The Current State of Rugby
What has become apparent (well, what has been rammed home really) in the past 10 days is that rugby has allowed itself to become a sport where the refereeing panel are no longer just there to facilitate the game and allow it to happen, but have become nearly the most important people on the pitch (or box).
Rugby is no longer about 30 players, it is about 30 players, and 4 officials whose remit has become sanctioning every single act on the field to its fullest extent.
The term rugby accident no longer has any meaning. Angus Ta'avao got his face caved in and got a red card. LF was in the air and got a yellow. In the England v Australia game two attempted intercepts got two players binned. Papali'i got penalised for a perfect cleanout because the touchie thought something else happened and had to get on the pitch.
Rugby is obsessed with getting people off the pitch. In a game defined by the fact it is a constant contest, players are sent from the field for contesting. Cards are flying thick and fast. AWJ got carded for absolutely nothing but suspicion on the weekend. How is that in any way acceptable?
And I absolutely do not blame the referees even one bit. This comes down to the lawmakers, their guidelines, and the instructions given to their referees. This is the game World Rugby want. Every controversial incident is met with a new, far stricter than required guideline in case it happens again. And that guidelines normally involves another player off the pitch. Professional Rugby is, above all else, a form of entertainment, and yet here we have a governing body obsessed with actively degrading their product, to appease who?
And yet, for some, they do not go far enough. Look at the chat in rugby media after every test. "this is a disgrace, there should have been more cards!! that card wasn't harsh enough, it should have been red!" every single fucking week. Pre-game the focus is on the ref, and what they should look at. Post-game the focus is on the ref, and what they misses, and who else should have been sent from the field.
I have heard more about Jaco in the press than the fucking players over the past couple of days. In what world is that the best outcome?
Long time fans are becoming more and more disillusioned. Casual fans are turning it off. And the response will probably be another crack down and more cards. Awesome.
@mariner4life said in The Current State of Rugby:
What has become apparent (well, what has been rammed home really) in the past 10 days is that rugby has allowed itself to become a sport where the refereeing panel are no longer just there to facilitate the game and allow it to happen, but have become nearly the most important people on the pitch (or box). Rugby is no longer about 30 players, it is about 30 players, and 4 officials whose remit has become sanctioning every single act on the field to its fullest extent.
The term rugby accident no longer has any meaning. Angus Ta'avao got his face caved in and got a red card. LF was in the air and got a yellow. In the England v Australia game two attempted intercepts got two players binned. Papali'i got penalised for a perfect cleanout because the touchie thought something else happened and had to get on the pitch.
Rugby is obsessed with getting people off the pitch. In a game defined by the fact it is a constant contest, players are sent from the field for contesting. Cards are flying thick and fast. AWJ got carded for absolutely nothing but suspicion on the weekend. How is that in any way acceptable?
And i absolutely do not blame the referees even one bit. This comes down to the lawmakers, their guidelines, and the instructions given to their referees. This is the game World Rugby want. Every controversial incident is met with a new, far stricter than required guideline in case it happens again. And that guidelines normally involves another player off the pitch. Professional Rugby is, above all else, a form of entertainment, and yet here we have a governing body obsessed with actively degrading their product, to appease who?
And yet, for some, they do not go far enough. Look at the chat in rugby media after every test. "this is a disgrace, there should have been more cards!! that card wasn't harsh enough, it should have been red!" every single fucking week. Pre-game the focus is on the ref, and what they should look at. Post-game the focus is on the ref, and what they misses, and who else should have been sent from the field.
I have heard more about Jaco in the press than the fucking players over the past couple of days. In what world is that the best outcome?
Long time fans are becoming more and more disillusioned. Casual fans are turning it off. And the response will probably e another crack down and more cards. Awesome.
i honestly believe that we'd have less issues with things like AT head knock if we didn't see cards for all the much more trivial things, failed intercepts, repeated minor offenses like off sides...but also NOT seeing them for the early tackle...its all bloody guess work
@mariner4life I enjoyed a club final on Saturday much, much more than the ABs; game was played with heart, game was played with intent, some flash moves (one was very good and came off) but these guys played to thier level, and was thoroughly enjoyable...oh, zero cards handed out.
@taniwharugby ive said before, my enjoyment is often inversely proportional to the level im watching, mainly due to lower expectations and a greater direct connection, actually played for school and club, been friends or club mates with NPC players....much less so with super in international now days
1XV>club>NPC>super>international
@Derpus said in The Current State of Rugby:
Wont happen though. WR are just getting their ducks in a row for a law suit.
Its pretty awful.
I do wonder if I'm a good 'average fan' sample though, because I'm probably not. I loved the version I grew up with so much that I probably can't help but be disillusioned.
I haven't watched a match (in full, or live coverage) for a year. At some point the epiphany came that not only was I getting the normal (passionate fan) frustration in matches I was just down right not enjoying the sport anymore. It was actually making me angry.
Admittedly, I was already a far cry from the fanatic anorak of earlier. I was already well disengaged before I've stopped watching. 15 or so years of changes that mostly annoyed me rather than boosted my enjoyment. Not just refereeing, but the more anorakily inclined aspects such as tournament structures, kit fashion crimes, terrible broadcasting - The Breakdown (show), private fucking equity. The negativity of card obsessed fans. Its become the bitchiest sport on the websphere and in print.
@Rapido said in The Current State of Rugby:
I've got myself into these negative rugby avoiding funks before though, admittedly. Usually I get drawn back in eventually, usually in RWC years.
I am disadvantaged that I dont passionately support anything below All Black level anymore.
That's another whole other subject ...
me too, i remember pretty much giving up on the highlanders after the 2013 season...still havent missed a game but complained a lot for a while
@Derpus said in The Current State of Rugby:
Post match suspensions need to replace in game cards.
Wont happen though. WR are just getting their ducks in a row for a law suit.
Then they should change the laws instead of conjuring up an interpretation that is well removed from laws that have been designed to create a game.
There is no rugby law that says a failed intercept gets carded. The law clearly says that an intentional knock forward has a sanction of a penalty. Not a card, a penalty. If deemed a professional foul i.e you have intentionally infringed to take away an advantage from the opposition, then cards come in. Apply those laws and the YCs we saw are wrong. IMO both cases don't even meet a threshold of being an intentional knock forward at all. One was clearly an intercept attempt and one was a player trying to get to the ball and pulling his hand back when he realised that he wasn't going to make it.
If LFs act was deemed to be reckless then where does that apply to players jumping to catch the ball? If you catch then clatter into someone's head that is apparently acceptable but if you attempt a chargedown and the player runs into you it isn't? That's just fucked IMO
I really hope that ATs legal team rip the refs a new one for the interpretation that resulted in his RC.
Step two of the 'process' is "is there any foul play". That is the key question after "has head contact occurred".
First he never tried to tackle so it wasn't foul play for attempting a tackle above the line of the shoulders. That only leaves him doing something "reckless or dangerous to others". Of course the refs only watched the last split second instead of looking at what happened in context. If attacking teams are allowed to run screens of 4 players that defenders have to run around without visibility then pass the ball to someone on the cut just before taking out two defenders then you can surely expect accidents to happen. The attackers create the deception which in turn creates a poor split second decision or inability to change an expected line yet the defender gets sent off? IMO the protocol around head clashes is interpreted as if dummy runners and screens don't occur.
@NTA said in The Current State of Rugby:
My boss at work is a leaguie, and his comment was "If you send a guy off for an attempted intercept, your game is fucked"
he's not wrong
All of the above.
Add up year after year of law changes, card fests, and then having two of my three favourite teams with coaches like:
- Ian Foster has been infuriating Steamers fans - and eventually Chiefs fans - since 2003.
- Daryl Gibson being promoted from the Waratahs to the Steamers (which perhaps should have been a clue) - one of the few calls the BoP Union has got wrong in recent times
It has taken:
- The Chiefs making the semi final
- Mike Delany taking over the Steamers for 2022 instead of Gibson, and
- The Black Caps playing erratically since the India tour
... to finally get me to concentrate properly on the rugby season. Aaand then to see the Benny Hill-like chaos of the Dunedin test (All Blacks, laws, all of the above)...
My vain hope is that the Silver Lake deal might finally force the NZRU to not tolerate mediocrity in charge of the All Blacks. But given their track record, I'm sure they'll still find a way...
@NTA said in The Current State of Rugby:
My boss at work is a leaguie, and his comment was "If you send a guy off for an attempted intercept, your game is fucked"
i have been beating this drum for years! but its an example of a wide approach, you use to have to clothesline or punch someone to get a card...now it could be anything
@mariner4life I wonder how many attempted intercepts occur in every game, you'd have to think, in the vast majority of them, the defender thought he had a genuine shot at getting it, went for it, got it, or didnt, and the latter means he very likely gets a 10 minute rest.
All for something that might occur once, maybe twice per 80?
WR refereeing's dislike of intercepts is as baffling to me as NZ crowd's dislike of drop goals. Legitimate plays that add variety to the sport, in fact are good 'levellers' in a sport that produces few genuine upsets.
Intercepts are exciting game-turning events. Why the hate?
The Australian one on saturday was a 14 point plus a YC punishment for stuffing up a fairly easy one handed catch. Triple punishment. Isnt butchering a certain 7 points already punishment for his lack of handling.
@NTA said in The Current State of Rugby:
My boss at work is a leaguie, and his comment was "If you send a guy off for an attempted intercept, your game is fucked"
Your average game of league is more fun to watch than your average game of Union these days.
I had been playing and watching rugby for 10 years before I even knew a deliberate knockon existed as a penalisable offence.
From 1982 (when I first started watching) to the 1991 RWC final I never heard this discussed in commentary, by my coaches, or any ref in a game i played.
(1991 final Campese knocked on intercept attempt, and yes, even I think that could have been penalised as per the rules, it was a deliberate knock on).
What was a once a once-in-a-decade (but unpunished) occurence - is now a dime-a-dozen yellow card for every failed intercept . Who decided this? Who was asked about what problem needed solving?
Just dire refereeing administration IMO. Scarily, by the peak of the ref admin.
@Rapido i like to apply the "school yard rule" approach, i dont remember anyone ever caring about it when you played at lunchtime
this is why football it so popular around the world, a ball, two goals (bags, jerseys a tree etc), dont break someone leg with a shit tackle and no one can use their hands except the keeper and they can only do it in a small area...those things make up 95% of the rules people care about
In 40 years of watching I cant ever remember there being a plague of deliberate knockons that presumably prompted referees boss to decide there was a problem that needed to be solved.
I can only think of 2 in that 40 years. Campese as mentioned, and Keiran Reid v Scotland a few years ago. Both ironically unpunished or under-punished (Reid, who's offence occurred during the over-reaction era. But he was only penalised, not carded IIRC).
This is ignoring the unmemorable but innocuous pillar leaning over and slapping a ball out of hakfbacks hands. Which occurred and was usually punished.
Yet I've seen about 50 games impacted by yellows for innocuous miscalculations.
@Rapido im on another forum that is predominantly NH people and they were all calling for blood for deliberate KNOCK ONS (you know who you are)...there is a growing divide between between north and south on what the game should look like
@Rapido said in The Current State of Rugby:
I had been playing and watching rugby for 10 years before I even knew a deliberate knockon existed as a penalisable offence.
You could watch American Football for a long, long time before discovering it has a deliberate knock-on rule too. Doesn't mean it isn't a good rule, just that once it's in the books, certain plays are no longer used.
The rugby rules are fine regarding intercepts. If the player is genuinely trying to catch the ball, then it is not a knock-on. If they are just using the intercept as an excuse to knock the ball forward, then a card is in order. If they are knocking it back then it's all good. It's that the referees have got over-vigorous on the application, not the rules themselves.
My favourite is people who complain the rules of rugby are "too complicated" then watch NFL.
@Chester-Draws on the surface youre right...but anything thats is subjective then you're asking for trouble...players diving to catch a ball theyve tried to intercept...YC...PT...how can anyone say they were trying to intercept it....but they do...an introduce the idea of "realistic chance"...so not the ref is deciding on intent and then deciding on likelihood
Deliberate knock ons are stupidly reffed, for sure. The rule is there to prevent defenders standing in the line and waving arms deliberately blocking passing channels. If you come shooting up between players and get a hand on a ball in flight, then you're a chance to catch it, and honestly, why in fuck would you not be trying to catch it?
The Perese yellow was one that summed it up nicely I thought.
He was in a realistic position to attempt an intercept. He threw his hand out to try and catch it, but couldn't drag it in and it went forward off his hand. England were hot on attack but the attempt wasn't cynical and it was not on the back of repeated infringements.
You could maybe make the case that it was a penalty, but I'm not sure I'd agree with you. But to give him a yellow card (after the usual 55 replays and an hour of deliberations) was ridiculous. It's not what yellow cards are for.
And then it created the situation where Smith did something similarly innocuous later in the game and had to be sent for 10 just to maintain consistency.
@barbarian and the thing that gets me...is there is already a "punishment" for the knock on in the books...but we've introduce the idea of judging intent...something that is specifically ignored elsewhere in the laws, we'll happily punish negative intent...but never reward positive, ie accidents....that's what is coming across to me as actually looking for ways to penalise people
@Crucial said in The Current State of Rugby:
Then they should change the laws instead of conjuring up an interpretation that is well removed from laws that have been designed to create a game.
There is no rugby law that says a failed intercept gets carded. The law clearly says that an intentional knock forward has a sanction of a penalty. Not a card, a penalty. If deemed a professional foul i.e you have intentionally infringed to take away an advantage from the opposition, then cards come in. Apply those laws and the YCs we saw are wrong. IMO both cases don't even meet a threshold of being an intentional knock forward at all. One was clearly an intercept attempt and one was a player trying to get to the ball and pulling his hand back when he realised that he wasn't going to make it.
I consider most failed intercepts as unbelievably negative play and as such I'm happy to see them harshly penalised. Perese was not a realistic attempt in my opinion (backed up by what happened to the ball after he touched it) but at least he was running forward into the path of the ball and made an attempt to gather. From what I recall of Marcus Smith's attempt, he was in no man's land defensively, basically flat footed and simply stuck his hand into the path of the pass. I'm happy to see that shit harshly dealt with.
The reason I say that is a mere penalty does not often result in the opportunity that was presented prior to the foul play.
And for anyone who says "instinct", that's bullshit and we all know it. I've played enough footy over decades to know when I can and can't retrieve a ball with one hand outstretched.
@mariner4life said in The Current State of Rugby:
And i absolutely do not blame the referees even one bit.
True, they seem terrified to make a game altering mistake for fear of getting it wrong when their employment depends on adjudicating the impacts of law interpretations dictated to them. Not helped at all by a judiciary staffed by clones of Helen Keller. overruling what every man and his dog saw and expects.
Then there's the gin soaked geriatrics at the IRB World Rugby who think it's the same game as when they were amateurs. Utterly ignorant to the law of unintended consequences of their daft decision making when evidence and alternatives abound.
But for all that, I blame the fans. The loud ones who bleat about perceived transgressions from the other team and howl for the most draconian punishment, oblivious to their hypocrisy should the referee do the same to their team. And on the internet, no country appears worse than the Irish. It seems as soon as they got good, they've been inundated with jonny come latelys, or at least that's how it seems on reddit.
At least the arm band brigade can feel aggrieved we prevented them from playing for a while.
@Kiwiwomble said in The Current State of Rugby:
@Rapido im on another forum that is predominantly NH people and they were all calling for blood for deliberate KNOCK ONS (you know who you are)...there is a growing divide between between north and south on what the game should look like
this comment had me thinking back to playing in the UK - could not get over the non stop constant whinging to the ref about every single farking thing rather than getting on with it.
I think the issues we are seeing in our shop window flow through from the shitshow at the governance level of the game.
Robinson seems to have made shit call after shit call since he has been at the helm, from the issues with the Aussies and SA to Silverlake, that may turn out to be his saving grace but it may also be the dagger through the heart of NZR.
Support seems to be there still for our shop window, super rugby is up and down, NPC support has been a battle for 10+ years, schoolboy rugby and club rugby still seems to attract people, but small scale so smaller numbers.
NZR is teetering on the edge, the ABs are what will tip the balance, if we cant keep them up, it makes the rest of the game that relies on thier money that much tougher.
With attempted intercept knock on's etc, it's kind of a p.o.v thing. I don't do cards for it myself, as I don't think they are THAT much of a deterrent. I'd just go straight to penalty try if they deem the attempter was never trying to catch the ball.
World Rugby are kind of fucked though with the cards for foul / violent conduct issue. Players are huge, physical specimens now and a shoulder to the head (regardless of intent) is going to cause real physical damage. If Hayman & Thompson have early onset dementia now, from incidents with playing weight/physiques 20 years ago .. what's going to happen to the current crop in 20 years?
I don't have the answer. Just the question.
@MajorRage said in The Current State of Rugby:
With attempted intercept knock on's etc, it's kind of a p.o.v thing. I don't do cards for it myself, as I don't think they are THAT much of a deterrent. I'd just go straight to penalty try if they deem the attempter was never trying to catch the ball.
World Rugby are kind of fucked though with the cards for foul / violent conduct issue. Players are huge, physical specimens now and a shoulder to the head (regardless of intent) is going to cause real physical damage. If Hayman & Thompson have early onset dementia now, from incidents with playing weight/physiques 20 years ago .. what's going to happen to the current crop in 20 years?
I don't have the answer. Just the question.
I totally agree that the game can’t continue to create legacy injuries for its players but RCs aren’t going to stop what happened with Angus the other night.
@Crucial said in The Current State of Rugby:
@MajorRage said in The Current State of Rugby:
With attempted intercept knock on's etc, it's kind of a p.o.v thing. I don't do cards for it myself, as I don't think they are THAT much of a deterrent. I'd just go straight to penalty try if they deem the attempter was never trying to catch the ball.
World Rugby are kind of fucked though with the cards for foul / violent conduct issue. Players are huge, physical specimens now and a shoulder to the head (regardless of intent) is going to cause real physical damage. If Hayman & Thompson have early onset dementia now, from incidents with playing weight/physiques 20 years ago .. what's going to happen to the current crop in 20 years?
I don't have the answer. Just the question.
I totally agree that the game can’t continue to create legacy injuries for its players but RCs aren’t going to stop what happened with Angus the other night.
Angus was just a bonfide referee mistake. Disappointing thing is that he could have easily had it checked, but elected not to.
@MajorRage said in The Current State of Rugby:
With attempted intercept knock on's etc, it's kind of a p.o.v thing. I don't do cards for it myself, as I don't think they are THAT much of a deterrent. I'd just go straight to penalty try if they deem the attempter was never trying to catch the ball.
World Rugby are kind of fucked though with the cards for foul / violent conduct issue. Players are huge, physical specimens now and a shoulder to the head (regardless of intent) is going to cause real physical damage. If Hayman & Thompson have early onset dementia now, from incidents with playing weight/physiques 20 years ago .. what's going to happen to the current crop in 20 years?
I don't have the answer. Just the question.
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Make the game longer, either 90mins or stop the clock until the ball is out of scrum / don't run it during kicks at goal to get more "ball in play" time.
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Stop the massive delays for video referrals, physios on, water on time wasting that allows players to catch breath.
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Make the field wider / longer.
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Go to 13 players.
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Shrink the bench or limit the number of total substitutions allowed.
Lots of other problems with many of the above, but fundamentally they need to make the aerobic demands greater to shrink the size of the players to take the edge off the head injury risk. Bonus of making rugby more accessible to people who aren't 6'6" and 120kg.
