The Current State of Rugby
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@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.
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I'm a big fan of bringing back substitutions for injuries only
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@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
@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.
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I'm a big fan of bringing back substitutions for injuries only
@MiketheSnow said in The Current State of Rugby:
I'm a big fan of bringing back substitutions for injuries only
100%. If you start, you should be able to play for 80 minutes. Get rid of the starter/finisher rubbish. Players will have to lose bulk, or the more aerobic ones will have more chances at the end of games as players tire.
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I'm a big fan of bringing back substitutions for injuries only
@MiketheSnow said in The Current State of Rugby:
I'm a big fan of bringing back substitutions for injuries only
Define injury
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@MiketheSnow said in The Current State of Rugby:
I'm a big fan of bringing back substitutions for injuries only
Define injury
@gibbon-rib said in The Current State of Rugby:
@MiketheSnow said in The Current State of Rugby:
I'm a big fan of bringing back substitutions for injuries only
Define injury
Therein lies the rub.
No win bonus if you leave the field
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@MiketheSnow said in The Current State of Rugby:
I'm a big fan of bringing back substitutions for injuries only
Define injury
@gibbon-rib said in The Current State of Rugby:
@MiketheSnow said in The Current State of Rugby:
I'm a big fan of bringing back substitutions for injuries only
Define injury
You don't have to define it, you just have to limit the number of subs allowed. full size bench, but only 3 subs allowed for the game, nominally for injury. Then you can't rort the system that much.
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@gibbon-rib said in The Current State of Rugby:
@MiketheSnow said in The Current State of Rugby:
I'm a big fan of bringing back substitutions for injuries only
Define injury
You don't have to define it, you just have to limit the number of subs allowed. full size bench, but only 3 subs allowed for the game, nominally for injury. Then you can't rort the system that much.
@reprobate said in The Current State of Rugby:
@gibbon-rib said in The Current State of Rugby:
@MiketheSnow said in The Current State of Rugby:
I'm a big fan of bringing back substitutions for injuries only
Define injury
You don't have to define it, you just have to limit the number of subs allowed. full size bench, but only 3 subs allowed for the game, nominally for injury. Then you can't rort the system that much.
You're a smarter man than me
Well played
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@gibbon-rib said in The Current State of Rugby:
@MiketheSnow said in The Current State of Rugby:
I'm a big fan of bringing back substitutions for injuries only
Define injury
You don't have to define it, you just have to limit the number of subs allowed. full size bench, but only 3 subs allowed for the game, nominally for injury. Then you can't rort the system that much.
@reprobate said in The Current State of Rugby:
@gibbon-rib said in The Current State of Rugby:
@MiketheSnow said in The Current State of Rugby:
I'm a big fan of bringing back substitutions for injuries only
Define injury
You don't have to define it, you just have to limit the number of subs allowed. full size bench, but only 3 subs allowed for the game, nominally for injury. Then you can't rort the system that much.
Yeah, that's the only way it could work. Of course it wouldn't be that unusual to get more than 3 injuries in a game. And it gives the opposing team a big incentive to help find a 4th injury...
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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 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.
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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.
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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).
