State of the Game
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@mariner4life said in State of the Game:
my most obvious one is ban the box kick. no kicking from teh base of the ruck at all. It will do away with shit loads of the aerial bombardment crap we have now, and fuck the ridiculous rucks we see. and the halfbacks being able to move the ball around with impunity.
Easy fix: eliminate caterpillar rucks via modified application of "use it". Once a ruck forms, ref calls "use it" and counts to 5 - not "waits for the ball to be available then counts to 5". Ball not out? Short arm against.
That way you can still box kick but you put yourself at risk of chargedown.
Scrum: can only opt for a scrum from a full-arm penalty. This is to counterbalance the increased short arms from the ruck change above.
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i am wrestling with the thought of banning hands in the ruck at all. Counter balanced by being really harsh on body heights over the ball. Incentivise throwing numbers at rucks on both sides of the ball
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@mariner4life Didn't they try something similar in the 2016 NPC and it was an utter failure?
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@mariner4life said in State of the Game:
i am wrestling with the thought of banning hands in the ruck at all. Counter balanced by being really harsh on body heights over the ball. Incentivise throwing numbers at rucks on both sides of the ball
When the Mazda ARC (2007 version) allowed hands in the ruck no matter what, it actually improved the game and stopped the missile cleanouts. It made teams commit more to the ruck as well, making space.
David Croft had a field day annoying people
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@NTA said in State of the Game:
David Croft had a field day annoying people
i cleaned out that guy with everything i had one day, and with a subtle shift of his body i slipped completely off. Immovable over the ball.
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@NTA said in State of the Game:
Scrum: can only opt for a scrum from a full-arm penalty. This is to counterbalance the increased short arms from the ruck change above.
I'd suggest that's completely the wrong approach. You want to incentivize maintaining power athletes in those positions. The more scrums they do, the tireder they become so less effective in defence.
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@NTA said in State of the Game:
@mariner4life said in State of the Game:
i am wrestling with the thought of banning hands in the ruck at all. Counter balanced by being really harsh on body heights over the ball. Incentivise throwing numbers at rucks on both sides of the ball
When the Mazda ARC (2007 version) allowed hands in the ruck no matter what, it actually improved the game and stopped the missile cleanouts. It made teams commit more to the ruck as well, making space.
David Croft had a field day annoying people
ok if my suggestion has been tried and failed as per @KiwiMurph then try something else. anything that commits defenders to the ruck is what is needed. The argies ignoring them and fanning across the field is good for no one.
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as with anything though, the coaches will beat any rule changes. coaches hate chaos and will do anything to avoid it. and so you get where we are today. over-coached, over-fit athletes playing a repetitive game punctuated by set pieces designed to do not much in most cases. -
@antipodean said in State of the Game:
@NTA said in State of the Game:
Scrum: can only opt for a scrum from a full-arm penalty. This is to counterbalance the increased short arms from the ruck change above.
I'd suggest that's completely the wrong approach. You want to incentivize maintaining power athletes in those positions. The more scrums they do, the tireder they become so less effective in defence.
fair point. i just hate constant resets and playing for penalties so you can kick goals.
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@mariner4life said in State of the Game:
@NTA said in State of the Game:
@mariner4life said in State of the Game:
i am wrestling with the thought of banning hands in the ruck at all. Counter balanced by being really harsh on body heights over the ball. Incentivise throwing numbers at rucks on both sides of the ball
When the Mazda ARC (2007 version) allowed hands in the ruck no matter what, it actually improved the game and stopped the missile cleanouts. It made teams commit more to the ruck as well, making space.
David Croft had a field day annoying people
ok if my suggestion has been tried and failed as per @KiwiMurph then try something else. anything that commits defenders to the ruck is what is needed. The argies ignoring them and fanning across the field is good for no one.
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as with anything though, the coaches will beat any rule changes. coaches hate chaos and will do anything to avoid it. and so you get where we are today. over-coached, over-fit athletes playing a repetitive game punctuated by set pieces designed to do not much in most cases.I don't now if it was a failure.
It was a coaching and commentating failure. People lost their shit about defenders toe poking the 'opponent's' balls out of the ruck, The obvious answer to this problem was to commit more players to protect the ball. Almost all the law experimentations have been either to speed the game up or to find away to make teams again commit more forwards to breakdowns.
Instead they reverted their interpretations to the status quo, but, as they reversed out of the barn door - they added yet another line to the rule book that you could only ruck backwards. Sometimes I just despair of it all ....
I don't know if it worked or not (or would work), it was still a work in progress ... but the administrative (lawmaking) outcome from it was , as I said, despairing.
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@KiwiMurph nah I cant recall what the changes were, but I think you could still use hands, but they were a mess with people wading through kicking it out
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I don't have a problem with box kicks.
Anyway. I grew up watching 80s rugby where the first-five spent 60 minutes putting up up-and-unders before you had earned the right to go wide.
Aerial ping-pong is bad. But seems waaaaay less of this than in the 90s (Can't remember why so much in 90s, maybe after lifting in lineouts legalised )
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Sometimes I think about the game and think if you were starting fresh now what would you do, and would you make the laws.
I’m not suggesting these as serious changes. Too much sunk investment.
What would I do?
Not 15 players, and definitely not 8 subs.
Not have a position so specialist, and physically dangerous, that can only be replaced by a dedicated player of same position (Modern front rowers). And you need 3 of them on the bench.How would I change that. 13 players like League? League scrums are depowered but a mess. No, maybe my anti-league biases can’t concede they might have that right.
How about 14 players. 7 forwards. Scrums are a front row of 4 and second row of 3. More a wrestle than a unison of power channel through 3 necks.
It will be messier, but if OK with messy (scrums used to be a mess before 1990s anyway) there will be no resets. People push, someone hooks, ball comes out on one side or the other. Job done, what is there to penalise? Maybe not even have put ins - ball is stationary like gridiron and team with loosehead 'feed' frorms with their hooker setting the placement of the 2 opposing rows? Halfbacks behind the 2 scrums ready for the messy hook back.So, now have a sport of 14 players, and maybe just 4 subs, none specialist. Imagine the benefits to amateur club rugby numbers, and to the current costs of running 40 man professional club squad.
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I would probably revoke some of the 1992 ‘use it or lose it’ law changes. I would make it again if you are going forward you get a scrum. As per my suggestion above – scrums should be more of a lottery anyway. You will get more forwards committed to rucks and mauls without the jeopardy of it all ending in inconclusion having to be resolved by a scrum that takes 5m to set and reset.
I would then experiment with another law, and borrow from League. I would have a play-the-ball for knock-ons, forward passes etc. You’ve made a mistake, you lose possession.
This would negate too many scrums. Scrums for when possession is contested but ball won’t come out of rucks, mauls. Play-the-ball if possession is coughed up.
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I would change point system. 4 point try, 1 point conversion. 2 points for penalty and drop goals. This isn't actually important, I just don't like basketball like scores.
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The offside line. Needs to counter modern fitness and rush defences. I don’t want a 5m rule that increases collisions, not going to work in modern concussion world. Probably a 1m rule for rucks/mauls - that gives enough seperation for refs to identify offsides, but I'd worry about fringe defending near your own tryline.
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Nice kits. The most important
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@taniwharugby said in State of the Game:
@KiwiMurph nah I cant recall what the changes were, but I think you could still use hands, but they were a mess with people wading through kicking it out
I found this
Under current law a ruck is formed when one player from each team are on their feet, in physical contact, over the ball. The trial will see the word "ruck" replaced by "breakdown", which would be formed when just one attacking player was over the ball on the ground. Once a breakdown is formed, no player from either side will be able to make a play for the ball with their hands, but in the absence of a "gate" would be able to enter the breakdown from any angle as long as they have come from an onside position. -
@KiwiMurph breakdowns were a shambles!
Think there were a few penalties this year in M10 cup and the ref said you havent been able to do that for a few years when a player tried to kick through.
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I genuinely like the idea of making the field 10m wider, though I know that's unrealistic. It wouldn't solve all the game's problems but it would help I think.
One of my major bugbears is pace of play. Two biggest issues in this is scrums and TMO interventions. You go back and watch a game from the late 90s, and the first thing you notice is how quickly players get to a scrum, form the scrum, and take the ball out of the scrum. The game barely stops because of this. Solution - scrum clock, 30 sec from blowing the scrum to 'engage' and if you can't do it it's a FK against (then escalating to PK).
TMO interventions are harder to shorten. I think they are necessary, but I'd like to see more pragmatic refereeing. For example, we knew LSL's tackle was a red card from the first replay, and yet we still cycled through 25 replays just confirming that first instinct.
A bit of this can be solved with a general directive to referees to hurry the game along. No more repeated scrum resets, blow a FK. No more pre-lineout team conferences. If a player is injured get them off and get on with the game.
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@barbarian said in State of the Game:
I genuinely like the idea of making the field 10m wider, though I know that's unrealistic. It wouldn't solve all the game's problems but it would help I think.
One of my major bugbears is pace of play. Two biggest issues in this is scrums and TMO interventions. You go back and watch a game from the late 90s, and the first thing you notice is how quickly players get to a scrum, form the scrum, and take the ball out of the scrum. The game barely stops because of this. Solution - scrum clock, 30 sec from blowing the scrum to 'engage' and if you can't do it it's a FK against (then escalating to PK).
TMO interventions are harder to shorten. I think they are necessary, but I'd like to see more pragmatic refereeing. For example, we knew LSL's tackle was a red card from the first replay, and yet we still cycled through 25 replays just confirming that first instinct.
A bit of this can be solved with a general directive to referees to hurry the game along. No more repeated scrum resets, blow a FK. No more pre-lineout team conferences. If a player is injured get them off and get on with the game.
Didn’t we trial some of that speed up stuff a number of years ago?
I seem to recall it was done by making many stoppages free kicks instead of penalties. -
@antipodean said in State of the Game:
@NTA said in State of the Game:
Scrum: can only opt for a scrum from a full-arm penalty. This is to counterbalance the increased short arms from the ruck change above.
I'd suggest that's completely the wrong approach. You want to incentivize maintaining power athletes in those positions. The more scrums they do, the tireder they become so less effective in defence.
i've had a thought around this. maybe de-incentivising power athletes makes teh game a bit safer?
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@mariner4life said in State of the Game:
@antipodean said in State of the Game:
@NTA said in State of the Game:
Scrum: can only opt for a scrum from a full-arm penalty. This is to counterbalance the increased short arms from the ruck change above.
I'd suggest that's completely the wrong approach. You want to incentivize maintaining power athletes in those positions. The more scrums they do, the tireder they become so less effective in defence.
i've had a thought around this. maybe de-incentivising power athletes makes teh game a bit safer?
The more the ball is in play, the less they can focus on power anyway as they'll have to forego strength for stamina. That being said, we still want fatties in the game.
