End-of-Season Niggles

With the close of the regular Premiership rugby season at the weekend and with the benefit of having watched at least 1, usually two and quite regularly more games per weekend, there are a couple of changes I'd like to suggest. If someone from the IRB could give this a read than ring me up to arrange employment/fiscal reimbursement, I'd be grateful. These are mainly to ensure the sanity of all involved and to give Austin Healy fewer opportunities to whinge down his microphone, but they would also definitely (maybe) speed the game up and improve it as a spectacle. Rather predictably, then, I would like to write briefly about the TMO and the scrum.

Re the TMO, I'm an advocate of using technology in general but it's simply being used far too often for too many inconsequential calls in the middle of games. What rugby has always had (and it's one of the great benefits over football) is retrospective punishment, which has served the game excellently as a means of dispensing justice, and endless replays on a screen at the ground for things like marginal forward passes or the slightest of obstructions are really helping no one. Least of all the fans at the ground, who cannot hear the referees explanation for something visually cryptic. What it is also encouraging is the now commonplace-and-inexorably-sliding-down-a-slippery-slope player 'advice giving' to the referees. That, above all, has to stop.

Further, there has been at least one example in a crucial game of the TMO adversely affecting the course of the game, when a referee gave a penalty advantage to Bath in the last minute. Believing it to be a kick to nothing, George Ford went for a drop goal - as you would expect - and missed. Upon watching the replay it was decided there was no penalty. Giving one would not have been fair on Saints, but not having one was equally unfair on Bath. Even with the tech, howlers can still happen (just ask a cricketer). The TMO can be pulled back and restricted to try scoring and serious foul play. It'll be better for everyone. Please.

Next, the scrums. They are better than the were with the hit (which was never legal in the first place and represented appalling dereliction of duty by someone, somewhere) but they are still a farce, following the pattern of set - mess - whistle. Simply, the rewards of milking penalties outweighs the uncertainty of, you know, er, playing the ball. There is currently zero incentive for the front rows to do anything other than force a penalty for their side, and equally zero incentive for the 8s and 9s to get the ball out the back of the scrum while they wait for the front rows. So you either need to get very harsh on offending props, which in some cases would simply not be fair (like sin binning someone for coming off second best in a tackle) OR you remove the penalty incentive for every front row offence known to man.

I do not wish to reduce the scrums to rugby league stuff (boring) but what used to be a contest with the aim of winning and using the ball has now become a game of woo-the-ref. Let's make no bones about this: props are perfectly capable of keeping it up, square and stable if that's what they want to do. They don't because the greater rewards are to be had by not doing so. So my solution? Reduce the penalty offences at scrums to free kicks. You take away their throw to any resulting line-out and the kick down-field becomes much less of an option and the penalty goal disappears. That almost guarantees stable scrums between the two 22s. Within the 22s the defending side would probably try and win the free kick in order to alleviate the pressure, but the attacking side would want the ball out quickly to stop them from doing so. It would, at worst, even out. And let's face it, it can't get much worse than it is now.

So there we are, and I hope the common sense isn't too much for the people in charge. If they could get those changes in place in time for the World Cup, there wouldn't be many complaining, I don't think. Over to you, IRB...

England's Mission Impossible

There have been some ever-so-slightly sensationalist reports about England's 'injury crisis' in the last 24 hours, with the combined effect of crocks and the premiership final meaning that a very difficult task for England, namely beating New Zealand in New Zealand, is rapidly becoming an impossible one. In fact, the first test is looking a lot like trying to play snooker with a rope at this point.

I say 'slightly' because the injury reports focus on the following names: Tom Youngs (not technically injured, but staying home with his ill wife. Quite right too, and my best wishes to them), Tom Croft, Alex Corbisiero, Jack Nowell, Christian Wade and Billy Twelvetrees. Of those, Croft, Corbisiero and Wade have been out for ages. England played a full 6 Nations without any of them and only narrowly missed out on winning it. They can cope, although (and with all due respect) the All Blacks are likely to present just a slightly sterner challenge than Scotland or Italy. Or even Ireland or Wales, for that matter.

Of the others, Nowell is capable but not world-set-alighting, not yet anyway, and there are other wingers on form vying for his place. He may not have started. The fact that Twelvetrees might miss all three games is concerning but there are other options at 12, not least Brad Barritt, who has tasted victory against the All Blacks before, and Luther Burrell, who plays 12 regularly for Northampton.

But then you look at the front row and you start to get seriously worried. There is not so much a crisis there as a scrummaging double-dip recession. Youngs would have played, at least from the bench, and first choice hooker Hartley is himself coming back from a shoulder injury, although expected to be fit. England's third choice hooker, Rob Webber, went down at the weekend for Bath. If the Saints make the premiership final, England will be fielding their FOURTH choice hooker against the best team in the world (possibly of any sport at any time ever, although that is another can of worms for another day) on their home turf. Ouch. I don't even know who England's fourth choice hooker IS. (David Paice, apparently.)

Then there are the props. First-choicers Corbisiero and Cole are out, and we've known that for a while. Although England do, at least, have cover in the loose in Joe Marler and Mako Vunipola (although a Quins v Saracens final is not totally out of the question and would take them both out of the first test) the tight options aren't exactly world-beating, although the same as the ones England finished the 6 Nations with. An injury to Dave Wilson at this point would be nothing short of disastrous.

Back to the first test. It's difficult to avoid the conclusion that England will be coming from 1-0 down. It's not just the front row. If we assume hypothetically that the premiership final will be contested by Saracens and Leicester, then there go Owen Farrell, Brad Barritt, Alex Goode, Chris Ashton, Ben Youngs, Manu Tuilagi and Anthony Allen from any potential back row, not to mention the likes of both Vuniploas, Matt Stevens, Geoff Parling and Ed Slater from the pack. Quins making the final would render Danny Care, Chris Robshaw, Joe Marler and Mike Brown more useless than a fire proof match. Saints do well and there go Hartley, Lawes, Wood, Dickson, Myler, Burrell and Foden.

To sum up: this really is a no-win situation for Lancaster and you wonder how the organisers could have let it happen. For any England fans with plane tickets to New Zealand, especially front-rowers, I'd consider taking your boots. There's every chance you'll get a game. If England manage to win even ONCE, however (especially given the front row), then who'd be willing to bet against their world cup hopes?