Why don't players wear gloves / mitts in poor conditions?

whiskeyman

In many other sports, players wear gloves / mitts to give better grip of the ball. I used to play team handball and there's a type of hand gel that can be used to give better grip (sticky as feck!).

Given that grip is essential to rugby players, especially in poor weather conditions, why don't more wear approved gloves?

It just really hit home with some of the poor passes yesterday and Best drying the ball each time for a line out.

If a player kept falling, I'm sure they'd question their boots / studs.
Why don't they take similar action for bad ball handling / poor passing?

Is there a thought of 'we've never had them, we don't need them'?
Do any players here wear them?
I'm only a fairweather rugby follower so don't really know the full story.

Any thoughts welcome!

Jofspring

whiskeyman wrote: »

In many other sports, players wear gloves / mitts to give better grip of the ball. I used to play team handball and there's a type of hand gel that can be used to give better grip (sticky as feck!).

Given that grip is essential to rugby players, especially in poor weather conditions, why don't more wear approved gloves?

It just really hit home with some of the poor passes yesterday and Best drying the ball each time for a line out.

If a player kept falling, I'm sure they'd question their boots / studs.
Why don't they take similar action for bad ball handling / poor passing?

Is there a thought of 'we've never had them, we don't need them'?
Do any players here wear them?
I'm only a fairweather rugby follower so don't really know the full story.

Any thoughts welcome!

Early 2000's loads of players wore gloves. Stringer, O'Driscoll, Quinlan for example. It only seemed to last about a year or two and everyone stopped wearing them, I take it there was a reason.

CIARAN_BOYLE

Gloves are banned but fingerless gloves are allowed.

I'm not sure how much value gloves that don't cover the fingers will be. I'm not even sure if the difference is explicitly spelled anywhere.

irishbucsfan

In the years before the 2003 world cup they were the done thing. Nowadays I think they've been replaced by hydrophobic sprays like griptec (http://www.rhinorugby.ie/product/griptec-spray/) which have most of the benefits without the same downsides

Squidgy Black

Many players still tape their fingers for grip, and almost all use sprays like griptec etc.