THIS SIX NATIONS is a testament to how quickly an Irish mind can get spoiled. The nine match winning run is boring us. Quit it with the incessantly accurate box kicks Conor, we want our rugby carefree and frothy, a blend of Toulouse 2003 and New Zealand 1995.
The Irish player and management response to the criticism seems to be; don’t hate the players, hate the game. The current laws and refereeing trends dictate that the kicking game is the best option, especially if your team is small and full of good kickers.
You can almost hear the Irish players muttering under their breaths, asking if we’d prefer it if they went back to the free flowing days of 2013 (joint last), or better again the 1990s when Ireland mastered the art of losing matches in a dull way.
Ireland aren’t taking risks, but the sport clearly doesn’t reward risk takers anymore, which, if you want your sport to also be a form of entertainment, doesn’t make any sense.
Rugby union has been trying to catch up with itself ever since the day it went professional, but this season the gulf between the laws and the realities of the modern game are as wide as they’ve ever been. In fact, there are so many holes in the overall logic that it’s hard to take it seriously at times.
There is, for example, a current obsession with protecting the man in the air, a valid objective, but one that’s been taken to such an extreme that players are afraid to go anywhere near the catcher.
It’s now a battle to just be the first man in the air, because once your feet are off the ground you essentially own the space around you. In the Scotland Wales game, once Finn Russell was shown the yellow card, players were actively trying to get their feet off the ground in any situation, so as to invite the tackler and earn a penalty.
Meanwhile, if you’re lying on the ground and the ball happens to be anywhere near your head, an opposition player can swing his boot as wildly as he wants. If he happens to connect with your head, tough luck.
This was how George North received the first blow to his head in the Wales England match, and how the Dave Kearney Paul O’Connell incident came to pass. Intent shouldn’t matter, it’s negligent to swing a boot near anyone’s head, and it’s as dangerous as a spear tackle or coming into contact with a player whose feet are off the ground.
Smarts
Players are smarter than the law makers, and they’re always taking advantage of these many loopholes. Take the sin bin for example, originally designed to give the wronged team 10 minutes of free space, to punish repeat offenders (offsides/lying on the ball/hands in the ruck/professional fouls) and to in essence speed up the game.
What usually happens is the opposite.
The team with 14 men will wheel scrums, collapse scrums, kick the ball high into the stands, time waste, push and shove, antagonise, talk to the ref, fake injuries and basically make the game as slow moving as possible. Yes they often concede points in those 10 minutes, but they also make the game hard to watch.
It’s far too easy to kill time in rugby. If there are 75 or 76 minutes on the clock, the same tactics come into play. If a team is down by more than 7 points at that stage of the match, you can more or less assume it’s game over, similar to the drivel at the end of an NFL game when one team is on top and the last few minutes have to effectively be played out, as a protocol.
There is a list of other loopholes that damage the game.
You can tackle high as long as you do it with your head (see Bastareaud V Sexton); you can slowly get up from the wrong side of a ruck and accidentally get in the way of the opposition scrum half (see Chris Robshaw, Sam Warburton); you can drive a man 6 or 7 yards beyond a ruck even though he doesn’t have the ball (see New Zealand at every ruck); scrumhalves can ignore the crooked feed to a scrum rule.
And those are just the ones we can see in plain sight.
The key problem is that almost every important international game now comes down to one score and so the chance of one of these loopholes dictating the outcome is huge.
Rugby will never be as pure a sport as football or tennis or basketball. It has, by its nature, too many rules.
That doesn’t mean it should reward conservative tactics, time wasters and dull rugby.
Joe Schmidt teams used to play the most exciting rugby in Europe. With the right laws, the right emphasis and the right referee, they will do so again.
Catch Simon and the rest of the Second Captains lads discuss rugby and more every Monday and Thursday.
Who’s complaining??come on Ireland on Sun!!
We’ve been here before, post WC 2007 the laws were rejigged as a reaction to the borefest of kicking ping pong in evidence there across most of the games.
Any field sport goes through similar change, Italia 90 was an horrendous tournament and new rules implemented after (back pass) changed the game for the better.
In the meantime let’s enjoy a winning Irish team, who by the way played great rugby against NZ,France (2014) and Australia in the last 18 months.
I don’t hate either…
Sounds like a lot of people just should consider 7s, free flowing rugby, quick scrums. But as for xv a side the only real complaint I have is penalty’s at the scrum seem confusing, need clarity or scrum refs who know the front row would be beneficial. Or even just refs having better guide lines
Let’s ban all dangerous stuff, rugby, motorbikes, tobacco etc. i
This is what happens when we have pusses in charge
The quantity and severity of injuries sustained by professional rugby players is cause for great concern.
The players themselves, as they have the most to to loose in terms of their long term health, need to take a lead in this important debate.
If you want open, exciting rugby, go down and support your local AIL side instead of whinging about turgid pro teams.
Agree nothing beats lads who play for the love of the game
Totally agree! Even teams in the 5th tier provincial leagues are playing nice rugby, getting good crowds and full of local lads playing for the joy of competition and love of their club. A small donation at the gate, cheap pints, and real live action in front of you. A big towns cup game in Ashbourne or 2A clash in Skerries has more passion and excitement than Leinster V Zebre on a wet February Friday in the RDS.
This really bugs me.
Basically, both of Ireland’s game shave been low excitement, low try scoring affairs and, as a result, the whole game of Rugby Union is somehow broken. Let us ignore that, Scotland versus Wales was a very entertaining match, as was the nine try England versus Italy game. Add those to Wales versus England from round one and the rugby that Scotland played in Paris and you get a theme.
Ireland is playing relatively low risk rugby that wins penalties and fails to score tries. For these past two games. 9 match winning streaks are not accidental. Schmidt is playing winning rugby.
Expansive play will come, especially when we choose a 13 that has actual pace in Earls, or power in Henshaw or Bowe and not a journeyman Kiwi engaging in Test Rugby tourism. Payne is by no means the sole or main reason Ireland are not scoring tries, but he isn’t helping.
And because Ireland are not engaging in Barbarians rugby (like they did to such good effect in the first half against the All Blacks in November 2013, does not mean the game is somehow broken. The current rules have struck the balance between attack and defence nicely, Irish sides both national and provincial, just aren’t as good with ball in hand as they were a couple of years ago.
Our ball carrying forwards have had various reasons for not playing or not playing as well. Our backline malfunctions when you remove either Murray or Sexton, because we don’t have plug and play world standard replacements. Boo hoo. Want to see how good Conor Murry is, watch Munster without him.
Id still rather be entertained howcome the most boring style of play is always the most effective
Because there are less risks
The game will continue to evolve just as every other game in world sport does.
Personally I find the way Ireland are playing now probably more intense than in the past. Probably because we are genuinely competing with the best now in all facets of the game.
I don’t think I will ever get turned off either no matter the style of play.
At the end of the day as long as the players are putting their all into it I think they deserve our full support
Kicking game is very attractive and exciting. Incessant passing and losing ground has ruined the game of rugby( and football too ). Kerry and Dublin have great kicking games.
Wrong sport lad
A bit like when South Africa won the world cup a few years back the team with the most solid defence and set piece could win the world cup.
Ireland are up against their biggest contenders for the 6 nations title this week with England coming to town. I would also think that it is a serious game in that whomever wins this could get the momentum going into the World Cup. But again it will be the solidity of either side that will determine the outcome.
I’ve stopped watching, the new rules make it such a different one to the one i learnt and played when I was young
Hasn’t stopped you commenting. Odd, that.
Are there too many players on the pitch in the professional game? How about dropping the flankers to give the backs a bit more space?
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/rugby-union-time-to-entertain-the-13man-idea-1577782.html
Horrendous article and idea. Why don’t we just get rid of the ruck as well, and change possession every 6 tackles while we’re at it.
Round ball maybe?
Sure, why not? Maybe we could introduce tennis rackets and a basket ball hoop as well?
That’s a no then :-).
Maybe fifteen’s not enough! How about two fullbacks……
And two scrum halves? Snappy ball from every ruck.
I don’t understand the 13 man proposal. Surely if the problem is that there isn’t enough room on the pitch now as all the players are fitter, then making the pitch slightly bigger would be much less radical, game altering solution.
Johnny, it does present the problem of instantly making all rugby stadiums obsolete!
Thanks a lot Simon, I was really looking forward to the game but now you’ve pointed out all it’s flaws I’ll just switch over to the kissing game on sky instead… NOT…. It’s professional sport you do whatever it takes to give you an advantage and I for one don’t care if we box kick the ball all day long once we win… Hon Ireland
eel that’s a tad dramatic , take away a row of seats and you could increase by a couple of feet…
I’m presuming just a couple of feet is not what johnny had in mind though.
Tune into Super Rugby early on a Saturday Morning. Sharks v Warathas, Brumbies v Blues, Western Force v Crusaders ….. only Rugby in the Northern Hem is boring.
I was at the Tahs V Force game recently and it was absolute muck.
Wind up article at best, Bastareaud was tackled by Sexton not the other way round in the collision to which the article referred, both players left the field to receive treatment. For the information of the author a tackle must involve a players arms. Players are not “allowed” to get away with some of the transgressions mention, however players do play the referee. Finally the author should decide if it’s Laws or Rules he his quoting as only one applies to Rugby Union.
Unbelievable that football and basketball are referenced as pure sports. Rugby Union is not a simple sport and needs understanding sometimes to appreciate it but a poor game of rugby beats a good game of football/soccer or basketball any day. A vacuous article.
If you want open, exciting rugby, get off your couches and support your local AIL sides.
I was with you until you claimed football was a pure sport. Talk about a game ruined by abuse if the rules