There’s only one place where winning is important – it isn’t here, it isn’t in the press rooms and it isn’t in the dressing rooms….

…good to see Cleary talking sense in the Torygraph and partially echoing WG – proper rucking and reduced subs can save the game.

Odd merely reflect weight of money. As the name suggests, bookies are simply managing a book.

Tbf to jamba, he is one of the 6-weekers-and-once-every-four-years-ers but as remarked earlier, they pay their money (for the car park) and there’s no choice but to listen to hear them (gloat) sometimes.

Anyway, now that Ireland are well out of the running, I can have a whinge about the tournament. 😀

To me, it has turned into this attritional win-at-all-costs tournament where rugby takes a back seat to results; especially results in the first game (or two), often played on cold wet Saturdays or Sundays (I lump Irish rugby in here too, mind, before anyone has a go…). We’re not seeing anything that will be worrying the SH are we? Have we accepted that the RWC is a competition we will be attending every four years as a 5th place play-off…with the odd exception here or there? Who’s playing the entertaining rugby? Week in, week out, we see sides turn glorious counter-attack opportunities into stodgy pick and drive phases…after which everybody says (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) “If that had been NZ/Australia/SA, that would have been a try…”

Is this just how the tournament is going to be from now on? Of course, we’ll all still watch it and enjoy the victories, mourn the losses and talk about it on STW. Winners will gloat. Losers will moan. The sun will rise and the world will turn. The Sponsors will be happy.

Should the tournament be moved to late Spring instead of cold, wet Feb/Mar?

Should we have a special NH rule to have free-kicks only for scrum infringements so that teams just get the bloody ball in and out as quickly as possible instead of the current spectacle of front rows being congratulated by full-backs after they’ve duped the ref into giving a penalty against the other side?

I hope that scrums remain an integral part of the game unlike merely a means to pause and create space – but that’s a front row man talking!

But games potentially being won and loss on the guessing game that is scrum penalties in stupid.

I think changing the subs rule (and rucking) are simple solutions. Let’s have tired players and gaps, let’s see who is fitter etc. It would be more exciting than a game bring won on the basis of some slight technical infringement and a boot from 40 metres or so.

The last thing we want is American Football Shirley?

That would be uncontested scrums for most of the game then wouldn’t it?

DD – just reduce the number of subs not the idea entirely. Lets have some potentially tired legs out there.

Not only does the 60 mins auto subbing kill the gaps, it makes for disjointed 2H and a worse spectacle. I disagree with the party line that RU is a 23 man game.

Half the time when the scrum collapses, I had no idea and I was in the middle and either the victim or the culprit!! 😉

How about no foot up and straight feeds!! 😉 At one point Best had struck almost before the bind 😉

No just get another two fatties on but the team would be down to 14 for 10 minutes. If you get to the point of red cards then so be it.

I went to watch Exeter play Gloucester and one scrum took nearly 10 minutes, just gets boring and it is meant to be entertainment.

😀

c’mon you cant leave us dangling – what is the proposal?

Refs talk to players and vice versa – that has been good and the depowered contact has been partially successful IME. But WB waiting for another 5 mins for the ball to go in was ridiculous.

As a hooker, working our the ref was always key. Did he enforce straight throws (not in Ire v Enga), foot up, feeding, etc. Work that out and then see what you can get away with – my parents always noted the times refs commented on the #2 being a crafty bugger!! 😉

Didn’t even realise that the player with the ball was allowed to slip to the back of a maul these days any way. We always practiced passing the ball to the back of mauls, from schoolboy rugby to packing it in 5 years ago.

Seeing as we are stuck with Winter Rugby, I’d like to see a proliferation of synthetic pitches. That should encourage more positive rugby.

A.A,it was meant to be in from last August. It maybe seems a wee thing,but far,far, more devious rugby brains than ours will be working out both how to use it to disrupt AND how to keep the catch and drive…

Bear – I agree with you on both, but would also be interested in a refs opinion. The Irish fans I was with thought Hartley had scored.

In the days before TMO they would both hve been tries.

I can’t find any video anywhere of Hartley’s “double-movement”. Anything in your gif mine a_a?

Skysports write up says he was “unfairly penalised” though, so I’d imagine that settles it for most readers. 🙂

Jeez.

but you are like a whingey little girl 😉

Should the tournament be moved to late Spring instead of cold, wet Feb/Mar?

It’s a valid question although even if the roof hadn’t broken at the Millenium Principality Stadium and they’d managed to shut it I fear the rugby would still have been sh*t.

There’s no doubt that teams that try to play attractive rugby do it better on the firm pitches of Spring but, the fact is, they have to be TRYING to do it in the first place. If a team wants to kick it in the air and run after it for 80 minutes then they’ll do that whether they’re playing on a patch of bog or under a dome.

It’s the mindset that matters – the mindset in the 6N is “don’t lose”.

I think Ireland are kicking less – maybe that’s why they’re losing…. 😉

Thing is, the ABs kick a LOT but they’re generally good kicks and 90% are contestable. There’s nothing wrong with good kick/chase if it’s married to sublime handling and the ability to take chances.

Thing is, the ABs kick a LOT but they’re generally good kicks and 90% are contestable. There’s nothing wrong with good kick/chase if it’s married to sublime handling and the ability to take chances.

Agreed, and Sexton is a very good positional kicker so I think they aren’t using him properly at the moment.

It’s interesting reading the comments here – most, if not all, have appeared regularly since rugby went professional. Summer rugby has always been an agenda point, as has pushing the 6N back to better weather. Defences ruling the game? Reducing the number of players was talked about years ago (maybe just by fans!). And somebody mentioned teams of specialist players as per American Football. Remember when Rob Andrew and Neil Jenkins, along with just about every other 10, reduced the game to a 10 man bore-a-long? I remember reading letters suggesting that the kicker only be brought on for kicks so that we could have creative players on the pitch.