For those in charge of promoting rugby’s core values these are once again uncomfortable times. Take your pick from ranting Test coaches, big games awash with gamesmanship, mounting strain on referees and invasive technology with a depressing sprinkle of premature retirements and concussions on top. It is not a life-enhancing list.
No one wants passionless sport, played in silence and officiated by robots. Equally, it is increasingly clear top-level rugby is less healthy in body and soul than some like to imagine. Even the most uplifting bits – Doddie Weir and his sons taking the ball out at Murrayfield, Scotland’s thrilling effort to topple the All Blacks – are disappearing into the maelstrom, with the investigation of Michael Cheika’s conduct at Twickenham the latest example.
What, precisely, is generating all this angst? Antipathy between certain individuals can be an aggravating factor but it is not the root cause: Cheika and Eddie Jones are former team-mates who go way back, as do Warren Gatland and Steve Hansen’s assistant coach, Ian Foster. Is it entirely coincidental both Jones and Cheika, who will discover his fate on Wednesday have lost their cool this month or are there other forces at work beyond scoreboard pressure? Could it be perfectly simple: the modern game is driving them all crazy?
Take the following scenario. Up goes the kick-off in Cardiff on Saturday, the air still thick with heavenly bread, hakas and hostility. Under it is Dan Biggar, so good aerially, who gets to the ball a split second before the first onrushing All Black. Down he comes like a sack of potatoes, at which point all hell erupts. At least half a dozen Welshmen advise the referee it is a red card offence, while Kieran Read and co argue precisely the opposite. The TMO takes five minutes to make a decision, based as much on how Biggar landed as anything else. Short of a panel of Strictly judges holding up their suggested colour of card, it could scarcely be more of a pantomime. Eventually it is decided a spell in the sin-bin will suffice. Wales kick to touch, win the lineout and move the ball into the midfield.
At the first ruck, Sam Cane piles into Taulupe Faletau at collarbone height before one of the All Black props is deliberately rolled out of the melee and, in the process, twists his knee, forcing him to be carried of. Both coaches, in turn, are caught on TV rolling their eyes and cursing loudly. Two minutes later a Steff Evans “try” is ruled out for a fractional forward pass belatedly flagged up by the TMO following All Black lobbying before the conversion can be taken.
None of this is too fanciful; already the game may have spanned 10 minutes despite three minutes or so of playing time having elapsed. And on it goes: emotional, uber-physical, impossibly slim, sometimes arbitrarily drawn margins. Following the post-match review the referee is found to have had an acceptable game but both coaches are reprimanded for throwing clown noses at each other at the press conference.
It begs a couple of important questions: if there was a less pick-and-mix attitude to policing certain areas of the law book and fewer hairline interpretations, would behavioural patterns improve? And should coaches be punished if they seek to influence referees in the buildup? In football the FA announced as far back as 2009 that managers could not discuss the appointed match official in pre-game press conferences. Few, however, would claim it has stopped players pressuring the referee or their bosses from demonstrating touchline restraint.
Better, perhaps, for World Rugby not to copy football’s example but to reissue rugby’s existing code of conduct in 10-foot high letters. When was the last time you saw a team marched back 10 metres for disrespecting the referee, as was once relatively commonplace? Why not start doing so for any instance of anyone other than a captain attempting to sway the referee or calling for a TMO referral? Or, on the advice of the fourth official, if a coach is repeatedly heard swearing in the stands?
Why, furthermore, are certain laws policed and crucial ones, such as players charging or diving headlong into rucks without binding on first, routinely ignored? Technically the head and shoulders of a player joining a ruck must always be above his or her waist. What about so-called “crocodile” rolls which can cause serious injury and are so often missed at all levels, sevens included? Forward passes, however they are measured, are at epidemic levels, largely because no one can see in real time whether or not a player’s hands are pointing backwards. World Rugby has already commissioned a simplified law book; the need for more clarity has never been greater.
Everyone could start by reacquainting themselves with the code of conduct section which precedes the existing laws. In the first paragraph the game is referred to as “a mass of contradictions” in which it is “perfectly acceptable” to use force to try to win the ball but not “wilfully or maliciously” to inflict injury. “It is the capacity to make this fine distinction, combined with control and discipline, both individual and collective, on which the code of conduct depends,” concludes the key paragraph.
Control, discipline, a game played “both to the letter and the spirit of the laws” with utmost respect for the referee? The solution to rugby’s problems is already there in black and white.
FINE AMBASSADORS
Talking of sad losses to the game, Tom Croft’s abrupt retirement from all rugby at the age of 32 deprives Leicester and England of a top man. For him even to return to the sport after suffering a broken neck in 2012 was remarkable enough; as a back-row athlete with exceptional pace he was arguable ahead of his time.
Stephen Moore, Australia’s redoubtable hooker and erstwhile captain, will also hang up his boots after this week’s Test in Scotland, having played an extraordinary 129 Tests and 177 Super Rugby games. Both deserve the most relaxing Christmas break available.
ONE TO WATCH...
We all know rugby is primarily about players, not just coaches.
That said, the rivalry between Warren Gatland and Steve Hansen is developing a rare edge. “We’re playing Wales, not Warren Gatland,” muttered Hansen this week. “I’m not really looking forward to seeing him but I am looking forward to playing Wales.” In the aftermath of a Lions tour which generated its share of off-field rancour, a Welsh win in Cardiff really would give the bubbling cauldron a stir.
