Nigel Owens: Rugby must avoid dangerous change despite calls

Former World Rugby referee Nigel Owens has his say on rugby’s current talking point

There have plenty of calls in the past about moving some rugby to the summer, and I’ve been thinking about that a lot during this little heatwave we’ve been having.

I have to admit, my favourite time of year for refereeing was always the near end of the season. Back into April, days get a bit longer. Obviously the weather is starting to get a bit better as well and the local cups of all the different age groups are played.

But imagine if you had to play rugby now in the sort of heat we’ve seen this week. I don’t think you could. It would be far, far too dangerous and too warm.

The grounds would be getting so hot, and when we talk about hard ground, we often talk about the winter, where pitches freeze.

But that doesn’t happen so much anymore.

Right now, pitches are rock solid and with the hot weather it would be even more dangerous. We also have to remember the many rugby players who also play cricket, as well as the few shared cricket and rugby grounds.

This time of year is also the kids’ time of year as well. Kids want to go swimming and go to the beach with their parents and family.

If rugby was played more in the summer, a lot of kids maybe would be doing other stuff.

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So next time, when we’re calling for summer rugby, I think there’s a lot of things that you need to take into account.

For me, it’s always been a winter sport, and it should stay like that, I think, particularly now you have much more 4G pitches available. That means games can go ahead. Kids can train at night, even though it could be wet and cold.

On a similar note, I suppose, I’m always complaining about the weather as a farmer.

It’s always too wet, it’s too cold, it’s too dry, it’s too warm.

As farmers, we are ever dependent on the weather, and there is no doubt the seasons are changing. There’s more extreme, cold and wet weather and the few days of extreme hot weather breaking records has proven so.

When I was a kid it always seemed the one knew what part of the year it was. The four seasons were what they ought to be.

There was always spring, summer, autumn, winter. Sometimes now, you have all of those in one day! So things are changing.

There’s no doubt the climate is changing, and anybody who denies that surely isn’t going outside the house.

Some people will make the argument that the climate’s always changed over the last few centuries, or the thousands, even millions of years gone by.

That’s true, but it’s changed at a gradual pace where nature and everything can adapt with that slow change.

But for me, the people denying all that can never change. I really don’t have an idea where they’re living, though, because if you’re a farmer, then you will know the changes all too well – and it has a huge impact on the ability to produce food.

We are relying far, far too much on cheap imported food, which often doesn’t go by the high standards that we, as farmers, abide by here on the animal welfare side of things and the high standard of production of food in general.

You also have to think about what those other countries are going to do if we rely more on them. Are they going to produce more? Yes, of course they are. It means that South America will cut down more of the Amazon rainforest to produce more food because they’ve got a market for it.

We hardly produce anything in this country anymore, but self-sufficiency when it comes to food is so important in the volatile world we live in now.

The race to net zero and planting solar panels over prime productive, food-producing land – where the hell do we think the food is going to come from?

I just can’t understand why anybody would think that planting solar panels on prime agricultural producing land is a good idea. I just don’t get that.

There are places, of course, where it’s important to put solar panels and stuff like that. We should aim to be as green as we can. It’s hugely important that we do that. But there’s plenty of places that we can put solar panels without putting it on prime food-producing land. Put it on top of buildings, on car parks, on the side of highways like some of the other countries in the world are doing.

But this nonsense of putting it on quality land is hampering our capacity to produce food, in a country whose population is estimated to grow 2-3 million in the next 5-7 years.

It means more of our food will be coming from other countries whose carbon footprint is 20 times more than ours. So the climate is changing, and yes, we do need to try and reverse that.

But cows grazing on grasslands here in Wales is not the main issue in the climate challenge of the world. Far from it. Look at the sky, the planes, the cars around you every day. The batteries and everything that’s produced in other countries from the ground.

These solar panels when they come to the end of their lifespan, what happens to them? Are they recyclable?

Let’s get back to actually producing things in this country and carefull and gradualy reduce our carbon footprint, supporting British industry and farming at the same time.

The race to be net zero at all costs may not be the best way to achieve the goal and certainly not the best way to get everyone to buy into it.

We need to reduce our carbon footprint without doubt and we must all play our part in that.

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