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SOS to IRB: our game is dying as a spectacle
November 18, 2009 - 9:08AM
The decision to make the breakdown a fair contest for possession is killing rugby as a spectacle, writes Mick Cleary.
What is happening to the game that has given me and many others so much pleasure?
For the first time in 40 years of playing, watching and commenting on the sport, I felt like walking away at half-time at Twickenham on Saturday. It was that dispiriting, that joyless, that mind-numbing. Going Awol, of course, would have led to the sack. I stayed. There were two consolations: matters improved marginally after half-time and I didn't pay for my seat. Pity the punters who forked out for such misery.
Let us leave England's current woes out of it. For this is not about them.
No, this is about the laws of the game. The administrators have to take note. There is too much kicking. Simple as that. Kick after kick after kick.
It is not as if they are beautifully weighted skimmers into the corner, as Phil Bennett used to do. No, they are witless hoofs prompted by fear.
Coaches will tell you that they are triggered by a reading of the percentages, that the stats prove, and South Africa's trophy cabinet illustrates, that a kicking game reaps dividends. Well, if it has come to that, you can keep your dividends. It is a soulless pursuit. It is plain boring, boring to watch and I am sure boring to play.
The nub of the matter concerns the breakdown. A new protocol issued to referees encourages them to cut more slack to the tackler. He is able to get to his feet in an instant after initial release and as long as he is on his feet he is allowed to go for the ball. Conversely the player taking the ball into contact has very little time in which to release or play the ball.
There is more, and possibly it is the key factor in all this. Another directive allows for the first man arriving at the breakdown to put his hands on the ball. He can keeping doing so even after the referee has called "ruck". The upshot is that one player can mess things up considerably, so much so that the opposition arriving at a breakdown fly in to try and remove that thorny obstacle, the bloke with hands on ball, from the scene. Players are flying off their feet.
These are all seemingly little shifts. But they have brought big consequences.
Players are frightened to attack with ball in hand. How many counter-attacks have we seen this season? And how often have we seen the initiative of a solo break upfield lead to a turnover?
It cannot be right when a bit of twinkling feet from the likes of a Matt Giteau runs the severe risk of having a negative outcome because the runner gets isolated. No wonder the try count in the Guinness Premiership is down by around 25-30 per cent this season. That's a massive drop in such a short space of time. Even an innovative, attack-minded coach such as Toby Booth at London Irish has been driven to distraction by it all.
What hope is there? Well, a referees' gathering in London last week urged officials to ensure that the tackler has to let go of the ball-carrier and also to allow a bit more time for things to develop. That message did not seem to have got through to referee Jonathan Kaplan at Croke Park on Sunday. Three times in the first half he allowed only a nanosecond before penalising the carrier for not releasing. He did appear to learn, however, for there was more flow in the second half.
The initial impetus behind these changes was to try to clarify and simplify things for referees at the breakdown. Instead, a greater burden has been put on them. They, too, love the game and are aware that play is being stifled. How many times do you now see more than four or five phases? Very rarely.
Personally, I would bring back the ruck. The administrators won't do that, citing (wrongly) safety issues. But they have to do something. The game is dying as a spectacle.
London Telegraph
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Originally Posted by palitu
