Congrats South Africa; But, gee, rugby has some tinkering to do
Rugby has got some real problems and that was simply highlighted on Sunday morning.
Opinion: Late in Sunday morning’s Rugby World Cup final I became increasingly eager for the All Blacks to finish the job and claim another World Cup title.
As a Southlander, my mind flicked to those who would be watching on at Ethan de Groot’s home club Invercargill Blues in the “De Groot Stand”.
I thought about the prospect of de Groot returning home to Gore as a World Cup winner.
But there was another reason why my eagerness for victory grew as the game did. I didn’t want to write this following column with the impression there was a large bunch of sour grapes squeezed into it.
Before I go on, I will congratulate South Africa. Your loose forward Pieter-Steph du Toit turned one of the all-time heroic World Cup final performances.
Back to the point. Rugby has got some real problems and that was simply highlighted on Sunday morning.
An already complex sport is becoming harder by the year for the average pundit to decipher.
The gameday officials have copped it following Sunday’s morning final, just as they have in the rugby world for a while now.
There were mistakes made, but those match officials are also operating in a flawed system put in place by rugby administrators.
Most of the contentious decisions made were right, by the letter of the law. It’s the system that needs questioning.
There are many things at play, including the fact that you could find a penalty at any ruck now because they’ve just kept adding to an ever-growing list of ruck laws over the years.
This is not coming simply from some sort of keyboard warrior.
I’ll point you to comments Sir Steve Hansen has previously made.
“What we've tended to do over the years is add, add, add; when history will tell you that if you make something simple, by taking things away, then you'll get more consistent at making those decisions.
“I've been beating my head against a brick wall for quite some time to get people to understand that we're over-complicating it,” Hansen said.
For too long teams have also been allowed to slow games down. Last year, in Dunedin, I watched Ireland forwards drop a knee and prompt a stoppage whenever the All Blacks wanted to play with a bit of tempo.
It’s still happening.
That could be quickly sorted if officials took a stand. That night we got a stop-start contest that had many at the ground wondering if the ticket price was justified.
But the obvious frustration many rugby followers have following Sunday’s final is the card lottery, and the impact it is having on the game as a spectacle.
It’s not necessarily an easy solution for rugby administrators to sort, I’ll give them that.
They are under more and more pressure to ensure there is a duty of care for players around injury - in particular head injuries.
Lawyers for more than 185 players have taken legal action against World Rugby for negligence, claiming that playing the sport caused brain damage.
They stated that World Rugby, amongst others, has failed to “protect players from permanent injury”.
Hence the crack down on head contact in rugby and the increased number of cards dished out.
But as a spectacle rugby is morphing into a game Uno, given the number of cards at play now. (Full transparency: I stole that line from Matt Giteau).
It adds to the stoppages in the game, drags test matches out, and stifles rugby’s tempo.
And then you get teams playing large chunks of games with 14 men - or sometimes less.
What I will say is rugby coaches shouldn’t simply throw potshots at officials and pretend they have not been complicit in this increased number of cards.
For many years the tackle height has risen in modern coaching.
It was not that long ago that a bootlace tackle was hailed as being spectacular. Players now get dropped from teams for tackling too low and allowing opposition players to offload.
For the past decade or so there has been an increased focus on raising the tackle height to wrap the ball in dominant tackles.
Players haven’t been taught to initiate head contact; I’ll acknowledge that.
But what has happened is that over many years of encouraging chest-height tackles the margin of error has become much smaller compared to when players aimed to tackle around the legs.
As a result, we have more head-to-head contact.
Somehow the game needs to encourage the tackle height to drop and for coaches to push for that.
It would do three things, reduce shoulder-on-head and head-on-head contact, reduce the number of cards handed out, and also open up the game with increased offloads.
If we’re looking at it with a quest for a better spectacle, can and should the game also change tact around the increased use of cards?
Instead of the tackle height crackdown being through cards, should the game instead crack down by handing out sterner suspensions on players if they get their tackle height wrong?
What we do know is rugby as a spectacle needs reviewing.
Was a tough game to watch. I felt worse about Aaron Smith being denied a try in his last test match than the All Blacks loss. He is a magic player and scored the try with his normal panache with a lovely dive. The All Blacks showed plenty of heart.
I do wonder why a red card on a player should be used to punish the whole team. Be a far greater spectacle to see and even match and leave the punishment out of the game result. But then that would mean treating the yellow card differently as well.
Great article Logan,something has to change.but who will listen.the TMO should not in my view have an opinion.he should only be allowed to bring the referees attention to the large screen.too often the TMO is taking over.this final may trigger some response perhaps not.it might have if england was involved.a sorry state isn't it.