"Rugby is being slowly emasculated by a dervish of petty rules
ONE more blast about rugby and then I'll shut up. Last Saturday's
Wallabies Test against the All-Blacks in Tokyo was as dire as I had
feared. Once again the Australians led at half-time and once again
they chucked it away in the second half, allowing the Kiwis to romp to
a 32-16 win.
Perhaps it is time to speak the unspeakable: that Robbie Deans is
either a dud coach or rugby's very own Manchurian Candidate.
Lord knows how we will go against England at Twickenham in the wee
small hours tomorrow. With Jonny Wilkinson back at fly-half for the
Poms the thing will almost certainly turn into yet another tedious
kickfest and - it being in the northern hemisphere - a blizzard of nit-
picking penalties.
Readers email me to say the laws of the game are slowly strangling it.
After a player is tackled there are now 22 possible sins which can
stop play for a penalty. And that's before a ruck is formed, when
another 19 infringements are available to a referee hell-bent on
blowing the pea out of his whistle. If you're watching from the stands
you haven't a clue what's happening.
Every so often they fiddle at the edges of the laws, invariably to
furious opposition from the curdled Old Farts at Twickenham, but
nothing ever gets done to make the game more attractive for the paying
punter."
I agree generally. There are way too many laws, particularly at the
breakdown, all of which are a result of doing away with rucking.
The ELV experiment was a debacle. Only those gin-soaked toss-pots at
the IRB would trial at least two different sets of rules at the same
time - ludicrous. And then they seem to have managed to well and
truly mangle what came out of them. At the moment the game as a whole
is being ruined by all this.
grant
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I blame tony blair
This is as far as I go.
It's not even shite, it's just a whinge.
And a whinge that goes nowhere, really. Mike Carlton is a twat,
always was a twat, is certain to remain so...
CP
"grant" <gcai...@scu.edu.au> wrote in message
news:cba90a19-2579-4fd6...@u25g2000prh.googlegroups.com...
I never saw the need for the ELV's. As an aside, it's a perfect day for
rugby here and I'm hoping for anything other than a borefest. I'm heading to
the station now for a messy messy day.
Why am I not even remotely surprised that Hyphen-bleeding-hyphen
thinks everything is, and was ever was, fine with the game?
England deserving to lead Oz at 1/2 time BTW.
grant.
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CP
A leftist, moaning, do gooding, asylum loving twat at that
Viper