Redefining Rugby
In South Africa, Stellenbosch University students are playing rugby with experimental new laws. The BBC reports about it here.
The major changes:
A nice quote from IRB committee member Bill Nolan:
What is clear is that teams with props that can run and hit hard for 80 solid minutes make a huge impact on a team's performance. While props who tend to graze mean your backs had better be very good, else the opponent will have a tempting weak spot to hit with counter-attacks.
Will changing the rules improve the play? Of course not.
Simplifying rules is laudable goal. But changing the fundamentals of the game? I'm not so sure. I think one problem with rugby union is that it has been too willing to change the laws every year. When I started playing this game, a try was worth 4 points, and lifting in the line outs was fairy tale. One of the complaints mentioned in the article is that it is difficult to explain the rules to newcomers. Ya think? If someone doesn't pay attention to the game for a few years, the laws will change so much that the game may not be recognizable in many ways. I know when I came back after a 4 year absence, I needed to be educated on new laws - had I been in playing shape, I would have been responsible for a very large number of penalties.
Lifting in the lineouts, unintentional offsides, the value of a try, the cadence of the scrum's engage..all these things and more have changed in recent memory. How about you stop changing the damn laws so much so that a law book from 1996 is still accurate in 2006?
It sounds to me like there is a lot of pressure to make the game more popular commercially. A pox on the game! I hate to sound like the old guy (and I'm not that old) but when I started, there was NO SUCH THING AS PROFESSIONAL RUGBY! Sure, some big guns on some of the stellar national teams had No Show or Sweetheart jobs that let them commit to training nearly full time, but that's par for the course in just about anything. Part of the appeal/romance of rugby was that it was a global purely amateur sport with an amazing camaraderie of opponents that was a vital element of the sport.
Rugby Union will never be as popular as football (soccer). Curling will never be as popular as Rugby Union. (And come to think of it, why the hell isn't Rugby Union in the Olympics anymore? I know only a few teams entered way back when the US managed to win the gold medal - out of the 4 teams that played I think - but come on: International.Team.Sport. Same for footy. I watch the FIFA World Cup - I'd watch Olympic footy.)
You live with the circumstances of the game that wound itself into your DNA. You don't corrupt your DNA to make other people like it more. Part of rugby is not caring what other people think, particularly in America. No matter how good you are a rugby here, you are never going to make the news. No one who is not in your family or circle of friends and associates will ever know what you accomplish or even understand what the hell it is you do every Saturday. The vast majority of Americans think rugby is 'Tackle the Man with the Ball' but with uniforms.
You have to enjoy the game for the game! Find the joy in making a perfect pass, a sweet tackle, a well-timed snap shove in the scrum, a clean ruck of blinding speed, snatching the ball off the deck on the run without knocking it on, even just getting to the right position to defend a potential kick or convince a smart opponent runner that there isn't actually any space where you are. Enjoy the million little things that go into a rugby game that you can effect. If you play this game (in America anyway) for anything other than what happens within the 80 minutes between the white lines, you're playing the wrong game.
My first impression is that these experimental rules and the IRB may be playing the wrong game.
The major changes:
- Downgrading most penalty offences to free-kicks (sounds like our first game at the San Antonio Day of the Dead tourney a year ago - 4 scrums in the first half, a bazillion free kicks).
- Allowing handling in the ruck
- Backs must be 5m behind rear foot at scrum
- Removing corner flags
- Permitting defending teams to collapse rolling maul
- Ball cannot be passed back into 22 and kicked out on the full
A nice quote from IRB committee member Bill Nolan:
"The days of props wandering from one scrum to the next and doing very little else are coming to an end."While Mr. Nolan has a point, I believe that New Zealand team made that point nearly 100 years ago. The name "All Blacks" was adopted by the New Zealand team after an international miscommunication. An English reporter in the land of the long white cloud sent a message describing the play of the kiwis as "all backs," implying that even the forwards were constantly running and moving, rather than grazing until the backs moved the ball back to the forwards). This was mis-transmitted or mis-received as "all blacks," (which at the time would probably have been taken to mean "all maori", i.e., no whites on the team). One need only have ever seen the play of NZ front-rower Sean Fitzpatrick (hooker and captain) to realize that very active tight-5 players can dramatically increase the tempo of the game .
What is clear is that teams with props that can run and hit hard for 80 solid minutes make a huge impact on a team's performance. While props who tend to graze mean your backs had better be very good, else the opponent will have a tempting weak spot to hit with counter-attacks.
Will changing the rules improve the play? Of course not.
Simplifying rules is laudable goal. But changing the fundamentals of the game? I'm not so sure. I think one problem with rugby union is that it has been too willing to change the laws every year. When I started playing this game, a try was worth 4 points, and lifting in the line outs was fairy tale. One of the complaints mentioned in the article is that it is difficult to explain the rules to newcomers. Ya think? If someone doesn't pay attention to the game for a few years, the laws will change so much that the game may not be recognizable in many ways. I know when I came back after a 4 year absence, I needed to be educated on new laws - had I been in playing shape, I would have been responsible for a very large number of penalties.
Lifting in the lineouts, unintentional offsides, the value of a try, the cadence of the scrum's engage..all these things and more have changed in recent memory. How about you stop changing the damn laws so much so that a law book from 1996 is still accurate in 2006?
It sounds to me like there is a lot of pressure to make the game more popular commercially. A pox on the game! I hate to sound like the old guy (and I'm not that old) but when I started, there was NO SUCH THING AS PROFESSIONAL RUGBY! Sure, some big guns on some of the stellar national teams had No Show or Sweetheart jobs that let them commit to training nearly full time, but that's par for the course in just about anything. Part of the appeal/romance of rugby was that it was a global purely amateur sport with an amazing camaraderie of opponents that was a vital element of the sport.
Rugby Union will never be as popular as football (soccer). Curling will never be as popular as Rugby Union. (And come to think of it, why the hell isn't Rugby Union in the Olympics anymore? I know only a few teams entered way back when the US managed to win the gold medal - out of the 4 teams that played I think - but come on: International.Team.Sport. Same for footy. I watch the FIFA World Cup - I'd watch Olympic footy.)
You live with the circumstances of the game that wound itself into your DNA. You don't corrupt your DNA to make other people like it more. Part of rugby is not caring what other people think, particularly in America. No matter how good you are a rugby here, you are never going to make the news. No one who is not in your family or circle of friends and associates will ever know what you accomplish or even understand what the hell it is you do every Saturday. The vast majority of Americans think rugby is 'Tackle the Man with the Ball' but with uniforms.
You have to enjoy the game for the game! Find the joy in making a perfect pass, a sweet tackle, a well-timed snap shove in the scrum, a clean ruck of blinding speed, snatching the ball off the deck on the run without knocking it on, even just getting to the right position to defend a potential kick or convince a smart opponent runner that there isn't actually any space where you are. Enjoy the million little things that go into a rugby game that you can effect. If you play this game (in America anyway) for anything other than what happens within the 80 minutes between the white lines, you're playing the wrong game.
My first impression is that these experimental rules and the IRB may be playing the wrong game.
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