How a well-intended New Zealand initiative could threaten the integrity of rugby
It’s a laudable idea.
New Zealand Rugby (NZR) are attempting to eliminate any potential impediments to the playing of club and secondary schools rugby in 2020.
Dubbed ‘Game On’, NZR’s new initiative will allow premier men’s club matches to be played by as few as 10 players per side, with rolling substitutions and maybe uncontested scrums. The same rules would apply to all adult and college grades.
In 10 a-side children’s rugby, if you only have seven players on Saturday, then the opposition will only field seven at a time themselves.
Again, these sound like good things.
In consultation with the match referee and opposing team, premier sides will need to come to an agreement about whether there will be pushing in the scrums. Finding four capable props every week isn’t easy for teams and it’s hoped that making scrums uncontested would mean fewer defaults.
In a season as disrupted and unusual as this one, the theory is that we want as many people playing as much rugby as we can.
Game On will be reviewed after this year and amended, if necessary, for implementation again in 2021.
Not every provincial union has to adopt Game On. Or they can choose to use it in some grades and not others.
NZR says Game On is already being utilised in some provinces, including at premier grade level.
The worry here, though, is the way these new protocols could be manipulated to one team’s advantage.
If Saturday’s opponents say they can’t rustle up any – or enough – props, who are you to argue? Never mind that strong scrummaging is integral to your own team’s success, if the opposition say they can only field a pack of eight loose forwards, then that’s that.
Among the reasons why rugby has connected with so many New Zealanders over the years is because it’s a broad church. Big or small, white or brown, fast or slow, tall or short, rugby had a place for you.
But as times change, and playing numbers dwindle, we seem to be going further and further down a path towards 10 a-side rugby and to a certain build of athlete. And, if we’re being absolutely honest, to a game that looks more and more like rugby league.
The NRL returned to our screens over the weekend, along with a couple of tweaks designed to make the game more free-flowing.
On average, the ball was in play for 57 of the 80 minutes and featured more tries, more play-the-balls, more linebreaks and fewer penalties than had been the case in the two rounds of football played before the COVID-19 lockdown.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CA6Y5E6g8U8/
That’s nice, but NRL head of football Graham Annesley said he’d been around too long to assume those trends would continue.
“I’m not complaining, but the coaches will be looking [at] how to counter the changes,’’ Annesley told The Sydney Morning Herald.
Rugby league identity Phil Gould has talked long and loud over the years about, what he calls, the “law of unintended consequences.’’
Of how well-intentioned officials, often in consultation with stakeholders, make changes to the game with certain outcomes in mind, only to find something quite different emerges instead.
We all recognise where rugby is going in this country. From next year, under-12 and 13 grades will change from 15 to 10 a-side. Under 11s have already gone that way.
For now, premier grade club teams have the option of playing 10 a-side. Before long it’s not hard to imagine that will become the norm.
If there are scrums, they’ll be of the five-man variety and won’t feature any pushing.
And, again, that’s fine. The game has to evolve and it has to adapt to its changing circumstances and maybe a time isn’t that far off when high-performance rugby goes 10 a-side as well
It’s just that, at that point, rugby will cease to be a game for all shapes and sizes and simply one in which everyone is 1.85cm and 100 kilograms. Heck, maybe we could even go under-85kg rugby across the board, eliminating great swathes of the current rugby-playing populous.
In the meantime, Game On’s rules look ripe for exploitation. For fair contests to be altered to become unfair ones and for relations between clubs and teams to turn sour.
It’s great that community rugby is about to kick off, but just be aware it might look a little different to how you remembered it.
Comments on RugbyPass
late hit what late hit it wasn’t at all late and can clearly see he was committed before the tackle
1 Go to commentsChristian Lio -Willies 2 try perfomance was a standout. As was captain Scott Barrett. Up front was where the boys won it.They are a great team and players. Fantastic Crusades , you can keep going.
1 Go to commentsI don't know how the locals feel about that? I guess if you call yourselves the Worcester Wasps that might be appease. But really we need more teams in the Premiership in my view so they are not padding it out as they are at the moment. It might curtail so many players going abroad as well
4 Go to commentsNZ 😭😭😭is certainly rivaling England for best whingers cup!😭😭😭 !!!
24 Go to commentsYup. New Zealand won 3 out of 10 world cups played. SA 4 out of 8 attempts 30 Vs 50 per cent.🤔🤔
24 Go to commentsShould've done this years ago. Change Saturday kick off times to around 11am. Up and off and back home before 3pm, limit travel time too. Allows players to actually do something else with their Saturday that's family oriented or being rugby fans they could ‘watch’ pro rugby. Increases crowds etc. How can anyone that enjoys grassroots and pro rugby have to choose between the two on Saturdays?
9 Go to commentsI bet he inspired those supporters just as much.
1 Go to commentsBen Smith Springboks living rent free in his head 😊😂
67 Go to commentsGood to hear he would like to play the game at the highest level, I hadn’t been to sure how much of a motivator that was before now. Sadly he’s probably chosen the rugby club to go to. Try not to worry about all the input about how you should play rugby Joey and just try to emulate what you do on the league field and have fun. You’ll limit your game too much (well not really because he’s a standard athlete like SBW and he’ll still have enough) if you’re trying to make sure you can recycle the ball back etc. On the other hard, you can totally just try and recycle by looking to offload any and everywhere if you’re going to ground 😋
1 Go to commentsThis just proves that theres always a stat and a metric to use to justify your abilities and your success. Ben did it last week by creating an imaginary competition and now you did the same to counter his argument and espouse a new yardstick for success. Why not just use the current one and lets say the Boks have won 4 world cups making them the most successful world cup team. Outside of the world cup the All Blacks are the most successful team winning countless rugby championships and dominating the rankings with high win percentages. Over the last 4 years statistically the Irish are the best having the highest win rate and also having positive records against every tier 1 side. The most successful Northern team in the game has been England with a world cup title and the most six nations titles in history. The AB’s are the most dominant team in history with the highest win rate and 3 world cups. Lets not try to reinvent the wheel. Just be honest about the actual stats and what each team has been good at doing and that will be enough to define their level of success.
24 Go to commentsHow is 7’s played there? I’m surprised 10 or 11 man rugby hasn’t taken off. 7 just doesn’t fit the 15s dynamics (rules n field etc) but these other versions do.
9 Go to commentsPick Swinton at your peril A liability just like JWH from the Roosters Skelton ??? went missing at RWC
14 Go to commentsLike tennis, who have a ranking system, and I believe rugby too, just measure over each period preceding a world cup event who was the longest number one and that would be it. In tennis the number one player frequently is not the grand slam winner. I love and adore the All Blacks since the days of Ian Kirkpatrick when I was a kid in SA. And still do because they are the masters of running rugby and are gentleman on and off the field - in general. And in my opinion they have been the majority of the time the best rugby team in the world.
24 Go to commentsHaving overseas possessions in 2024 is absurd. These Frenchies should have to give the New Caledonians their freedom.
21 Go to commentsBell injured his foot didn’t he? Bring Tupou in he’ll deliver when it counts. Agree mostly but I would switch in the Reds number 8 Harry Wilson for Swinton and move Rob Valentini to 6 instead. Wilson is a clever player who reads the play, you can’t outmuscle the AB’s and Springboks, if you have any chance it’s by playing clever. Same goes for Paisami, he’s a little guy who doesn’t really trouble the likes of De Allende and Jordie Barrett. I’d rather play Carter Gordon at 12 and put Michael Lynagh’s boy at 10. That way you get a BMT type goalkicker at 10 and a playmaker at 12. Anyways, just my two cents as a Bok supporter.
14 Go to commentsThanks Brett, love your articles which are alway pertinent. It’s a difficult topic trying to have a panel adjudicating consistently penalties for red card issues. Many of the mitigating reasons raised are judged subjectively, hence the different outcomes. How to take away subjective opinions?
9 Go to commentsYes Sir! Surprising, just like Fraser would also have escaped sanction if he was a few inches lower, even if it was by accident that he missed! Has there really been talk about those sanctions or is this just sensational journalism? I stopped reading, so might have missed any notations.
9 Go to commentsAI is only as good as the information put in, the nuances of the sport, what you see out the corner of the eye, how you sum up in a split second the situation, yes the AI is a tool but will not help win games, more likely contribute to a loss, Rugby Players are not robots, all AI can do if offer a solution not the solution. AI will effect many sports, help train better golfers etc.
45 Go to commentsIt couldn’t have been Ryan Crotty. He wasn’t selected in either World Cup side - they chose Money Bill instead. And Money Bill only cared about himself, and that manager he had, not the team.
28 Go to commentsYawn 🥱 nobody would give a hoot about this new trophy. End of the day we just have to beat Ireland and NZ this year then they can finally shut up 🤐
24 Go to comments