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rugby-europe-championship
More than 30 years after Switzerland was cast as the best bobsleigh team in the world in the film Cool Runnings, their nation’s rugby team are using the classic 1993 film as inspiration for their debut season in the Rugby Europe Championship.
Actually, inspiration is understating it. Switzerland have taken the film so much to heart that it seems closer to a religious scripture for the Swiss.
They have bought into the idea that the Rastafarian God ‘Jah’ is guiding their campaign in this year’s Championship. The players also listen to Rastafarian music when doing gym sessions and even bring lucky eggs to training, replicating the legendary character of Sanka who famously tucks a lucky egg into his lycra when bobsledding to keep him safe.
Switzerland’s themed preparations are driven by their French head coach Olivier Nier, who has been at the helm of the Swiss national team since 2016.
When Nier first came on board, his brief was to keep Switzerland in the Rugby Europe Trophy (essentially the third tier of the Six Nations) to which they had just been promoted. After achieving stability in the Trophy, he aimed at promotion to the Championship, which was secured in dominant style last year after the Swiss went undefeated for two straight seasons.
Now with the Swiss about to make their Championship bow, Nier’s expectations are high, very high, which is where Cool Runnings comes in.
“We really want to try and qualify for the next World Cup in 2027,” explains Nier. “We know who we are, and who we are up against, but we have one chance, just like the Jamaican team in this movie.
“But if you say to everybody that ‘Switzerland want to qualify for the next World Cup’ it will be [seen as] very ambitious and not enough humility, so we decided to base our ambition around this movie, to explain our ambition.”
Nier’s approach is rooted in the idea that humour can be a very effective way of making a serious point, whilst embracing the story of Cool Runnings is a reminder that in 1988, four Jamaicans, Devon Harris, Dudley Stokes, Michael White and Chris Stokes, really did qualify for the winter Olympics in 1988, having only taken up the sport five months prior, and having only trained in a tropical climate.
Theirs is one of sport’s greatest against-all-odds stories. By comparison, it makes Switzerland’s mission to reach the Rugby World Cup look straightforward.
It will of course be anything but straightforward. Yet Nier’s point is that it is still very obtainable. The first card in their favour is that the Rugby World Cup 2027 will be a 24-team tournament, up from 20 teams at France 2023. The extra places mean the top four teams from this year’s Rugby Europe Championship will qualify directly to Australia 2027, with the fifth-placed team destined for the repechage competition later this year. This is the avenue Switzerland are targeting. Whichever European team does go to the repechage, they will certainly be amongst the favourites to book the last ticket to Australia.
Nier knows that Switzerland face a baptism of fire at the start of the Rugby Europe Championship. First up they face the champions Georgia this weekend – a challenge he describes as “like facing Mount Fuji” – followed by Spain in their second match.
But he’s confident that Switzerland will be flying by the time they compete for the final ranking positions towards the end of the Championship in early March, and that finishing in fifth place is within their grasp.
“In the past we have won against Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands [the three nations likely to be vying for 5th place with the Swiss in this REC]. We are really targeting those access games (to the World Cup). To be clear: it’s not possible for us to win on our first attempt against Georgia this weekend. We know what rugby is, and we are realistic. But the players are very ambitious and very, very excited to play Georgian players in Georgia.”
Nier feels Switzerland are in a great place to capture the hearts and minds of the Swiss public through their involvement in the Rugby Europe Championship for the first time.
Switzerland’s matches are being broadcast on national television whilst Nier is confident that they’ll see more than 2,000 fans attend their home fixture against Spain next weekend.
Once Georgia and Spain are out of the way, Switzerland’s campaign really begins, as they’ll face opponents they believe they can live with, starting with the Netherlands in Amsterdam, most likely followed by Belgium and Germany, although not necessarily in that order.
It will be a very tough ask for Switzerland to finish fifth against this kind of opposition who all have much more experience at this level, yet they believe – indeed they know full well – that stranger things have happened in the world of sport.
If a Jamaican bobsleigh team can get to the Winter Olympics, a Swiss rugby team have every chance of making it to a World Cup. As ever in rugby, it could all come down to a bouncing ball, in which case, those lucky eggs will come in handy.
