'I'm really proud of Joe, it's a tough challenge being authentic'

Days after the World Cup had finished in Qatar, Ugo Monye was still wearing a baseball cap embroidered in homage to Lionel Messi. The Argentine wizard had wowed people from around the globe with his on-pitch exploits, as had France’s Kylian Mbappe in a demonstration of football at its beautiful best. They each lit up their sport in an imaginatively skilful way, gripping the attention of fleeting fans never mind the already besotted fanatics. Ex-England and Lions wing Monye was in thrall to it all.

“The World Cup was driven by the quality of football that we saw on the pitch," he enthusiastically told RugbyPass. "It’s very rare as a broadcaster when you can sell a match Mbappe against Messi and the result is down to those two key players. Mbappe, a (2018) World Cup winner who scores a hat-trick, unbelievable performance, and then you have got Messi, one of the greatest players of all time.

“I’m wearing this baseball cap in homage to him. He is the greatest of my generation who does what he does and drags his team through. It was a phenomenal game, so absorbing and the best final I have ever seen. There are lots of conversations around Qatar and everything else but if I am strictly to stick to what we saw on the pitch it was phenomenal and I have got to say, I’m not comparing the Gallagher Premiership against the World Cup but this season the quality of rugby every single week, the jeopardy.

“You look at Saracens, their last two or three matches in the Premiership, coming back from a 22-point deficit to Northampton. You can look at the table and the quality of rugby we are seeing from the teams at the bottom of the table against the teams at the top.

“Harlequins versus Bristol is third against eleventh but it doesn’t feel like a top-four team against a bottom-of-the-league team. So long as we can keep the quality of the competition like that then that should absolutely appeal to more eyeballs for sure.”

If only it was that simple. “Fix the global calendar,” reckoned Monye when asked what initiative rugby must undertake to sharpen its appeal. “The rugby season would easier to follow when you have non-competing tournaments and events and no overlaps. You have got the autumn internationals competing with the Gallagher Premiership, Six Nations competing with the Premiership.

"In the Premiership, we have got some of the world’s best players and you don’t get to see them all the time. Once we get a global calendar for everyone and most importantly the players and the fans, then we will incrementally or exponentially get more eyeballs, more engagement in our game.”

Out-of-favour England loosehead Joe Marler has played his part in recent times in encouraging publicity for English club rugby. First, there was that endearing live TV post-match interview on BT Sport following a man-of-the-match effort for Harlequins at Bath. Then there was the teddy bears picnic video he directed and starred in to help promote Big Game 14, humorously naming the bears Ellis and Kyle before feeding them to the lawnmower.

Monye first got to know Marler more than a decade ago when the front-rower was making his way through the Harlequins academy. “He was just a big human being and I’m really proud of Joe. Not just in terms of what he has gone on to achieve on the pitch, I’m proud of him being himself off the pitch as well.

“That is quite a tough challenge, being authentic. It shouldn’t be a challenge but sometimes it is because especially in the social media age, when you can connect to people and people can get at you so easily and everyone has an opinion which is fine, to keep the authenticity for so long shows Joe being himself. Some people absolutely love it, other people don’t but it actually feels like it doesn’t matter to Joe. He just continues to remain himself which is a compliment to him.

“It [the picnic video] is a credit to Harlequins as well because they are having fun with it. Bristol responded to it with a Home Alone video, which is fantastic. When the whistle goes (next Tuesday) it is going to be a massive rivalry but outside of it, it’s that collaboration and thinking, being slightly less non-traditional and just having fun with it.

“You have got Joe Marler who knows Ellis Genge and Kyle Sinckler really well and they are having light-hearted fun about it. The build-up to it is about celebrating that and allowing people breathing space to show who they are because we focus a lot on the talent on the pitch. You wouldn’t be wearing a Harlequins or a Bristol shirt if you weren’t talented, we know that.

“But the human behind the talent, everyone wants to see and engage in that. It’s hard to engage with Joe Marler’s body position in a scrum but it’s easy to engage with him and his personality and his sense of humour as it is with Kyle Sinckler, Ellis Genge, Danny Care, Marcus Smith, whoever it is - people connect with people more so than they connect to their talent.”

It was last May, in a letter to Rugby World magazine, that Marler outlined his fears that rugby is shrinking, that the sport must act fast to encourage people within the game to show more of themselves in order to attract new fans from outside. It’s a tricky balancing act, reckoned Monye. “There are loads of characters but do the players want to show their characters? Not all do,” he suggested.

“And also when people show themselves to be themselves, is the world willing to embrace them, every type of character because the rugby world is no different from the real world? In your office place, my workplace, there are introverted characters, extroverted characters, confrontational characters, people who are fun, deep thinkers - it has all of it but they [rugby players] have public-facing jobs. They can all show themselves to be who they are and what they want to be but is the world ready to accept all of it?

“I’m a fan of all sports and I have seen across a number of different sports where players are deeply honest and show their full selves and get hammered for being themselves. Then they close up and don’t reveal anything. As long as we are willing to accept them for who they are, I am all for it - I want people to be themselves. And by the way, I won’t like every character but you are not meant to as well, you’re absolutely not meant to.”

The grave pity about the Marler teddy bears picnic video, which was released by Harlequins on December 8 to encourage a final push on ticket sales for December 27, is that the match is no longer taking place at Twickenham as a planned rail strike resulted in the Premiership club changing the venue to The Stoop which has reduced the capacity from 82,000 to 14,816.

The Big Game will now be the March 4 match against Exeter and the switch had the potential to be a very damaging PR disaster. However, calling it early on December 16, eleven days before the Twickenham date, left Monye believing that Harlequins had done their best in trying circumstances. “They handled and dealt with it as well as they could,” he insisted.

“Knowing Laurie Dalrymple and the club and the history of the Big Game, I played in those games and loved it - would they have sold it out? Absolutely. This community of people has been at Big Games over the years and it feels like a real landmark moment over the Christmas period where it is more than just the game, which is fantastic.

“You look at the demographic of people in the crowd. Some are rugby traditionalists. Some just want to get out of the house. Some just want to enjoy the lights show and the entertainment as well as the rugby. Now that it is gone and that is a shame. The economic hit for Harlequins will be massive, absolutely massive.

“They can probably generate four times the revenue than they can at The Stoop, and we saw last season when they had two big games with Craig David in May. With this one displaced to March, it’s not just the loss of revenue this time but it is also the opportunity lost in March to be able to double up so it’s massively disappointing.

“Harlequins had no alternative but to do what they did but when they relocated it [the Bristol fixture] back to their traditional home of The Stoop, the game was quickly sold out so there is a massive appetite. Harlequins have sold out for every game this season, which is a brilliant place to be, but I’m just disappointed that the Big Game isn’t going to be in its usual place at Twickenham.”

Given the demand for tickets for every Stoop match, is there a debate to be had that Harlequins need a mid-level ground providing a capacity greater than their current home but less than the huge capacity of Twickenham which requires a massive marketing drive every time they play there? “You want your home to be your home and people to have that sense of familiarity,” said Monye.

“They have expanded their in-game atmosphere, the pre-match, the concourse has been widened with more bars. It’s a real community, an unbelievable experience to go there. As to finding a mid-level ground, I don’t think that is potentially right.

“Let’s not forget that Harlequins were the first in this country to have a Big Game which is now being replicated by other clubs like Saracens. To go to the two matches in a year was ambitious but it was a massive success. You couldn’t buy a Harlequins jersey online, at the shop, or anywhere.

“I know that from friends that went to the match and wanted to buy a Marcus Smith shirt and couldn’t get it, so we know the legacy impact that it [Harlequins at Twickenham] has to supporters. It’s brilliant, it’s massively successful and I’m so thrilled that their ambition is being met with the appetite of the public.”

• BT Sport is the home of Gallagher Premiership rugby. Watch Harlequins Women vs Bristol Bears Women, followed by Harlequins vs Bristol Bears from 1pm on December 27 exclusively live on BT Sport 1 bt.com/sport/rugby-union