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...
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...
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