Bring back the beauty. Let's give kicking the boot

[travelling_gerry]

Peter FitzSimons | August 22, 2009

HERE'S a message the Bledisloe Cup stars may not want to hear, but it has to be said. So bring it in tight. As you blokes know better than anyone, tonight's match at Homebush Bay - the annual clash of the best warriors of our tribes - is important. At its best it has provided extraordinary sporting theatre and warmed the cockles of our national souls.

What you may not know, however, inside the cocoon that teams go into before big matches, is the rising damp of disillusionment that is eating at our passion for elite rugby.

We have had a gutful of watching marathon kick-fests, of seeing captains toss the ball to goal-kickers when arcane penalties are awarded 53 metres out. Of watching for two excruciating minutes the deadly dull vision of one bloke lining up and kicking the pig-skin while 29 blokes stand around, no doubt as bored as we are. And doing it all game - again and again and again.

In general play we no longer want to see two tactics - the "up" and the "under". We despair when teams take kicking tips from the Swans. This season there has been more wretched kicking than ever. It is getting to the point where even hard-core fans are turning their cauliflower ears and puffy eyes away in disgust.
But, say what? You players are professionals who play as ruthlessly as possible to win - everything else can go to hell?

That would be fine, 'cept we are the paying public who ultimately provide your wages. If the disillusionment continues, that is exactly where the game will go.
Yes, we know the Springboks have made an art form of winning in this way. But that's the point. The Wallabies and All Blacks are better than that! In bursts this year, you've turned on scintillating running rugby that has thrilled us for minutes at a time. You're capable of playing a Match for the Ages, with stories we will tell and retell as the days grow cold and we grow old. Like it used to be …

So here's the plea. In rugby's ancient history, which is to say before it turned professional in 1995, teams could sometimes enter into unofficial compacts, whereby it would be broadly agreed the game was the thing and running rugby was the most joyous way to play and exactly what the crowd wanted. The glory of the whole Barbarians tradition rests upon it.

Can't you, just maybe, revive that compact tonight? For the good of the game?
It can't work if only one team embraces it. But if you both engage to play the game the way it was meant to be played - to run it - you'll be knocked out by the reception. We'll know whether you're up for it the first time a penalty is awarded 50 metres out. I say 80,000 people, and millions at home, will cheer or jeer the decision. So run the ball as if the future of the game depends on it. Because it does.

http://www.rugbyheaven.com.au/news/n...362213438.html

[GIGS20]

Hear Hear, can't see it happening in this test though. Too much at stake this time!

[shasta]

Peter FitzSimons |

So run the ball as if the future of the game depends on it. Because it does.

Only around these parts. In the NH they don't give a stuff, apparently. Crowds are up and everything is just fine, or so we are told. It's not the tragics who are turning away but the newly arrived punters who will watch any good sporting spectacle.

[welshrugbyfan]

This is all an over reaction to the boks game. I watched the ANZ and Currie cup games recently and there is hardly any up and under kicking. They're all running the ball with the occasional up and under kick.

Just because we saw the boks doing it doesn't mean its a blight on the game for everyone. That's their strategy obviously, PDV must have brought it in because it doesn't seem to be a concept that other SA coaches are adapting too.

NH teams don't do it as much because the wet conditions they usually play in means keeping the ball in hand.

Let's take our hand of the button for a bit.

[zimeric]

well even though there was only one try last night, you'd have to agree there was a GLUT of running rugby and it was hard on my poor ticky ticker... that last minute i could feel the adrenaline pumping its merry way around my fired up veins!!

in fact i had trouble sleeping from the come-down off it.