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What's wrong with rugby
Adrian Proszenko, c/o Rugby Heaven
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Wallabies greats have slammed the state of rugby union, claiming a combination of negative play, confusing rules and a lack of leadership from the ARU has plunged the code into crisis.
The criticism comes after a lacklustre start to the Super 14 season in which the four Australian sides have scored only 14 tries between them, and last weekend's much-hyped Brumbies-Reds game was panned as one of the worst spectacles in the competition's history.
Former Wallabies breakaway Simon Poidevin led a scathing attack on the game, saying there was no excuse for the defensive displays at Super 14 and Test level that were driving fans away from the game.
"It's created a crisis - the crisis is that the game needs to reinvent itself again otherwise it has a very bleak few years ahead," Poidevin said.
"You hear coaches say 'we won ugly, but we won'. That's great that you've put your points on the board, but you're starting to lose a whole army of supporters out there because people are sick of seeing no tries and sick of fly-halves kicking the ball away.
"I still think last year's South Africa-Australia game at Telstra Stadium [which Australia won 20-18] was inexcusable.
"That to me was the lowest point for rugby since rugby went professional because we had two sides performing on the world stage that played the most pedantic, terrible rugby out there and expect, a) to get paid for doing it, and b) for supporters to support them again.
"I can't see people turning up and paying again if there's the threat of that happening again.
"The frustrating part is there are fantastic athletes playing the game of rugby in Australia which don't get the accolades of players in AFL, soccer and rugby league. They don't get a chance to fully show their skills."
Rugby legend Mark Ella, when asked about the state of the game, simply stated: "Rugby in Australia is just boring", while former Wallaby Bill Young said the implementation of the four-stage "crouch, touch, pause, engage" sequence for initial scrum engagement was a turn-off for fans.
"I don't think that's adding to the game from a spectacle point of view," he said. "Scrummaging is a very confrontational area and people want to see two 800-kilo packs tear into each other. They don't like to see them touch each other on the arm before they go in."
Former Wallabies forward Dan Crowley called for administrators to limit the amount of full-arm penalties given by referees and to reintroduce rucking into the game.
"That would get rid of half the guys in the ruck and maul because they won't have the courage to stay in there," he said.
"That would get half the backs out of the breakdown because they don't like getting the shit kicked out of them. I've never seen anyone get significantly injured in rucking ... it frees up the ball quicker."
The former undercover police officer said the ARU had shown a "lack of leadership" on many issues, most notably the ongoing saga to re-sign winger Lote Tuqiri.
"They should have said 'this is what you're worth, take it now or we'll [subtract] $20,000 a week," he said. "No one person is bigger than the game. From that perspective we haven't done ourselves and our fans justice."
Poidevin went a step further and joined John Eales in calling for former ARU boss John O'Neill to return to the post to bolster the ARU's ranks alongside Gary Flowers.
"We've got a guy [O'Neill] who is willing to put his expertise into the game but the constitutional body-huggers [prevent him] from coming back," Poidevin said.
Wallabies World Cup-winning coach Rod Macqueen and IRB referees chief Paddy O'Brien headed a rules discussion in Sydney last week.
The pair are behind the "Stellenbosch" laws, which will be trialled in the Sydney and Brisbane club competitions and the inaugural Australian rugby championship, aimed at making the game quicker and easier to follow.
O'Brien conceded the current rules were "too complex for the average punter" to understand.
"There is something fundamentally wrong when two people, with rugby knowledge or not, sit in Aussie Stadium and one's cheering for the Blues side and you think 'No. 7 red should be penalised' and your mate thinks No. 7 blue should be," he said. "In actual fact both could be [penalised] under present laws."
Macqueen said the trial rule changes were necessary to speed up the game and make it a more attractive to watch.
"The IRB would be silly to think that the part of our decision-making process doesn't encompass making it a good game for spectators, that's certainly right up there on our list," he said.
Flowers said it was an appropriate time to review the code's laws, but added it was important the core principles of rugby are retained.
"Those are, that it is a game for all shapes and sizes, that the line-outs and the scrums remain key parts of the game, as well as the breakdown," he said.