Thursday, October 18, 2007
Rugby World Cup

In many ways it has been a wonderful Rugby World Cup.

Fiji has ignited the stage with powerful running rugby. Major upsets are finally creeping into the game. Teams that perhaps never expected to be playing semi-finals did so. And, hopefully, one of the best sides in world rugby at the moment will rise to the top and win the competition.

But in other respects it has been dour. Some of the games have dogged by frustrating stoppages and negative play. Perhaps no game epitomised it more than Australia-England, but it applies equally to most games at the sharp end of the competition. It’s more akin to watching Gridiron.

Collapsed scrums, time-off and drop goals are all eating at the game’s flow. Play is being unnecessarily slowed, reducing the time the ball is actually in play.

The IRB administrators are charged with securing the game’s future. To have one, the laws need to adapt to ensure the games’ flow and matches are not held captive by teams determined to slow the game down.

A bunch of rugby dignitaries, working at Stellenbosch University in South Africa, are working on tweaking the laws to achieve this. Hopefully, the 2008 Super14 season will adopt these rules.

Stellenbosch has looked at:

• hands in the breakdown/ruck
• 5 metre offside line at scrums
• numbers in the lineout – a team can have as many as they want
• quick throw-ins – allowed to go backwards
• an increasing role for touch judges - to become ‘flag refs’ and police offside lines
• reducing the infringements that attract long-arm penalties
• passing back into the 22m will be the same as running back when clearing kicks
• allowing the collapse of a rolling maul
• getting rid of the corner flag

All of these will benefit the game (apart from the quick line out one, not sure about this). But the proposed changes mostly try to reduce the game’s complexity and ambiguity, rather than specifically make the game less prone to hold-ups.

In particular, the greater role for touch judges is welcomed. However, I would go further and suggest that as well as policing offside lines, touchies are also employed in someway to police the other side of the scrum to the ref.

Too many times games are reduced to scrummaging resets because the one referee cannot adjudicate on both sides of the scrum.

Watching front rows continually dive in on one another does my nut. It is far and away the most frustrating part of the game.

But in my view Stellenbosch doesn’t go far enough.

Any changes to rugby laws should adhere to the following principles:

1. respect the diversity of different rugby ‘accents’;
2. maintain the wide range of skills required of modern players;
3. increase the amount of time the ball is in play;
4. reduce inconsistencies in the application of the laws (especially at the breakdown);
5. reduce the opportunity for players to cheat; and, contentiously,
6. ensure the scoring of tries is the primary method of scoring points

Rugbys League and Union are different sports and people play and watch the games with different expectations. But one game should not be afraid to borrow off another.

A number of laws that have speeded up League, improved the time the ball is in play and promoted try scoring could equally be applied and adapted to Union, without adversely impacting on any other principle.

1. The field goal should be reduced to 1 point – in effect demoting it to deciding the difference between two evenly matched teams, rather than as a method of clocking up points. The 3 points currently on offer is way too generous. Countless passages of play in this World Cup have been reduced to a standstill by long range speculators just minutes into the game.

   Field goals should not be a proxy for a team that is unable to work tries.

2. A ball Kicked into the in-goal should remain live. Defending players should be forced to run the ball into the field of play, or face conceding a 5-metre scrum. The impact would be 3-fold:

   1. The kick to the in-goal would become a more potent try-scoring weapon, further encouraging spectacular aerial battles and neat grubber kicks through.
   2. The players and game-play would be more stretched, as defending teams would need to retreat in numbers to support a defending player trying to get back in-field.
   3. Time would not be wasted by attacking teams have to go through the motions of forcing the defender to finally touch down the ball to promulgate the 22 drop out. Time would not be wasted waiting for that drop out, where these days the ball is passed amongst a team in some vain attempt to dummy the restart.

3. There should be continual interchange. An increasing number of injuries are slowing down the tempo of the game. There have been cases recently where it is clear that the “injury” is simply an opportunity to rest big, weary forwards. Injured players who cannot immediately continue playing should be removed from the field of play and replaced by an interchange if necessary. Again, like Union’s cousin code, 12 interchanges should be allowed per team in a game. This should apply equally to front row forwards as it does to any other player.

   Even more ludicrous referees seem to be stopping the game to allow a player to re-tie boots.

   Just get on with it.

“If you don’t like it watch League” is normally a retort to a Wallaby fan complaining of slow games and continually collapsed scrums. But I have followed and played rugby union for the last 25 years and will not give it up lightly. I have a stake in a viable and exciting future for the game. I coach it at U10 level.

It has changed immensely over that time, and in most cases for the good of the game. There is no excuse for the game not to continue to evolve as a physical confrontation but also as a fast and skilful game where try scoring is rewarded.

So let's all hope for a South African victory this weekend.

Labels: rugby

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