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Thread: Rugby Guilty Of Cruelty To Players

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    Question Rugby Guilty Of Cruelty To Players

    Rugby Guilty Of Cruelty To Players
    21/02/2007 06:43 PM
    Marc Hinton
    The more I think about it, the more I can't shake the belief that professional rugby is on a collision course with itself. And if something's not done soon to avert this passage of destruction, the fallout could be explosive.

    Alarmist? I don't believe so. Overly dramatic? Nope. Stark flaming reality, the way I see it.

    I'm talking, of course, about this never-ending rugby season of ours that's come under the microscope as a result of Graham Henry's controversial conditioning programme for his 22 hand-picked All Blacks.

    The feedback from the players on Henry's specially tailored training regime has been all positive. These men -- men who love nothing more than the gladiatorial combat of top-level rugby, it should be added -- are waxing lyrical about the benefits of a programme that's allowed them to do three key things.

    First, it's given them a sustained break from competitive rugby and all the mental challenges that go toward building and peaking for a weekend match, then dealing with the emotional fallout from the result, having a day to shake off the effects and then getting right back on the conveyor belt to do it all again.

    It cannot be underplayed how taxing this weekly routine is on a professional rugby player, especially in a competition as short, intense and with such a high percentage of failure as the Super 14 (by definition, 10 out of 14 sides in this event will consider themselves having fallen short of their ambition, because they did not make the playoffs).

    Also, it's allowed them an adequate period to physically prepare themselves for the unique demands of a rugby season. Again, it cannot be emphasised enough how important this period is, when muscles are built, fitness levels established, skills attended to away from the demands of a weekly match.

    And, finally, it's allowed these guys a reasonable sort of off-season (though still nowhere near what it needs to be) and a normal sort of routine (most are on Monday-Friday programmes, with weekends off to spend with family and friends) that allows them to have the mental downtime that you simply don't get in the competitive environment.

    And to a man they've reported back glowingly in terms of the benefits they're feeling, the positive spinoffs they're experiencing. Hard rugby men like Jerry Collins and Richie McCaw looked me in the eye and declared they'd seen the light. Sure, they'd love to be out there playing for their Super 14 franchises right now, but they know that if they're to be at their very, very best in October in France, that they simply cannot be trying to find winning edges at the beginning of February.

    First things first. The rugby season, both down under and up north, is quite simply too long. And not just by a few weeks here or there. It's way, way too long. Too long like Stephen Fleming and Craig McMillan are feeling too vindicated at the moment.

    In fact, I'll go even further. We're destroying our professional rugby players with the workload we're asking them to shoulder. It's bizarre. It's stupid. And it's downright cruel.

    Competition Overload

    Just consider the rugby year as it stands now. The Super 14 runs from February to May, a seven-test window then pops up from June to August, the Air NZ Cup competition chimes in from July to October, and, this year, a World Cup comes around in September and October. There's also New Zealand's age-group sides, the Junior All Blacks and Maori to factor in.

    Some players will be asked to play in three of these four "competitions". An odd exception might even pop his nose up in all four. Most years our leading players start their season in January and don't finish it until the end of November. It's just ludicrous.

    Also you need to factor in training camps, pre-season matches and tailored fitness regimes. Now recognise that some of these same players will have up to three different sets of coaches to deal with. That's up to a dozen different voices hammering away at them, giving their views on how best they can operate as rugby players.

    Now, before we get the violins out, we need a bit of reality here. What is there to compare to the rugby season? Well, really only two sports that I believe you can draw parallels with.

    One is rugby league, which offers its players -- for the most part -- an off-season of two to three months. Certainly there's really only one competition for them to worry about, in the form of the NRL's gruelling March-to-September club competition. There's usually some internationals or other tagged on at the end, but nothing too taxing as, let's face it, this is rugby league we're talking here.

    But even this sport, I believe, has it wrong. Throwing internationals on the end of a season as long as the NRL's is too taxing for players to handle. With a few notable exceptions, the game's test component lacks quality and intensity.

    For the real blueprint for a professional full-contact sport you need look no further, I reckon, than the the USA's National Football League which, after all, has been doing this thing a lot longer than rugby or even league.

    In the NFL teams play a 16-game regular season that lasts 17 weeks between early September and the end of December. Following that there's a four-round post-season stretched over five weeks, culminating in the Super Bowl. And that's it folks.

    The tired argument you hear with rugby is that broadcasters need product to fill their schedules. Rubbish. The NFL generates the biggest TV revenue of any of the major American sports, and that's because the scarcity of matches actually increases demand. People savour the NFL when it rolls around and every game means something. And sponsors, advertisers and TV audiences fall over themselves to get on board.

    (Besides, I hasten too add, filling TV programming is no excuse for putting your players' health at risk.)

    But more than this the NFL realises that it can only ask its participants to bash and crash into each other for so many weeks of a year. And that when it's all over they must be allowed to rest, recover and then rebuild their battered bodies.

    It's a lesson rugby -- and its fractured international community -- must take on board. And fast. What it's doing now to its top professional players borders on the inhumane.

    Find this item at:
    http://xtramsn.co.nz/rugby/0,,12448-6977136,00.html

    What do you guys think?

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    Veteran Contributor The EnForcer's Avatar
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    When you look at it like that the guy has a point but I still don't agree with the All Blacks philosophy even if it does work.

    Super 14's is the top competition and should not have to sacrifice it's quality for the RWC.

    I would love to here more from the players themselves to get a horses mouth view point of the current scheduling. (Not only the AB's opinions)

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    What do I think?
    I think Graham Henry has slipped Marc Hinton a couple of notes to do a positive spin article!

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    Immortal Contributor The InnFORCEr's Avatar
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    What a load of rubbish, I'm sure he will be quoted post world cup, although there will be plenty of "other" excuses if they fail again (AB's that is).

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    Player Nick's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by The InnFORCEr
    What a load of rubbish, I'm sure he will be quoted post world cup, although there will be plenty of "other" excuses if they fail again (AB's that is).
    So you disagree that the the north and sourthern seasons being played out of kilter cause an issue? You wouldn't like to see the seasons more aligned? that there maybe a better solution to the season in a World Cup Year than to make rugby a summer sport?

    Or are you just against the idea of the 22 players being rested?

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    Immortal Contributor The InnFORCEr's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nick

    Or are you just against the idea of the 22 players being rested?
    More that they have a War & Peace size book of excuse for resting the 22 and I sincerely hope/believe it will work to their detriment.

    As far as North & South being on the same schedule.........yes there are merits, but I don't belive it is broke so no fixing required.

    They could also throw cricketers into that never ending season group to compare, domestic, one days, tests, world cup, champions etc etc

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    re: cricketers ... they regularly do!!! I think they play too much, said it before and I stand by that!

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    Immortal Contributor The InnFORCEr's Avatar
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    I meant in the article Happy

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    Quote Originally Posted by The InnFORCEr
    More that they have a War & Peace size book of excuse for resting the 22 and I sincerely hope/believe it will work to their detriment.
    Really you dont like the idea of giving players an actual off season and an actual preseason where they can develop or you just dont like the AB's

    I really think that aside from the AB's world cup campaign that something needs to be done with the playing schedule, it is too much. I thonk the cricketers struggle with it too but hey they are not playing a full contact sport.

    I mean I get you dont want the All Balcks to win and I do but can we take that as a given and move on to the actual concept of having the a real pre / off season. I think it is having an effect on the quality of rugby, not just form NZ.

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    Immortal Contributor The InnFORCEr's Avatar
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    If the French were doing it I would be believeing/hoping they die by the sword.

    Does that answer your question?

    They do have an off season three out of every four years and during World Cup years the Tri Nations schedule is reduced.

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    Player Nick's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by The InnFORCEr
    They do have an off season three out of every four years and during World Cup years the Tri Nations schedule is reduced.
    Really even without the world cup between the provincial ruby, Super Rugby, Tri Nations, and then international tours and age grade tours, in NZ you also have the NZ Maori tours as well it's a fair bit of rugby with not a lot of time off.

    Player associtions in both hemispheres are complaining about it - it's not like these guys dont want to play rugby but its a very long season surely...

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    Immortal Contributor The InnFORCEr's Avatar
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    so is it just the NZ schedule that is too busy with these age tours, maoris etc?

    The new APC or NRC here will be for non Wallabies. So we have Super 14, Tri Nations, Inter Tests, and Spring Tour for rep players and Australia A (PNC Pacfic Nations Cup next year) and APC/NPC for non rep.

    Seems OK to me......but I don't play do I!

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    To my knowledge they still play far less than their European cousins and have the maximum matches allowed (30 odd from memory for Australians?) under agreement from the Players Union?
    The matches in Perth and Brisbane have shown that it is crazy to have SH Rugby being played now but that is perhaps more about fixturing than seasons, perhaps more NZ Home matches at the start of the year before Carisbrook freezes over!
    I think the majority of punters don't have a problem with the concept of the Internationals being rested, it is more the length of time and the effect on the premier competition that is the issue.
    For me it would have been a far more palatable exercise if the "22" were rested for the NZ v NZ matches throughout the tournament for example, so that both sides had the same number out and they could really have a developmental match without impacting on other nations teams.
    When it comes down to it, I don't want to play a weakend NZ team because it gives us a better chance of winning, I want to see the best players possible from each team because that's what I have paid to see.
    It is a running argument between North and South as to which has the better standard of tournament, this year there is no argument as we are left with only two thirds of our normal quality.

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    Player Nick's Avatar
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    For sure Burgs, I think that the standard of Rugby being dished up this year in S14 is not to the high standard it should be, and that the New Zealand teams are part of that equation, but you only have to look at the Brumbies v Reds game to see that it's not only the NZ teams that need to lift.

    I think the way the season has been organised this year could improve but I also think in a more genral sense that even though Im happy to watch as much Rugby as they put on TV that the players themselves need a better strucured season that allows for a proper off season and preseason training - so that we Have a high standard of Rugby in the Competitions that are played.

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    You've made a good point Nick, about the off-season and pre-season requirement for professional players. I tend to think that the players with the longest season-the test players- are given an extended rest by their coaches before training for S14. They are also the fittest and strongest. If they want an easier year they could play in a French province-between contracts.

    My beef is the scheduling of rugby in Feb in this hemisphere, when crickets still being played ! Compare the short sleeved crowds in Brisbane and Perth to the rugged-up scarvies already in NZ ! So Burgs has a point there too- more early games in NZ. Does the Players Assn have a view on playing in heat, which is more dangerous to players health and livelihood on a yearly basis, than a long season for the international players.

    As for the NZ season, thats their players problem, just as the cricketers are beginning to rail against the never-ending one-day games and rightly so.

    I turned off the RedsvBrumbies game at halftime due to its quality. Unlike you, I don't watch 'rubbish rugby'. I know the Reds have had a very good pre-season, so I'm guessing that the heat caused the tactics for the game by both teams.

    The S14 starts when it does to allow the Saffas their Currie Cup and the Kiwis their NPC in the winter proper, and now the APC, competitions which provide the depth for S14.
    So really, the too early season start is a SANZAR issue. Before the development of 'cold vests' , the potential for heat stroke was probable, now its remote, but still Feb games need to all be at night , and same for Bris Perth in March. I suggest you take the issue up with Sanzar !

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