Rugby - See You In Ten!

[Caligastia]

Originally posted by Tamerlin


Remember what I told you, SH Rugby appeals to the uneducated...

Hey, at least they have air conditioning here...

[Tamerlin]

Originally posted by Caligastia
Hey, at least they have air conditioning here...

Meager consolation...

[Andydog]

Basically the argument has revolved around the old 'rucks and mauls' vs 'running rugby'. What style is better? There have been suggestions that mauling is more exciting to watch than try scoring, other suggestions that those who like running rugby are uneducated, and more suggestions that SH refs are incompetent for not policing the game in a way to promote rucks and mauls.

I think it comes down to how you were brought up within rugby, and what skills you most identify with. The NH lads obviously identify with those skills required to batter, maul etc, ie those skills required by forwards. The SH lads tend to identify with those skills required to run through or around opponents, passing, kicking etc, ie those skills required of backs.

This has ultimately led to different styles, and I venture to suggest that there is no style that is 'better' or requires 'more education' to appreciate. Different people will find excitement in different aspects of the game. I personally love it when a back makes a break for the try line, the whole crowd jumps to their feet and screams their heads off. Similarly when a maul gets going, there is nothing more exhilarating hearing the crowd chant 'heeeeeve'.

Which style will eventually dominate? That style which most people will appreciate and identify with. I don't know what it will be, I don't think any of us do. To suggest that the NH has more population therefore the NH style will dominate doesn't quite sit right with me.

If rugby is to continue growing then TV audiences need to grow, and that means promoting and introducing more people to the game, and so now we are in the realms of un-education, or more accurately introducing people to the game who have never actually played it before. Perhaps audiences have already peaked in the SH, but in the NH there appears to be lots of room for export, but it seems that the SH are doing most of the exporting. Japan seem to prefer supporting the ABs, as does the yanks, I guess because they find our team more exciting to watch with more tries being scored etc.

So who knows? Not me. I'm looking to this Saturday's game only, with a view to the world cup, and I'll be watching it in the Spotted Dog, Willesden Green. Havak you might know it - it has a purple ceiling. They also do fantastic garlic bread, guaranteed to cure any kind of lycanthropy you may have. Think of how much euro you’ll save on razor blades Tamerlin.

[ravagon]

Originally posted by Andydog
This has ultimately led to different styles, and I venture to suggest that there is no style that is 'better' or requires 'more education' to appreciate. Different people will find excitement in different aspects of the game. I personally love it when a back makes a break for the try line, the whole crowd jumps to their feet and screams their heads off. Similarly when a maul gets going, there is nothing more exhilarating hearing the crowd chant 'heeeeeve'.

I tend to agree completely. The more pressing issue I feel with NH-style play though is that there are just so relatively few memorable forward-induced movements. The Sydney test match will obviously be remembered for it more than anything else but thats about the only one that immediately springs to mind.
My vision is, of course, obscured by my SH-tinted goggles and I've hardly seen as many NH games but I find it hard to believe that their (successful) forward-play is anywhere near as widespread as, erm, "certain persons" would have us believe.

[Tamerlin]

I don't think that "Forwards" Rugby must be opposed to "Running" Rugby. IMO the best games are those that are featuring a balance between "Forwards" and "Running" Rugby. Rugby is a game where forwards and runners have different and complementary tasks to accomplish. A maul or scrum is not an end in itself, it must lead to something. A scrum or maul is often a step that tightens the defense and allows the backs to cross the advantage line and run to score.

When I look a SH game, that which I do less and less because of the way referees are ridiculing the laws and because I don't have the feeling it is Rugby anymore, I feel like I am watching an incomplete kind of game where integral parts of what Rugby is made of are missing. It is perhaps more spectacular but, somehow, this homogenized SH game has nothing to do with Rugby as I like it.

[Frozzy]

Whinger.

[Tamerlin]

Keeper of the flame

[Caligastia]

Great post Andydog. I think we all enjoy both aspects of rugby, and I seriously doubt that either will disappear from the game as Tamerlin suggests.

Tamerlin - I agree with your points regarding slack refereeing, and I understand your reluctance to accept the SH style, but IMO both styles are legitimate and will at some point be combined more fully as soon as the refereeing problem is sorted out. It's not only the SH that builds it's style around what it can get away with, the NH also pushes the limits - only in different areas. Rugby Union cannot continue with inconsistent refereeing forever. For the sport to grow there must be a clear understanding of the game. I'm optimistic that the IRB will eventually realize this.

[LDiCesare]

My american friends are amazed when I tell them rugby has two 40-minute halves uninterrupted by commercials.

I'm also amazed about that fact everytime I leave the field. Did I really manage to play that long?
Next match for me should be next Friday against a first series team that hopes to go to honour next year. Arggg... We've had one training session only this year.

And what's for sure is that France will be beaten tomorrow. Maybe they'll play a nice game, at least.

[LDiCesare]

As expected, the English crushed the French: 45- 14.
Food for finbar:
After Wilkinson and Johnsn went out, the English scored 1 try, while the French scored 1 try, 1 penalty and 1 conversion. Thus, the English would have lost based on their performance without their two key players.

More seriously:
The difference between French and English was mostly in defense.
The English defended, the French didn't. Actually, it looked like the English played, the French watched.
When a French player crossed the advantage line, there was always an English to tackle him afterwards. When an English corssed it, it was a try.
The French tackles were mostly bad and their defensive organization pitiful. At least two tries come from the fact that two French players try to tackle the same player. The most obvious one being the second English try. This is a typical, classical attack. Wilkinson runs slightly to the exterior. Merceron, the other fly half, goes to tackle him. Liebenberg, the inside center, instead of looking at his center, also goes for the tackle. Wilkinson is indeed tackled, but he could pass the ball to his center who had noone in front of him. Then the English didn't fumble or make silly passes like the French did, and scored a beautiful try.
The placement of the full back and the winger on the opposite side when the full back was up in the line was also terrible. No "second rideau" and no "troisieme rideau" (except for the occasional tackle by Labit or Pelous when he came in).

Also could someone explain me why Merceron played both scrum half and fly half and what the jerk wearing a blue jersey with a number 9 on his back was doing on the field? Waiting half an hour for someone else to get the ball out of a ruck?

[spartak]

Yashvili didn't have his best ever game. Its a shame England went off the boil in the second half but by then it was too late anyway. I though Abboot played well in the centre. he looked the part.

[LDiCesare]

Abbott was good but I don't think he was excellent. The English backs who shone were all the wingers, the full back and Wilkinson. But then Garbajosa and Poternaud were hardly there at all in defense, and there were too many kicks that were given to them so they could counter attack from their 22's.
I'm afraid that France is not the team you an measure your backs' performance against. We just have too bad a backline right now.

[Tamerlin]

LDiCesare has already summed up the game and France's lacks. Yashvili (half-scrum) was so bad (as usual with the french team, IMO he has nothing to do here) it was as if France was playing without a half-scrum. The problem is he has also done a lot of fumbles (very bad passes, bad kicks, wrong options).

Poor France...

[finbar]

Bugger!

Perhaps the problem was that I was secretly barracking for Les Grenouilles.

Still, it's nice to see, as LDiCesare points out, that England remain a two-man team. It looks like injury has now seriously buggered the Irish so Clive should wrap his two players in wads of cotton wool.

[Alexander's Horse]

I saw a French intellectual on TV recently who argued rugby was France's true national game and closest to the spirit of France.

Needless to say he saw soccer as an inferior game for the unwashed swill.