And another thing …
At the risk of appearing to “suck up” to our sports editor Tom Hollingworth, I was interested to read his fascinating piece in the Rust yesterday on the illusionary “devil’s pact” between those who organise global sports, those who participate in them and the paying public – i.e. those who habitually attend sporting events, those who support specific sports team through thick and thin and, of course, the millions who watch from afar all around the world via television or computer.
In it, Tom took time out to address the vexed dividing line between what I’d describe here as sporting integrity – by which I mean to refer to the essential core of all sporting contests, i.e. that what matters at the end of the day in question is which participant or team has prevailed in a contest that is staged on “a level playing field” (i.e. one in which nobody concerned has been cheating, whether that be in a manner contrary to the written rules of the sport in question or indeed as regards a spirit of “fair play” and sporting conduct as these are generally understood) – and any element of a specific sport by which its administrators, coaches, participants and/or teams involved conspire together to artificially engineer what is happening on the field of play in the supposed cause of “entertainment”.
I may be putting words in his mouth here, but (for me) what Tom was discussing could be summed up in the word “believe-ability” – i.e. that sports should never forget that the key essential of anything being presented to the public is to satisfy the time-honoured proverbial legal test of “what the man (or woman) on the Clapham omnibus would regard as common sense”.
Rugby union was mentioned by Tom only in the context of video-referrals by a fourth official “upstairs” alerting the on-pitch referee to an incident of foul or ‘against the rules’ play which he seems to have missed in the heat of the game.
Today I want to draw attention to other aspects of rugby union which also touch upon the themes raised in our sports editor’s article.
For example, way back when (here I’m talking of from the middle of the 20th Century until perhaps 1995, the beginning of the professional era) – the rules/laws of rugby union, complicated as they have always been – relied upon a small number of “articles of faith” which were easy to understand and accept by all.
At a line-out and scrum-time, the ball had to be thrown – or put in – straight.
To be legal, all passes had to be made backwards.
At kick-offs, scrum and ruck time players had to remain on-side – whether that was behind the kicker, or behind the back legs of the forwards contesting the ball.
Now fast-forward to the modern era, when – under the supervision of World Rugby – before each new season, the referees in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres get together and decide how they are going to “interpret” the laws of the game during the term to follow.
As a result – as anyone watching a rugby match in 2021 will be aware – the basic essentials I mentioned above have been severely undermined to the detriment of not just general enjoyment of game but (I would submit) the puzzlement of tens of thousands of young people around the globe taking their first tentative steps towards understanding how the game is played.
For example, it is quite clear that scrum halves are now being allowed (if not encouraged) to put the ball into a scrum not just crooked, but actually (and openly) straight into their own second row – presumably in the supposed cause of getting the ball out quicker and increasing the game’s marketability and popularity.
I would just make this point.
Can World Rugby – and/or its referees – please explain to me and others interested in the future of the game why (logically), when it is now no longer a requirement to put the ball in straight at a scrum, does it still have to be thrown in straight at a line-out?
Indeed, when you actually think about it, why have line-outs in rugby at all?
You could just as easily introduce a law that when one team kicks the ball off the park, the other simply “kick-taps” the ball from a point adjacent to where the ball went out. It would certainly save plenty of game-time with the forwards no longer flaffing about, apparently discussing to which of them the ball is going to be thrown, etc.
Here’s another issue.
There no longer appears to be a requirement for a pass to go backwards. These days it only has to go “not forwards”!
That’s why we hear commentators telling us “That was an excellent flat pass …” or even, (disapprovingly) “Actually, that one looked more forward than flat …”
Lastly, and for completeness, because overnight I spotted a new report on research into rugby concussions, there is a current movement in rugby union proposing a reduction the number of games that elite players play each season.
This, of course, runs contrary to the business imperatives of both the leading clubs (and in the Southern Hemisphere, the provincial franchises) and the “major” international countries around the world, for whom the answer to everything – not least the need to generate maximum revenues – is to play more and more games.
The fact is that, for their own health and protection, rugby players at all levels should be playing far less than they do.
I would go so far as to suggest that in the Northern Hemisphere most elite players now play double the number of games each season that they should – possibly even triple the number of games they should.
Is this state of affairs going to change any time soon? Nobody should hold their breath …
Here’s a link to the article by David Coverdale and Connor Boyd on new research into rugby concussions conducted at the University of South Wales that I had mentioned I spotted overnight, on the website of the – DAILY MAIL
