General Rugby Discussion 3

Agree on the YC whether or not a Try is scored. As to the number of penalties, call it 5 per half or whatever the average of the lower penalised sides is. If teams are on a particular number of penalties it will alter their behaviour. It's not an enormous leap from the present, but inconsistent, system of being 'on a warning'. It would introduce a certainty for the players, officials & fans.

A free kick will of course lead to a much shorter time to the next ruck but is that the objective here? Free kicks are a crap way to restart play. Particularly from an unplayable maul when the ball is trapped which prevents a quick tap when players aren't ready. A free kick from an unplayable maul generally sees one forward carry directly into the entire opposition pack or a hail Mary kick with the opposition back three in place.

At least with a scrum, both packs are tied up and there is an opportunity for a strike move from it or a planned exit. A free kick may result in a faster restart in play but is that play actually one that improves the game? I would say having lots of free kicks would make for a worse spectacle.

Total attendance across the last Super League season was 1,429,370, if you'd rather that metric than averages.

That compares to 1,346,607 for the Premiership.

So either way very clearly not the "ridiculously few people watch league" that the poster I was replying to claimed.

Well the real world stats would disagree with you that "ridiculously few people watch league". Unless you also say the same about the Premiership, or the URC, or… well any rugby union club competition really. Its directly comparable to all of them. Thats not even going into its dominance in Australia.

As above, we've already changed the points for a try and the number of players in a matchday squad in recent history and lots more. The idea that reducing the numbers of players on the field would completely destroy rugby when they don't just isn't logical. Its a similar evolution.

Removing 6 & 8 (and a bench spot, and back-up players in the squad) would reduce wage bills significantly at a time when huge numbers of clubs around the world are facing bankruptcy.

Removing them would help amateur clubs, most of which are struggling hugely to put out teams compared to twenty years ago, with their dwindling player numbers - those players can now be used in other positions.

Removing them would create more space on the field, resulting in more attacking, high scoring rugby (which most casual fans prefer).

And, more theoretically, removing them would hopefully slim players down slightly due to having to do more cardio - resulting in less impactful collisions, and improved player welfare.

Versus.. what exact downsides? Actual fact based ones please, and not "but thats not rugby" moaning about change.

Why stop at 13? Might as well get rid of all the big, heavy lads. They don't contribute much in attack, and think of all the extra space on the pitch. You could shorten matches up too, make it more intense. Could have more teams playing on the same day, hell you could have them all play in the same stadium. Be a great atmosphere, fans could really enjoy a festival of rugby.

except for NZ and the Pacific Islands. and france. and lebanon. and jamaica. and Papua New Guinea (where its the national sport)

and the semi pro league in the USA. and the semi-pro team in Canada, which was likely to have been in the Super League by this stage if covid (and a dodgy owner) hadnt intervened - the wolfpack had much better support than the arrows ever had. the NRL opening round in vegas last year was popular enough that they are doing it again this year

wales have gone downhill in the last 20/30 years but they have (had) a rich history with the sport too.

'the 6N would be the kind of stuff beyond even the most fever dreamed imaginations of league fans' - league fans, even non aussie ones, would probably say the same about State of Origin

Im saying all this as someone who is much more invested in union than league, but can see that both codes have their good and bad points.

Your points contradict each other. You say the 6N is on in pubs BECAUSE it's a great spectacle and League isn't on in pubs because it isn't a great spectacle. But you also say GAA is only on in Ireland and not elsewhere.

If GAA is a great spectacle in Ireland, why isn't it also great in Peru? It's either good to watch or it isn't. What you're missing is the fanfare around it. People with little interest can be swept along because it's in the news, people chat about it at lunch in work and down the pub and so on. That packaging and presentation to the casual viewer is all totally independent to the quality of the sport.

League is a similar but different sport and a decent sport to watch and the point I made was that union shouldn't fear taking a good idea from League just because League thought of it first.

6N gets casual support from people in countries that oarticipate. It’s the only rugby many people in Ireland, France and the UK watch. Anoraks in Germany, USA, etc watch it. There’s no comparison w GAA. It’s not a sport COUNTRIES compete in. Part of the spectacle is Ireland playing England, etc.

I’m not saying it has anything to do w rule changes but I suspect hurling is a fair bit more popular these days, perhaps because football has become very dull.

from Robert Kitson in The Guardian

You may have noticed that the sports pages are less, well, sporty than they once were. There is rather more chance of reading stern-faced stories about Sir Jim Ratcliffe and the Glazers or Manchester City’s latest legal dispute than, say, the muddy winter joys of grassroots rugby union. It is the way of the modern world and, anyway, England playing Scotland in the Six Nations this Saturday is a bigger deal, right?

Well, yes and no. If you are counting the beans inside the Rugby Football Union’s offices in Twickenham there is barely a contest. The Six Nations annually bankrolls the rest of the domestic game: it is the commercial goose that lays the golden Gilbert‑shaped eggs. Never mind the scoreboard, let’s keep the corporate guests well fed and watered. It’s all about the bottom line.

In more modest clubhouses up and down the country everyone recognises this basic reality. Of course they do. Because, if they are to prosper themselves, they also have to keep the lights on, the pitches in order and the toilets working. In theory, all that money banked at the top of the pyramid filters down for the greater post-Covid good. In return the grassroots clubs keep rugby’s flame alight in places where RFU executives seldom tread.

Talk to the nation’s unpaid armies of volunteers, however, and the Calcutta Cup showpiece this weekend is a long way down their priority list. Recently the Whole Game Union, the organisation supporting around 250 dissident clubs that have forced the RFU to convene a special general meeting next month, sent out a survey asking for feedback. The replies amount to perhaps the loudest collective cry for help ever received from the shires.

The dissatisfaction dripping from the anonymised responses certainly seems intense. “The biggest issue is a fractured game … too many vested interests with no clear idea how to grow it,” a northern referees’ society writes. “Accept community rugby actually exists before it completely dies out,” a lower-tier club from East Anglia pleads. “The RFU is not in touch with the grassroots and is totally ignoring the problems it has. As [the] grassroots don’t bring in money, they write it off … yet it is the biggest membership of the RFU.”

On and on it goes: “poor leadership”, “disastrous RFU/Premiership dealings” and a “very poor player pathway system” are merely a fraction of the widespread grievances expressed, alongside cuts in travel cost assistance, Championship funding and shortcomings in communication. The fresh eight-year partnership with the Premiership clubs, costing around £264m, also remains a clear source of frustration. As another respondent put it: “The Premiership is being run as a cartel supported by the RFU. There is a complete disconnect between the top and the community game.”

Many are clearly anxious, not just for their own small parishes but for the wider club rugby family. Not so long ago, for example, Rochford Hundred in Essex ran eight adult men’s sides. Now they are down to three and their president, Ray Stephenson, has grown weary of what he perceives to be a lack of support from above.

“A lot of clubs in Essex now only run one men’s senior side. If there’s unavailability or injuries they’re crying off games. Clubs are going to disappear … we’ve already lost four in recent times. I would say community rugby is in a tricky position. The support mechanisms just aren’t there. The consistent complaint I hear is that Bill Sweeney and the RFU are more interested in corporates and wanting their money. It’s hard to find any strong evidence of where they’re supporting the community game to make it secure going forward.”

Stephenson also reckons some RFU officials are “living in cloud cuckoo land” when they seek to offset the falling numbers in adult male participation with healthier figures relating to women and girls. Locally he is further aggrieved with the mid-season administrative goalpost‑moving that could cause previously “safe” clubs to be relegated to a lower tier. It is just another of the concerns being encountered by Sweeney and the RFU’s interim chair, Sir Bill Beaumont, as they continue their nationwide “road show” aimed at fragmenting the SGM vote.

For many, though, it is too little too late with the furore over Sweeney’s pay – £742,000 basic salary plus a bonus of £348,000 in a year when the RFU reported an operating loss of almost £40m – still rippling through the cash-strapped community game. Stephenson says: “I have less of a problem with his salary in some respects but he’s taken a £348,000 bonus while making 42 staff redundant. Those people have got mortgages to pay and lives to lead. And, at a local level, we’re also the ones who suffer. It’s the kids I’m worried about. Where are they going to go and play their rugby? They don’t play it at many schools any more. They only play it with us or at other rugby clubs. It just makes me so cross.”

The RFU will point to the (reassuringly expensive) review conducted by the law firm Freshfields which found their “long-term incentive plan scheme” to be “appropriate in light of the goals it sought to achieve”. Such pieces of work, however, do not venture beyond their specific terms of reference and miss the nub of the issue generating so much anger and mistrust.

Among other things this one skated over the judgment of those in high office, their ability to read the room and the reality that they are effectively running a cooperative rather than some massive private corporation. And the biggest, most unforgivable aspect of all? The loss of yet another opportunity to write about the actual bloody sport."

I don't disagree with your general analysis but the conclusion comparing the experience of soccer and rugby leaves a lot out. Many sports have a learning curve: cricket, golf and AFL all have varying levels of obscure scoring systems and non intuitive or non obvious rules, eg the off side rule in soccer is peculiar an non sensical in many respects (doesn't apply in the 6 yard box), VAR just makes it looks absurd and nit picking. Maybe rugby is more complicated but that's not the point. I'm not sure the complexity of rugby is a reason it doesn't have more fans, anymore than the simplicity of tennis proves it should be the most popular spectator sport on earth.