team is playing extremely well. They were European champions last year, competing with traditional rugby nations and beating teams like Spain, Portugal, Italy… In May, they’ll be taking part in the qualifiers for the Olympic Games. We’re talking about twenty girls who play at a high level, who have the means and who are supported by the Ministry of Sports so that they can become professionals. It’s a bit ironic in terms of investment when you consider the number of players involved throughout the country – around a hundred – but it’s a real success in the end. Of course, there’s still work to be done, but the momentum is right.
On the Czech side, they’ve found a good system via ASC Dukla Rugby, a multi-disciplinary military club. The players are paid, so it’s almost professional. Even so, there’s a slight lack of coaching, and they’ll have to keep it going over time to get real results, but the foundations are there.
This year, the Polish team has qualified for the Rugby Europe Championship [European B Tournament, below the Six Nations], what are their hopes?
Well, first of all it’s worth remembering that they initially went up because the format was reorganized from 5 to 8 and because Russia was excluded. That doesn’t take anything away from the value of the Polish players, but you have to keep that in mind to have a good sporting appreciation of the competition. It’s a tricky situation, and it’s going to be difficult to stay at this level, especially in a new system that works over two years.
There are two big guns in the group: Romania and Portugal. Then there’s Belgium, who are within reach of the Polish players. In any case, the challenge is relegation, but the players have what it takes to beat the Belgians and stay up, even if the match will be in Brussels.
Let’s talk about one of rugby’s key protagonists, essential to its success: the public! Would you say that rugby is not well known in Central Europe, and that people still have a ‘violent view’ of the sport, which is holding back its development?
No, I don’t think so! In Poland, Polsat now broadcasts all World Cup and Six Nations Tournament matches, so people have wide access to rugby, and can form a genuine opinion of the sport. It also makes them realize that it’s a major sport, attracting spectators, sponsors and audiences from all over the world.
And people can realize that it’s a sport with educational values! The problem now is that the more popular sports aren’t necessarily happy to see a challenger on this field (laughs).
Does that mean that Poles and Czechs are following the World Cup with interest?
Well, I’ll tell you, I go to all the matches taking place in Saint-Étienne and Lyon, and I see lots and lots of groups of supporters from Poland and Czechia! Groups that sometimes number between 20 and 30 people, and not necessarily rugby fans! This just goes to show that rugby is a sport that attracts people despite the poor results and low standards in Central Europe – another paradox. It’s also proof that we need to rework the organization of this sport there, because there are supporters ready to follow. A major project to be undertaken with Rugby Europe and World Rugby…
A major project that will need a major architect! Perhaps you? Would you respond favorably to a call from the Czech or Polish federations to resume your coaching role?
(laughs) I don’t think the question arises! I’d need a real, concrete and ambitious project for me to come back: I have a precise way of doing things, and no time to lose. Under the current conditions, there’s no way I’d consider coming back.
By Sébastien Cazabon
Based in France, Sébastien is a politics and administration graduate of Sciences Po – and studied on the Eastern and Central Europe Campus of Dijon. He now works as an influence strategy and economic intelligence consultant in Paris.