The Current State of Rugby
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@mariner4life I don’t disagree with the latter part of your post. For me the best way to remove impact danger at breakdowns is to enforce the binding law properly. That is, bind in order to participate. Not as you make impact or just after. Turn it into a wrestling contest between players on their feet. I agree about rulings being harsher about what constitutes being on feet.
That also eliminates players flying in from depth to the area without taking a moment to set.
What Tuilagi did in that clip was to have his arm tucked until after impact (this isn’t league) and race into the impact zone with no chance of correction if a player’s head also entered that area. To me, that increases risk to an unacceptable level. -
@Crucial split seconds required to "bind and then push" will mean nearly every line break results in a turnover if the player is still allowed to play the ball with their hands. Players at that level are so fucking quick on the ball, that any delay will result in losing the ball or conceding the penalty. As soon as that becomes apparent, coaches will want the ball out of their hands.
I have no idea what that looks like in practice though.
Rugby is a game played head first, with body height at a premium. Maybe there is no way to completely eradicate head contact without fundamental change (and enormous fan blowback)
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@mariner4life I have no issue with getting rid of the jackal situation. Rucks were meant to be like unstructured scrums
As has been previously mentioned, the removal of the use of feet at a ruck has created a far more dangerous situation than a couple of scratches. -
mariner4lifes rugby 2.0
no jackal
allow lazy tacklers to get trampled if they don't roll out
no body height allowances of shoulders below hips. no hands on the ground, or the tackled player.
The definition of offside changes to "clearly onside"
scrum shot clock. If the ball is available, use it. Getting smashed in a scrum is not a penalty offense (scrums are a restart)
lineout shot clock. no lifting allowed.
no kicking from the base of the ruck, there must always be a pass before a kick.
Marks can be taken anywhere on the field.there's probably heaps more.
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@mariner4life said in The Current State of Rugby:
no kicking from the base of the ruck, there must always be a pass before a kick.
I’d prefer just to have a strict use it law. The refs take ages to say the ball is available and the time allowed is too much. Once the ball is playable something should happen quickly.. if your team mates aren’t in position yet, tough shit
When they first added the use it law in the NPC it worked well. It’s been so watered down since then
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@mariner4life I'd add 1 stoppage in a maul, only forwards is moving, any other direction is your 1 stoppage after the initial drop and set, and just ref both sides for the same rules (entry, pulling down)
I'd add a strict full arm bind at ruck before any cleanout attempt, will remove alot of the flying in from 10 yards to remove a guy who isnt ever stopping you from getting to the ball, but technically legal right now.
I think if you removed box kicks, it would reduce many of the in-air collisions too, but also agree with @Duluth re the back of the rucks taking an age to set, move the ball into a nice spot to pass/kick while allowing a line of your players to block the opposition.
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@taniwharugby i reckon the maul becomes way less of a weapon if there is no lineout lifting, and that facet goes back to a 50/50 contest.
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@mariner4life ah didnt see that...that'd be great, but I dont see that happening (in fact, cant see most of that happening, WR seems to hate the game...)
Would also see a return to smaller more mobile athletic locks I reckon.
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@taniwharugby said in The Current State of Rugby:
@mariner4life ah didnt see that...that'd be great, but I dont see that happening (in fact, cant see most of that happening, WR seems to hate the game...)
Would also see a return to smaller more mobile athletic locks I reckon.
or really tall ones!
oh dude absolutely none of that would ever happen. It's just the shit i like
real rugby heads, you know, the "game they play in heaven" fuckheads, love to crap on about rugby being a constant contest. It becomes less of contest every year IMO. scrums and lineouts are rarely turned over. rucks are less of a contest than ever. mauls are not a contest. Remove a heap of modern rugby's contrivances and just maybe the game opens up again
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@mariner4life said in The Current State of Rugby:
no jackal
Kind of feel that this is inevitable to reduce risk at the ruck. With no jacklers, there's much less need to smash or grapple players off the ball.
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@mariner4life said in The Current State of Rugby:
mariner4lifes rugby 2.0
no jackal
allow lazy tacklers to get trampled if they don't roll outno kicking from the base of the ruck, there must always be a pass before a kick.
Agree with no jackalling, if the ball on ground it can't be played by hand, and you don't need to trample anyone, just blow over top (as way back when I played), and move players back with soles of boots in backwards motion.
Got to allow kicking from base of ruck, otherwise everyone up in defensive line, just allow to tackle halfback as soon as he touches ball, with hand (or feet), he won't have time to kick, have quick passing halves again.
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@mariner4life said in The Current State of Rugby:
@taniwharugby i reckon the maul becomes way less of a weapon if there is no lineout lifting, and that facet goes back to a 50/50 contest.
I would be happy with it being back to lifting etc, but f*** me there would be some moaning about it being scrappy and everyone doing the shit in lineouts that we all did!
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@mariner4life said in The Current State of Rugby:
@taniwharugby i reckon the maul becomes way less of a weapon if there is no lineout lifting, and that facet goes back to a 50/50 contest.
Lineouts with lifting looks impressive compared to without. I doubt this change will be made
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@Winger said in The Current State of Rugby:
@mariner4life said in The Current State of Rugby:
@taniwharugby i reckon the maul becomes way less of a weapon if there is no lineout lifting, and that facet goes back to a 50/50 contest.
Lineouts with lifting looks impressive compared to without. I doubt this change will be made
oh, well, if it looks better, no worries then.
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@mariner4life 100% agree with your musings. Carding players is pretty clearly just trying to fix a symptom with no real analysis of the root cause, and it's just fucking up the spectacle for paying fans. I'd really like to see the game sped up so the huge blokes get exposed pretty quickly and become a liability to their teams, that alone would massively reduce the impact of the collisions we are seeing. I know that won't happen though, because it'd favour teams like the ABs and Wallabies, and that's the last thing WR would want to do.
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@mariner4life said in The Current State of Rugby:
@taniwharugby said in The Current State of Rugby:
@mariner4life ah didnt see that...that'd be great, but I dont see that happening (in fact, cant see most of that happening, WR seems to hate the game...)
Would also see a return to smaller more mobile athletic locks I reckon.
or really tall ones!
oh dude absolutely none of that would ever happen. It's just the shit i like
real rugby heads, you know, the "game they play in heaven" fuckheads, love to crap on about rugby being a constant contest. It becomes less of contest every year IMO. scrums and lineouts are rarely turned over. rucks are less of a contest than ever. mauls are not a contest. Remove a heap of modern rugby's contrivances and just maybe the game opens up again
The only way any of this ever happens if we suddenly became the best in the world at all the things we hate about rugby (and won) and the NH teams all became the guardians of running rugby (and lost). None of this is happening ever. Ever.
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I read this article by The Times David Walsh a few days ago (he's really good - the bloke who exposed Lance Armstrong) and keep thinking about it. The points he makes on how we, the public, think about dangers to players on the rugby field are thought-provoking and worth sharing.
Four years ago the former British & Irish Lions and Wales captain Sam Warburton released his autobiography. He thought to call the story Too Big, Too Fast, Too Strong only to shy away from a title that judgmental. He opted instead for Open Side, a safe name for an unsafe game. Towards the end of the book, Warburton wrote that “if something isn’t done soon, a professional [rugby union] player will die during a game, in front of the TV cameras”. A lot of people watching the Bengals play the Buffalo Bills at Paycor Stadium in Cincinnati last week feared they were witnessing such a death after the Bills safety Damar Hamlin, 24, collapsed in the first half. Tackling the Bengals’ receiver, Tee Higgins, Hamlin was hit in the chest by his opponent’s helmet. It seemed nothing more than a routine tackle in a high-velocity collision sport. The blow caused Hamlin to fall over. He quickly got to his feet. Then he just crumbled. It was clear something was very wrong. 65 thousand were inside the stadium, 21 million watched ESPN’s coverage. After Hamlin lost consciousness, the TV audience rose to an ESPN Monday Night Football record of 23 million. Everyone understood it was a life or death moment. Though nothing has been confirmed, medical experts believe Hamlin suffered commotio cordis, a cardiac malfunction that happens after a blow to the chest at a specific point in the heart rhythm cycle. Coming at that moment, the hit can interrupt the internal electrical signal and cause the heart to stop. It is a relatively rare phenomenon, and luckily for Hamlin, he happened to be in the right place. At every NFL game, there are up to 25 medical personnel on duty. Hamlin was unconscious when they got to him. No pulse. No heartbeat. CPR and defibrillation got his heart going again. Two days would pass before he regained consciousness. Having been intubated, he communicated in writing after he came round. His first question was: “Did we win?” Doctors told him he won the game, the game of life. Since then Hamlin has made good progress and though it is not certain he will return to the NFL, he is expected to recover enough to lead a normal life. There was no neurological damage. The crisis also highlighted the degree to which Christianity is embedded in the NFL. As the ambulance took Hamlin away, Buffalo’s players and support staff knelt and prayed on the pitch. The Cincinnati crowd applauded them. A group of Bengals fans in the stadium recited the Lord’s Prayer and ESPN’s analyst Dan Orlovsky said on the live broadcast that he needed to pray. His eyes closed, his head bowed, he began: “God, we come to you in these moments we don’t understand. I believe in prayer, we believe in prayer, and we lift Damar Hamlin’s name in your name.” His colleagues whispered: “Amen.” The next day fans staged a candlelit vigil and prayed outside the University of Cincinnati Medical Centre, where Hamlin was being treated. As genuine as the concern for the player was, no one is arguing for changes that might better protect NFL players. Take away the violence and it isn’t the NFL any more. Hamlin almost lost his life on Monday night; the day before that the Indianapolis Colts quarterback, Nick Foles, convulsed on the pitch after being tackled by New York Giants’ linebacker Kayvon Thibodeaux. It was another perfectly legal tackle. On Christmas Day the Miami Dolphins’ quarterback, Tua Tagovailoa, suffered another concussion. Three months before, Tagovailoa had been sacked and slammed head first into the ground. His hands and fingers were splayed and frozen after the impact, a sure sign of brain injury. Too soon he was back in action. We know now the damage caused by these brain injuries; sometimes it’s immediately apparent, more often the problems come later. Ten or 20 years after a player retires, cognitive function can diminish and this may be followed by a torturous journey into dementia. We have heard the accounts of so many rugby union players; young men and women in their thirties and forties suffering now and frightened by the future. We know that the Scotland international Siobhan Cattigan lost her life because of a rugby-related brain injury and understand too that — so far, at any rate — the Scottish Rugby Union doesn’t seem to want us to know the circumstances. In America, the general view is that the players understand the risks and are well compensated for taking them. The authorities say player welfare is their No 1 priority while at the same time they expand the league and increase the players’ workload. More games, of course, deliver bigger profits. We, the fans, are complicit in all this. The legitimate violence that is central to both American football and rugby is part of the attraction. “The sport exists for a reason, and that reason tells us things about ourselves that we might not want to hear,” Sam Warburton wrote in Open Side. “The meaning fans get,” says Nathan Kalman-Lamb, a sociology professor at the University of New Brunswick told The New York Times, “is based on the idea that when they watch these games, something really profound, powerful and important is happening — and life or death stakes are part of it.” For the most part, the violence that leads to brain injury and terrible outcomes for so many players is on us, the fans. We like the games as they are; the hits, the collisions, the danger, the sense that these athletes are laying it all on the line. Antoine Blondin, a distinguished French novelist who wrote beautifully about the Tour de France, once explained why he, as a fan, never felt any desire to reprimand Tour riders who doped. “There is a certain nobility in those who have gone down into Lord knows what hell in quest of the best of themselves. We might feel tempted to tell them they should not have done it. But we can remain, nonetheless, secretly proud of what they have done. Their wan, haggard looks are, for us, an offering.” I’m not saying NFL players or rugby players dope but the ferocity, the hits, the brain injuries are, as Blondin said 50 years ago, an offering.
