The Current State of Rugby
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@gibbon-rib the weird thing is that reffing is so much better now than it was 30 or even 15 years ago.
What’s changed, I think, is that somehow we got this idea in our head that refs should be close to perfect and share the same interpretations and emphasize the same things.
That’s unrealistic but also less fun?
You don’t complain about the weather. Games played in the pissing rain where the wind changes end at half time are awesome. So are games played in dazzling sun on a crisp Joburg winter afternoon. The team that adapts the best tends to win.
You don’t complain about the wild bounce of the ball. You try not to let it bounce or position yourself so you can react as best you can to whatever insane direction it shoots off at.
Sure, games reffed by Nige or Barnes in their pomp are awesome. But how sweet is it to beat 16 men? Especially when the pedantic bastard has no clue at the scrum and is rewarding a piss weak Welsh frontrow for fucking around? And it’s only that sweet because sometimes you just can’t overcome it.
Are there dumb Laws and dumber interpretations and massive reffing blind spots? Fuck yes. Should I be allowed to ruck a yappy halfback whose within a yard of the ball when all his mates are off their feet? Fucking Fuck yes. But I’m gonna get pinged for it sure as he won’t get pinged for being offside when he walks past his three mates like some godawful human centipede to “ruck” the ball back to its anus.
Maybe my perversity is showing, but I get a sick joy from players and teams mastering all our game’s capricious absurdities and developing ways to turn them to their advantage.
@Smuts said in The Current State of Rugby:
@gibbon-rib the weird thing is that reffing is so much better now than it was 30 or even 15 years ago.
What’s changed, I think, is that somehow we got this idea in our head that refs should be close to perfect and share the same interpretations and emphasize the same things.
That’s unrealistic but also less fun?
You don’t complain about the weather. Games played in the pissing rain where the wind changes end at half time are awesome. So are games played in dazzling sun on a crisp Joburg winter afternoon. The team that adapts the best tends to win.
You don’t complain about the wild bounce of the ball. You try not to let it bounce or position yourself so you can react as best you can to whatever insane direction it shoots off at.
Sure, games reffed by Nige or Barnes in their pomp are awesome. But how sweet is it to beat 16 men? Especially when the pedantic bastard has no clue at the scrum and is rewarding a piss weak Welsh frontrow for fucking around? And it’s only that sweet because sometimes you just can’t overcome it.
Are there dumb Laws and dumber interpretations and massive reffing blind spots? Fuck yes. Should I be allowed to ruck a yappy halfback whose within a yard of the ball when all his mates are off their feet? Fucking Fuck yes. But I’m gonna get pinged for it sure as he won’t get pinged for being offside when he walks past his three mates like some godawful human centipede to “ruck” the ball back to its anus.
Maybe my perversity is showing, but I get a sick joy from players and teams mastering all our game’s capricious absurdities and developing ways to turn them to their advantage.
Are you from SA? If so, Hard to take seriously after the ridiculous carryon from your coach during the lions series.
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@Smuts said in The Current State of Rugby:
@gibbon-rib the weird thing is that reffing is so much better now than it was 30 or even 15 years ago.
What’s changed, I think, is that somehow we got this idea in our head that refs should be close to perfect and share the same interpretations and emphasize the same things.
That’s unrealistic but also less fun?
You don’t complain about the weather. Games played in the pissing rain where the wind changes end at half time are awesome. So are games played in dazzling sun on a crisp Joburg winter afternoon. The team that adapts the best tends to win.
You don’t complain about the wild bounce of the ball. You try not to let it bounce or position yourself so you can react as best you can to whatever insane direction it shoots off at.
Sure, games reffed by Nige or Barnes in their pomp are awesome. But how sweet is it to beat 16 men? Especially when the pedantic bastard has no clue at the scrum and is rewarding a piss weak Welsh frontrow for fucking around? And it’s only that sweet because sometimes you just can’t overcome it.
Are there dumb Laws and dumber interpretations and massive reffing blind spots? Fuck yes. Should I be allowed to ruck a yappy halfback whose within a yard of the ball when all his mates are off their feet? Fucking Fuck yes. But I’m gonna get pinged for it sure as he won’t get pinged for being offside when he walks past his three mates like some godawful human centipede to “ruck” the ball back to its anus.
Maybe my perversity is showing, but I get a sick joy from players and teams mastering all our game’s capricious absurdities and developing ways to turn them to their advantage.
Are you from SA? If so, Hard to take seriously after the ridiculous carryon from your coach during the lions series.
@Billy-Tell said in The Current State of Rugby:
@Smuts said in The Current State of Rugby:
@gibbon-rib the weird thing is that reffing is so much better now than it was 30 or even 15 years ago.
What’s changed, I think, is that somehow we got this idea in our head that refs should be close to perfect and share the same interpretations and emphasize the same things.
That’s unrealistic but also less fun?
You don’t complain about the weather. Games played in the pissing rain where the wind changes end at half time are awesome. So are games played in dazzling sun on a crisp Joburg winter afternoon. The team that adapts the best tends to win.
You don’t complain about the wild bounce of the ball. You try not to let it bounce or position yourself so you can react as best you can to whatever insane direction it shoots off at.
Sure, games reffed by Nige or Barnes in their pomp are awesome. But how sweet is it to beat 16 men? Especially when the pedantic bastard has no clue at the scrum and is rewarding a piss weak Welsh frontrow for fucking around? And it’s only that sweet because sometimes you just can’t overcome it.
Are there dumb Laws and dumber interpretations and massive reffing blind spots? Fuck yes. Should I be allowed to ruck a yappy halfback whose within a yard of the ball when all his mates are off their feet? Fucking Fuck yes. But I’m gonna get pinged for it sure as he won’t get pinged for being offside when he walks past his three mates like some godawful human centipede to “ruck” the ball back to its anus.
Maybe my perversity is showing, but I get a sick joy from players and teams mastering all our game’s capricious absurdities and developing ways to turn them to their advantage.
Are you from SA? If so, Hard to take seriously after the ridiculous carryon from your coach during the lions series.
Unless @Smuts is actually Rassie incognito, that's not really a fair comment.
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@Smuts Appreciate the sentiment, but coming from one of the Justice 4 All crew it rankles a bit
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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"
@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"
Maybe remove the yellow card. But then players will just deliberately knock the ball down to stop an attack.
And is it a law or refing issue It's a question not a statement
I never had an issue with the cards btw. One was a card and maybe one could have been just a penalty . But not an expert on this
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@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"
Maybe remove the yellow card. But then players will just deliberately knock the ball down to stop an attack.
And is it a law or refing issue It's a question not a statement
I never had an issue with the cards btw. One was a card and maybe one could have been just a penalty . But not an expert on this
@Winger said in The Current State of Rugby:
But then players will just deliberately knock the ball down to stop an attack.
will they though?
IMO the vast majority are genuine attempts, well, in the players mind he thinks he has a shot at it, but timing needs to be perfect; the fact they got a finger to it, means there was a chance, however small.
I'd say a very small number go out and intentionally knock a pass down purely to prevent the pass being made, I think if its in the 22, they need to look more at PT rather than YC.
It isnt like so many other aspects of the game come down to a split second decision or movement that can result in something spectacular, at both ends of the spectacular spectrum.
Doesnt mean something was cynical or malicious
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@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"
Maybe remove the yellow card. But then players will just deliberately knock the ball down to stop an attack.
And is it a law or refing issue It's a question not a statement
I never had an issue with the cards btw. One was a card and maybe one could have been just a penalty . But not an expert on this
@Winger said in The Current State of Rugby:
@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"
Maybe remove the yellow card. But then players will just deliberately knock the ball down to stop an attack.
And is it a law or refing issue It's a question not a statement
I never had an issue with the cards btw. One was a card and maybe one could have been just a penalty . But not an expert on this
as @taniwharugby said i believe the vast majority of them are legitimate...if ambitious...attempts, whats more likely for a winger coming up into the line...wants to see a scrum....or wants to run 80m and pout it down under the posts winning the game
BUT...if they do...so?...attacking team gets the ball, can launch an attack from a scrum
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The game is truly fucked when a half of rugby takes 60 minutes to complete. Mainly because of TMO interventions.
I haven't watched more than a handful of (non test) games of rugby live in a decade. I used to watch every S12 game even the ones between two Saffa sides. was a season ticket holder at Harbour and used to travel to 3-4 away games a season.
the last two Saturday's I haven't even watched the game live as I wanted to watch with my partner and she was ill so saw it on the Sunday. We will be at an event in Napier for the decider and travelling back on Sunday so it's unlikely I'll even watch the game as I'm not going to try and avoid the media for a full 24 hours.
Only second time I will have missed an AB Test in over 30 years. This year was first time I haven't watched live.
The changes to the game have driven out much of my enjoyment of the game. It really started with the referring of the 17 Lions series and has only got worse.
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The game is truly fucked when a half of rugby takes 60 minutes to complete. Mainly because of TMO interventions.
I haven't watched more than a handful of (non test) games of rugby live in a decade. I used to watch every S12 game even the ones between two Saffa sides. was a season ticket holder at Harbour and used to travel to 3-4 away games a season.
the last two Saturday's I haven't even watched the game live as I wanted to watch with my partner and she was ill so saw it on the Sunday. We will be at an event in Napier for the decider and travelling back on Sunday so it's unlikely I'll even watch the game as I'm not going to try and avoid the media for a full 24 hours.
Only second time I will have missed an AB Test in over 30 years. This year was first time I haven't watched live.
The changes to the game have driven out much of my enjoyment of the game. It really started with the referring of the 17 Lions series and has only got worse.
@dogmeat i feel the real rugby nerds enjoy seeing every mistake from player or ref picked up and punished/corrected....where as the casual fan or those of us that forget about most mistake pretty quickly (unless i read about them on here) enjoy rugby much less
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@dogmeat i feel the real rugby nerds enjoy seeing every mistake from player or ref picked up and punished/corrected....where as the casual fan or those of us that forget about most mistake pretty quickly (unless i read about them on here) enjoy rugby much less
@Kiwiwomble said in The Current State of Rugby:
@dogmeat i feel the real rugby nerds enjoy seeing every mistake from player or ref picked up and punished/corrected....where as the casual fan or those of us that forget about most mistake pretty quickly (unless i read about them on here) enjoy rugby much less
I think people want to see the other team punished. If their team benefits from cards and penalties they often don't give a shit and can be quite supportive of the sanctions. This seems to be the case in all the Rugby I watch (Super and ABs).
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@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 is everything.
There are a bunch of different problems plaguing rugby under the general banner of refereeing.
1 - The law book is a mess, poorly written - ambiguous, contradictory, vague - and should be re-written from the ground up even if they don't change any laws (and we all agree they need to change some of them).
2 - Referees make too many blatantly incorrect decisions (AWJ's absurd yellow for example) that could be forgiven in real time before we had TMO, but there's no excuse for now. And there's way too much inconsistency in how the laws are applied - between countries, individual refs, from one game to the next, and worst of all between two teams in the same game (how many times do we see breakdown and scrum pens given to the team that "should" be stronger regardless of what's actually going on?).
3 - But those are relatively easy problems to fix. The toughest one is the perception that referring is appalling and is ruining the game. This is one of the rare things that NH and SH fans can agree on. But to fix it we need to deal with not just the previous two things, but also the gulf in about what rugby should look like.
Lots of people here were unhappy about the cards for the intentional knock-ons, and Ta'avao's red for the accidental tête-à-tête with Ringrose, while the people up north thought Fainga’anuku was damn lucky not to see red, and similarly Genge for pinning a guy down and smacking him about the head.
SH fans think that Northerners want to turn the game into tiddlywinks, with cards every 5 minutes and no tackling above the waist. NH fans think Southerners are in total denial about the seriousness of CTE and they want to dumb the rules down until it's just league XVs.
Who's right? It doesn't matter. At all. Not one chuffing iota. What matters is that we're poles apart, and you can't fix the law book or the refereeing if nobody can agree what 'fixed' means. And as far as I can see there's no plan for that at all.
@gibbon-rib said in The Current State of Rugby:
1 - The law book is a mess, poorly written - ambiguous, contradictory, vague - and should be re-written from the ground up even if they don't change any laws (and we all agree they need to change some of them).
That has been done already, not long ago
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@gibbon-rib said in The Current State of Rugby:
1 - The law book is a mess, poorly written - ambiguous, contradictory, vague - and should be re-written from the ground up even if they don't change any laws (and we all agree they need to change some of them).
That has been done already, not long ago
@Crucial really, right from first principles?
- 15 players per team
- these are the field dimensions
- pass the ball backwards
- scrums and lines outs
whats next?
I feel anything ive read about is a review of the existing laws which is very different
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@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 said in The Current State of Rugby:
@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.
Know what you mean tanwha, I am going to test on Saturady, but disappointed to be missing club semi final of team I follow here in Taranaki. I follow Kaponga in 2nd division, and you bang on, these fellas play to their level (which is not bad at all) and the absolute enjoyment I got watching the game, in the showers and wind, is hard to describe. Has actually made me think this week how we are stuffing up top level rugby etc with TMOs and probaly the whole professional thing! Add to that standing on sideline with like minded people, and having a quiet beer with them afterwards, I think as I said again a wake up call. I go schoolboy rugby too following U15 team, and find same there. young buggers playing to the best of their ability and every but as enjoyable to watch!
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@Winger said in The Current State of Rugby:
But then players will just deliberately knock the ball down to stop an attack.
will they though?
IMO the vast majority are genuine attempts, well, in the players mind he thinks he has a shot at it, but timing needs to be perfect; the fact they got a finger to it, means there was a chance, however small.
I'd say a very small number go out and intentionally knock a pass down purely to prevent the pass being made, I think if its in the 22, they need to look more at PT rather than YC.
It isnt like so many other aspects of the game come down to a split second decision or movement that can result in something spectacular, at both ends of the spectacular spectrum.
Doesnt mean something was cynical or malicious
@taniwharugby said in The Current State of Rugby:
@Winger said in The Current State of Rugby:
But then players will just deliberately knock the ball down to stop an attack.
will they though?
IMO the vast majority are genuine attempts, well, in the players mind he thinks he has a shot at it, but timing needs to be perfect.
It isnt like so many other aspects of the game come down to a split second decision or movement that can result in something spectacular, at both ends of the spectacular spectrum.
Doesnt mean something was cynical or malicious
actually I slightly disagree.. I believe in most cases the intent is to prevent the play in front of them first and foremost. Now, do they have belief that they can pull it off?, sure I agree with that, but it will always be impossible to know until the pass is thrown how close they will actually get. The intent first though is stop the attack whether they get it or not. So for me that is negative/cynical play if they fail, which they are always in a high risk of doing so. Its a low percentage play, but high reward if you succeed.
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@Smuts said in The Current State of Rugby:
@gibbon-rib the weird thing is that reffing is so much better now than it was 30 or even 15 years ago.
What’s changed, I think, is that somehow we got this idea in our head that refs should be close to perfect and share the same interpretations and emphasize the same things.
That’s unrealistic but also less fun?
You don’t complain about the weather. Games played in the pissing rain where the wind changes end at half time are awesome. So are games played in dazzling sun on a crisp Joburg winter afternoon. The team that adapts the best tends to win.
You don’t complain about the wild bounce of the ball. You try not to let it bounce or position yourself so you can react as best you can to whatever insane direction it shoots off at.
Sure, games reffed by Nige or Barnes in their pomp are awesome. But how sweet is it to beat 16 men? Especially when the pedantic bastard has no clue at the scrum and is rewarding a piss weak Welsh frontrow for fucking around? And it’s only that sweet because sometimes you just can’t overcome it.
Are there dumb Laws and dumber interpretations and massive reffing blind spots? Fuck yes. Should I be allowed to ruck a yappy halfback whose within a yard of the ball when all his mates are off their feet? Fucking Fuck yes. But I’m gonna get pinged for it sure as he won’t get pinged for being offside when he walks past his three mates like some godawful human centipede to “ruck” the ball back to its anus.
Maybe my perversity is showing, but I get a sick joy from players and teams mastering all our game’s capricious absurdities and developing ways to turn them to their advantage.
Are you from SA? If so, Hard to take seriously after the ridiculous carryon from your coach during the lions series.
@Billy-Tell said in The Current State of Rugby:
@Smuts said in The Current State of Rugby:
@gibbon-rib the weird thing is that reffing is so much better now than it was 30 or even 15 years ago.
What’s changed, I think, is that somehow we got this idea in our head that refs should be close to perfect and share the same interpretations and emphasize the same things.
That’s unrealistic but also less fun?
You don’t complain about the weather. Games played in the pissing rain where the wind changes end at half time are awesome. So are games played in dazzling sun on a crisp Joburg winter afternoon. The team that adapts the best tends to win.
You don’t complain about the wild bounce of the ball. You try not to let it bounce or position yourself so you can react as best you can to whatever insane direction it shoots off at.
Sure, games reffed by Nige or Barnes in their pomp are awesome. But how sweet is it to beat 16 men? Especially when the pedantic bastard has no clue at the scrum and is rewarding a piss weak Welsh frontrow for fucking around? And it’s only that sweet because sometimes you just can’t overcome it.
Are there dumb Laws and dumber interpretations and massive reffing blind spots? Fuck yes. Should I be allowed to ruck a yappy halfback whose within a yard of the ball when all his mates are off their feet? Fucking Fuck yes. But I’m gonna get pinged for it sure as he won’t get pinged for being offside when he walks past his three mates like some godawful human centipede to “ruck” the ball back to its anus.
Maybe my perversity is showing, but I get a sick joy from players and teams mastering all our game’s capricious absurdities and developing ways to turn them to their advantage.
Are you from SA? If so, Hard to take seriously after the ridiculous carryon from your coach during the lions series.
That's ridiculous comment, why is it hard to take seriously someone from SA because one person from there made a stupid decision and statement.
I think there is awful lot os sense in what gibbon says . -
knocking the ball on is not a penalty
for some reason deliberately knocking the ball on is
but i'm fucked if i can see how a ref can be sure he "deliberately knocked it on" and didn't just stuff up a catch.
This is just some bullshit rule brought in because some winger some time slapped a ball down to stop a try, a team lost because of it, someone whinged like fuck and we used a sledgehammer to "make sure it never happens again" (spoiler: it happened again).
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@dogmeat i feel the real rugby nerds enjoy seeing every mistake from player or ref picked up and punished/corrected....where as the casual fan or those of us that forget about most mistake pretty quickly (unless i read about them on here) enjoy rugby much less
@Kiwiwomble said in The Current State of Rugby:
@dogmeat i feel the real rugby nerds enjoy seeing every mistake from player or ref picked up and punished/corrected....where as the casual fan or those of us that forget about most mistake pretty quickly (unless i read about them on here) enjoy rugby much less
I think maybe the opposite Kiwiw, I am a rugby nerd or nutter etc, and I think like most understnd you will get the odd things missed. I actually think the problem comes from the team fans/nerds who will search for any minor offence against their team etc (usually helped by commentators, replays etc) and while many claim to be fans etc, an awful lot are fans of winning teams not the teams themselves.
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knocking the ball on is not a penalty
for some reason deliberately knocking the ball on is
but i'm fucked if i can see how a ref can be sure he "deliberately knocked it on" and didn't just stuff up a catch.
This is just some bullshit rule brought in because some winger some time slapped a ball down to stop a try, a team lost because of it, someone whinged like fuck and we used a sledgehammer to "make sure it never happens again" (spoiler: it happened again).
@mariner4life ha, I've seen occasion when one team passes a ball, is clearly a skip pass, but the guy in the middle reaches for it and knocks it on, he should be carded too!
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@mariner4life ha, I've seen occasion when one team passes a ball, is clearly a skip pass, but the guy in the middle reaches for it and knocks it on, he should be carded too!
@taniwharugby said in The Current State of Rugby:
@mariner4life ha, I've seen occasion when one team passes a ball, is clearly a skip pass, but the guy in the middle reaches for it and knocks it on, he should be carded too!
this very scenario played out in my head before
i bet he only used one hand too, a total give away.
yellow card fluffybunny!
oooh, even better, if he hadn't have stuck his stupid mitt in the way the winger would have scored. is that a penalty try AND one of your own players to the bin?
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@Kiwiwomble said in The Current State of Rugby:
@dogmeat i feel the real rugby nerds enjoy seeing every mistake from player or ref picked up and punished/corrected....where as the casual fan or those of us that forget about most mistake pretty quickly (unless i read about them on here) enjoy rugby much less
I think maybe the opposite Kiwiw, I am a rugby nerd or nutter etc, and I think like most understnd you will get the odd things missed. I actually think the problem comes from the team fans/nerds who will search for any minor offence against their team etc (usually helped by commentators, replays etc) and while many claim to be fans etc, an awful lot are fans of winning teams not the teams themselves.
@Dan54 said in The Current State of Rugby:
@Kiwiwomble said in The Current State of Rugby:
@dogmeat i feel the real rugby nerds enjoy seeing every mistake from player or ref picked up and punished/corrected....where as the casual fan or those of us that forget about most mistake pretty quickly (unless i read about them on here) enjoy rugby much less
I think maybe the opposite Kiwiw, I am a rugby nerd or nutter etc, and I think like most understnd you will get the odd things missed. I actually think the problem comes from the team fans/nerds who will search for any minor offence against their team etc (usually helped by commentators, replays etc) and while many claim to be fans etc, an awful lot are fans of winning teams not the teams themselves.
either way i think we're losing the casual fan
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I think further to the above, if you are throwing a pass that the opposition player can get a hand to, it's not a great pass and at best it's high risk. A game where players can't or are too scared to even try and intercept passes like that is just stupid.
