Did Mike Friday And World Rugby CEO Get Into A Twitter Snit?

Did Mike Friday And World Rugby CEO Get Into A Twitter Snit?

Mike Friday tweeted a column he wrote. World Rugby CEO Brett Gosper took exception. Who's right?

Sep 20, 2017 by Alex Goff
Did Mike Friday And World Rugby CEO Get Into A Twitter Snit?
If our last chat with him is anything to go by, USA 7s coach Mike Friday hasn't been pulling too many punches of late.

But Friday isn't known for keeping quiet, and last week he wrote a column for the Daily Mail in the UK that outlined his thoughts on American rugby.

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The article itself is pretty blunt and straightforward and probably addresses conversations Friday has had when he's overseas. (This writer has had those conversations, as well.)

Friday basically says that rugby will never be as big as the NFL, so stop asking. But, he adds, getting younger players exposed to the game can still make it bigger and badder and more meaningful to the average kid. Friday also says there's tons of potential to take over the world 7s game on the women's side, which is true.

But one comment sparked off a to-and-fro with World Rugby CEO Brett Gosper.

"World Rugby think XVs is the key to everything and it's easy to get stuck in that bubble where it all revolves around England and the All Blacks."

Gosper didn't care for that and let Friday know it on Twitter.

[tweet url="https://twitter.com/brettgosper/status/909681610974429184" hide_media="0" hide_thread="1"]
Oops, or maybe not so much. Gosper says World Rugby has a commitment to 7s and the Olympics, which is true, World Rugby does (or, wait, do? The English love to mess around with plurals and, as Friday shows, think World Rugby is a plural entity, not a single collective noun.) ... World Rugby does support those things. Friday is just saying it's not enough.

Friday kind of backed down a little:

[tweet url="https://twitter.com/MikeFriday09/status/909684862558375936" hide_media="0" hide_thread="0"]
But he got support for what he's saying. And it's true. It is very easy to think that Eden Park and Twickenham sell out, so we're all good. Too easy.

[tweet url="https://twitter.com/MikeFriday09/status/909468671231299584" hide_media="0" hide_thread="0"]
One more reply to all of this caught our eye... the Holy Grail of the true global season.

[tweet url="https://twitter.com/SeasonRugby/status/910472161109860352" hide_media="0" hide_thread="1"]