A sign of the times perhaps …
One might venture to suggest that one of the plusses of the global Covid-19 pandemic is that it has forced the human race to confront – or revisit – some of the threats to its way of life, if not existence.
Most of them can be summarised or epitomised by the description “itself” – namely an ever-growing global population that needs housing, feeding and keeping warm or cool; finite resources; climate change largely caused by human activity; the devastation of habitats, food chains and means of support; and the complacency inherent in its in-built assumption that “everything will remain forever as it is” when (in circumstances like those we endure in the present) remind us that it clearly won’t.
On a more mundane level the travails of the sport of rugby union brought home to roost by the pandemic are becoming ever more apparent.
Over the past twelve month the sports pages of the UK national press, the airwaves broadcasting television and radio coverage – and indeed those specialist organs devoted to the 15-a-side version of the game – have gradually become more and more obsessed with the ‘gap’ between its grass roots, community-based (amateur and semi-pro) manifestation and the elite professional club and international version.
As with all sports, rugby’s finances have also been badly affected by the ban on spectators and fans attending games. Amongst the knock-on effects has been the stark opportunity to consider anew the technicalities of the rules, the way they are interpreted by its officials and administrators, and the strategies and tactics now fashionable at the elite level.
The last of the above is causing plenty of head-scratching, most particularly when the “entertainment value” of modern rugby play is considered.
The general improvement of coaching and skills-teaching in the modern game – together with the development of “marginal gain” tactics in the pursuit of success at any price or cost has badly devalued rugby’s entertainment quotient.
Rugby is not alone in this – the pragmatic “first stop the other side playing before then trying to win the game yourself” tactic has invaded many sports – but the truth is that rugby’s complicated rules easily provide infinitive opportunities to push the envelope, slow the game down, and/or gain covert advantage by deceiving and/or kidding the officials via end repeated “failed” scrum engagements and/or convenient “minor injuries” that either run the clock down or at least interrupt growing momentum or pressure being exerted by the opposition.
The “pursuit of entertainment” value – the imperative to keep the ball in play and provide open, fast-moving, running rugby in order to compete with the appeal of sports which don’t have rugby’s problems in this respect – has caused many of rugby’s rules to be interpreted liberally and/or ignored altogether.
An obvious but troubling example is the different approach to scrums and line-outs.
Can anyone in Word Rugby and/or its cohort of elite referees please explain why these days the requirement of a scrum half to “put the ball in straight” is completely ignored by its officials when, at line-out time, a hooker who fails to throw the ball in straight (if the referees spots this) automatically gives the advantage of an award of a scrum to the other team?
Whatever happened to consistency in the way the laws are applied?
Yesterday at a two-household family social gathering I attended the subject of the Northern Hemisphere “Nations Cup” autumn internationals came up in conversation.
I mentioned that I had missed what amounted to the Final – the England v France game (the latter of whom deliberately fielded a “second XV”) played on Sunday because I did not to have access to Amazon Prime which was broadcasting it.
My brother, who does subscribe to Amazon Prime, also admitted he had not watched it – but in his case this was by deliberate personal choice.
He had found the general quality of play in the eight-nation tournament (and its entertainment value) over the past four weeks so poor that on the day he had chosen to take his dog and grandchildren for a walk in preference to submitting himself to another dose of it.
However, that wasn’t the most telling fact of this development. Joining him on said expedition – also by personal choice – was his son-in-law, who happens to work for a sports agency that represents several players taking part in the Final!
