The Current State of Rugby
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Its pretty awful.
I do wonder if I'm a good 'average fan' sample though, because I'm probably not. I loved the version I grew up with so much that I probably can't help but be disillusioned.
I haven't watched a match (in full, or live coverage) for a year. At some point the epiphany came that not only was I getting the normal (passionate fan) frustration in matches I was just down right not enjoying the sport anymore. It was actually making me angry.
Admittedly, I was already a far cry from the fanatic anorak of earlier. I was already well disengaged before I've stopped watching. 15 or so years of changes that mostly annoyed me rather than boosted my enjoyment. Not just refereeing, but the more anorakily inclined aspects such as tournament structures, kit fashion crimes, terrible broadcasting - The Breakdown (show), private fucking equity. The negativity of card obsessed fans. Its become the bitchiest sport on the websphere and in print.
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I've got myself into these negative rugby avoiding funks before though, admittedly. Usually I get drawn back in eventually, usually in RWC years.
I am disadvantaged that I dont passionately support anything below All Black level anymore.
That's another whole other subject ...
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@Rapido said in The Current State of Rugby:
I've got myself into these negative rugby avoiding funks before though, admittedly. Usually I get drawn back in eventually, usually in RWC years.
I am disadvantaged that I dont passionately support anything below All Black level anymore.
That's another whole other subject ...
me too, i remember pretty much giving up on the highlanders after the 2013 season...still havent missed a game but complained a lot for a while
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@Derpus said in The Current State of Rugby:
Post match suspensions need to replace in game cards.
Wont happen though. WR are just getting their ducks in a row for a law suit.
Then they should change the laws instead of conjuring up an interpretation that is well removed from laws that have been designed to create a game.
There is no rugby law that says a failed intercept gets carded. The law clearly says that an intentional knock forward has a sanction of a penalty. Not a card, a penalty. If deemed a professional foul i.e you have intentionally infringed to take away an advantage from the opposition, then cards come in. Apply those laws and the YCs we saw are wrong. IMO both cases don't even meet a threshold of being an intentional knock forward at all. One was clearly an intercept attempt and one was a player trying to get to the ball and pulling his hand back when he realised that he wasn't going to make it.
If LFs act was deemed to be reckless then where does that apply to players jumping to catch the ball? If you catch then clatter into someone's head that is apparently acceptable but if you attempt a chargedown and the player runs into you it isn't? That's just fucked IMO
I really hope that ATs legal team rip the refs a new one for the interpretation that resulted in his RC.
Step two of the 'process' is "is there any foul play". That is the key question after "has head contact occurred".
First he never tried to tackle so it wasn't foul play for attempting a tackle above the line of the shoulders. That only leaves him doing something "reckless or dangerous to others". Of course the refs only watched the last split second instead of looking at what happened in context. If attacking teams are allowed to run screens of 4 players that defenders have to run around without visibility then pass the ball to someone on the cut just before taking out two defenders then you can surely expect accidents to happen. The attackers create the deception which in turn creates a poor split second decision or inability to change an expected line yet the defender gets sent off? IMO the protocol around head clashes is interpreted as if dummy runners and screens don't occur. -
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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"
he's not wrong
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All of the above.
Add up year after year of law changes, card fests, and then having two of my three favourite teams with coaches like:
- Ian Foster has been infuriating Steamers fans - and eventually Chiefs fans - since 2003.
- Daryl Gibson being promoted from the Waratahs to the Steamers (which perhaps should have been a clue) - one of the few calls the BoP Union has got wrong in recent times
It has taken:
- The Chiefs making the semi final
- Mike Delany taking over the Steamers for 2022 instead of Gibson, and
- The Black Caps playing erratically since the India tour
... to finally get me to concentrate properly on the rugby season. Aaand then to see the Benny Hill-like chaos of the Dunedin test (All Blacks, laws, all of the above)...
My vain hope is that the Silver Lake deal might finally force the NZRU to not tolerate mediocrity in charge of the All Blacks. But given their track record, I'm sure they'll still find a way...
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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"
i have been beating this drum for years! but its an example of a wide approach, you use to have to clothesline or punch someone to get a card...now it could be anything
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@mariner4life I wonder how many attempted intercepts occur in every game, you'd have to think, in the vast majority of them, the defender thought he had a genuine shot at getting it, went for it, got it, or didnt, and the latter means he very likely gets a 10 minute rest.
All for something that might occur once, maybe twice per 80?
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WR refereeing's dislike of intercepts is as baffling to me as NZ crowd's dislike of drop goals. Legitimate plays that add variety to the sport, in fact are good 'levellers' in a sport that produces few genuine upsets.
Intercepts are exciting game-turning events. Why the hate?
The Australian one on saturday was a 14 point plus a YC punishment for stuffing up a fairly easy one handed catch. Triple punishment. Isnt butchering a certain 7 points already punishment for his lack of handling.
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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"
Your average game of league is more fun to watch than your average game of Union these days.
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I had been playing and watching rugby for 10 years before I even knew a deliberate knockon existed as a penalisable offence.
From 1982 (when I first started watching) to the 1991 RWC final I never heard this discussed in commentary, by my coaches, or any ref in a game i played.
(1991 final Campese knocked on intercept attempt, and yes, even I think that could have been penalised as per the rules, it was a deliberate knock on).
What was a once a once-in-a-decade (but unpunished) occurence - is now a dime-a-dozen yellow card for every failed intercept . Who decided this? Who was asked about what problem needed solving?
Just dire refereeing administration IMO. Scarily, by the peak of the ref admin.
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@Rapido i like to apply the "school yard rule" approach, i dont remember anyone ever caring about it when you played at lunchtime
this is why football it so popular around the world, a ball, two goals (bags, jerseys a tree etc), dont break someone leg with a shit tackle and no one can use their hands except the keeper and they can only do it in a small area...those things make up 95% of the rules people care about
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In 40 years of watching I cant ever remember there being a plague of deliberate knockons that presumably prompted referees boss to decide there was a problem that needed to be solved.
I can only think of 2 in that 40 years. Campese as mentioned, and Keiran Reid v Scotland a few years ago. Both ironically unpunished or under-punished (Reid, who's offence occurred during the over-reaction era. But he was only penalised, not carded IIRC).
This is ignoring the unmemorable but innocuous pillar leaning over and slapping a ball out of hakfbacks hands. Which occurred and was usually punished.
Yet I've seen about 50 games impacted by yellows for innocuous miscalculations.
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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
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@Rapido said in The Current State of Rugby:
I had been playing and watching rugby for 10 years before I even knew a deliberate knockon existed as a penalisable offence.
You could watch American Football for a long, long time before discovering it has a deliberate knock-on rule too. Doesn't mean it isn't a good rule, just that once it's in the books, certain plays are no longer used.
The rugby rules are fine regarding intercepts. If the player is genuinely trying to catch the ball, then it is not a knock-on. If they are just using the intercept as an excuse to knock the ball forward, then a card is in order. If they are knocking it back then it's all good. It's that the referees have got over-vigorous on the application, not the rules themselves.
My favourite is people who complain the rules of rugby are "too complicated" then watch NFL.
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@Chester-Draws on the surface youre right...but anything thats is subjective then you're asking for trouble...players diving to catch a ball theyve tried to intercept...YC...PT...how can anyone say they were trying to intercept it....but they do...an introduce the idea of "realistic chance"...so not the ref is deciding on intent and then deciding on likelihood
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Deliberate knock ons are stupidly reffed, for sure. The rule is there to prevent defenders standing in the line and waving arms deliberately blocking passing channels. If you come shooting up between players and get a hand on a ball in flight, then you're a chance to catch it, and honestly, why in fuck would you not be trying to catch it?
