The Super 15 Final

Most of the penalties awarded in rugby arise from infringements at scrum and whatever happens after the tackle with offside being a distant third.

In both situations the range of infringements is great and the referee is seldom wrong. I suppose what we can criticize them for is a lack of consistency and then again the same infringements may not be available at each and every situation.

What we need to do is to decide what we are aiming to achieve at each of these situations and to then legislate for these situations. Secondly what part do we want penalties to play in deciding the result.

And this not only applies to this game.

I make every effort to understand the reason for the player’s action being an infringement and to rationalize why on the one hand the actions of one player are deemed penalisable at a given situation and those of others are not. And on the other hand why an action is penalisable at one situation but not at another. From a PR point of view this creates confusion amongst the most ardent of rugby followers. OK the masses don’t really care. The cheers that blast forth for the awarding of a penalty, particularly a kickable one shows their single minded focus on the score board. We played well if we win and we are rubbish if we lose.

If the players focused on the outcome and allowed the scoreboard to distract them from their performance, what they are trying to do, matters would be worse. It is the mark of the best players to remain focused on how they are to play and the coaching of lesser player’s progresses them towards this discipline.

Getting back to scrums and the post tackle one could say that it is a lack of reference to a prioritized list of the infringements at each of these situations that must be part of the ref’s management skills. One would hope that these do exist and, if they do, the same priorities should be across all referees.

It seems to me that generically the outcomes for both scrums and lineouts are to create a contest for possession and to ensure that the actions needed to participate in this contest should be safe.

Safety has resulted in a recent review of scrum laws and of the management priorities of the referee. The contradiction is that if a player is able to force an opponent into an unsafe position they are rewarded with a penalty. What about putting the boot on the other foot so that the player whose superiority forces his opponent into an unsafe position then that player should be penalized. If this was to occur we would have stable scrums in which the hooking of the ball, provided it is thrown in straight, and a direct shove forward is the basis of the competitive situation. We could then move away from deliberate disruptive actions used to “milk” penalties to score points to win games to one in which the scrum is a re-start in which the competition for the ball creates a degree of uncertainty and in which the scrum that hooks the ball and pushes forward gives it’s backs front foot ball. In addition the forward moving forwards will have a better start to their actions to re-enter play in the attacking line. Maybe we have to legislate to have the ball put in straight, as this doesn’t currently appear to be the case. We could then legislate to make competitive hooking by both teams part of the Law.

To summarize, if a player is forced up the player forcing him up should be penalized. If a player folds in the player forcing him to do this should be penalized.

But hang on, are we going to ask the players to own up and say that they were the player who did it. Clearly this will not happen.

So what do we do?

As has been documented before when the offside line at the scrum ceased to be the line of the ball the flankers and No.8 could no longer unbind and follow the ball around the opposition scrum. But they could still unbind and immediately retire behind the hindmost foot. Then further Law changes have made it mandatory for the loose forwards to remain bound.

While following the ball around didn’t do much for halfback play and the conflict between the flankers and their opposite numbers who tried to block then from coming round there was less pressure on the front rows.

Is it here that the problem arises?

As I have said before should we have phased engagement with the loose forwards joining on the “set”? Under these circumstances the pressure would be reduced and the contest can take place.

If it is a safety issue does it apply to all levels of the game?

Is it best used as a safeguard to ensure that less expert players, less mature players apply safe technique and, by putting it into the Law, we ensure safe technique as the various compulsory pre-season courses are ensuring takes place.

What is not working in the most visible levels of the game are all of the Law changes that have been implemented one on top of the other. All these seem to do is to add to the referee’s infringement arsenal.

Now if we apply this safety issue to the post tackle.

Starting with the ball carrier who is now able to play the ball after the tackle has been completed. If you watch closely the player goes to the ground and then wrenches his body around to deliver the ball, which can cause injury. This occurs because the ball carrier has not performed an escape route for the ball, something that should have been decided before contact. The re-cycling of the ball is fast and efficient when the ball carrier sacrifices 2-3metres into contact to go to ground and long place the ball. Once this is done it is an easy job for support to continue play based on their options.

Now with the ball immersed amongst the mess of the ball carrier and the tackler(s) on the ground we are “jackalling”. What this means is that, because the player is allowed to grab the ball before the ruck has formed they bend like a staple and are expected to support themselves with their head at about knee height. If we compare this body position with that encouraged in old fashioned rucking — bound to a team-mate, head up, back straight and parallel to the ground driving through the line of the ball — it is obvious which is the safer.

Which brings me to the use of players in this body position to remove the threats. When they drive into the “jackal” they hit him driving his shoulders into his knees collapsing the staple. When they drive into any players in the ruck they are meeting players in roughly the same body position. What are missing based on historical best practice is the players individually taking out each other, not binding as we used to do.

This is relatively safe around the ball and the “gate” ensures opponents are coming from directly ahead.

What is now allowed is that any opponent hovering in an on-side position up to 2metres from the ruck being cleaned out when he is playing no part in the play. This is tactical as, more often that not, it is the attack that does this and these players are removing potential tacklers from the defence line when the ball is moved forward.

Added to this, players on the ground holding opponents around the ball so they can’t rejoin play.

Finally we have the definition of a ruck:

“A ruck is a phase of play where one or more players from each team, who are on their feet, in physical contact, close around the ball on the ground. Open play has ended.

Players are rucking when they are in a ruck and using their feet to try to win or keep possession of the ball, without being guilty of foul play.”

The key points are one player from each team, on their feet and using their feet.

This means that players off their feet are out of play. Players leaving their feet are putting themselves out of play. Once they are on the ground these players cannot play any part in the game the most important of which is preventing the players in the ruck playing the ball.

So the course of action we must put into place in order to ensure safety and a competition for the ball are as follows:

1. The ball carrier must have performed all actions with the ball before the tackle is completed. There are no second bites of the apple. It is a confused definition of “immediately” that allows 2 movements.
2. As soon as the tackle is completed we have a ruck.
3. Any players on the ground are out of play and must move away from the ball unless they want to be rucked with the ruckers not “being guilty of foul play”. See ‘Law 15.4 (b) The Tackler must immediately get up or move away from the tackled player and from the ball at once.” And “Law 15.5 (a) A tackled player must not lie on, or near the ball to prevent opponents from gaining possession of it, and must try to make the ball available immediately so that play can continue.”
4. Players entering the ruck must come through the gate.
5. Players removing threats who are not “close around the ball” are guilty of “Law 10 (f) – Playing an opponent without the ball – Except at scrum, ruck or maul, a player who is not in possession of the ball must not hold, push or obstruct an opponent not carrying the ball.”

Based on what I have said the solution is within the current Law but not, maybe, its current interpretation. So it comes down to a will to create a safe genuine contest for the ball from which randomn penalties to a too greater extent, determine the result of a game of which the Super 15 Final and the first Bledisloe Test are examples.

The Way We Were Part 6 – On My Way To The IRB

 An initial taste of them over there.

Just to recap. The real battle was the battle for IOC recognition. Rugby was run by the IRB for the established unions and by FIRA to which the French recruited all the minnows that the IRB neglected. France belonged to both organizations.

On the one hand the IRB offered immediate membership to all the FIRA members while, on the other, French domination of all the minnows was threatened. Given the treatment that had been meted out to France and the historic use of amateurism to discipline them you can’t blame the French for hanging on. The FFR Chairman sent the union’s delegate to the IRB to make a last stand for FIRA. The vote was going the wrong way and his tactic was to claim sickness and stay in his room. Some of his fellow councillors entered his room and assisted him to the final vote. This resulted in him being absent from IRB/FIRA activities for a number of years but he came back even stronger.

As isolated as New Zealand is I became aware of the power of language to discriminate and isolate. A substantial part of a delegate’s power in a non-English speaking union was to be fluent in English. This can result in all documents in English passing through their hands enabling them to discriminate on where they should go and how they were interpreted. This applies to Japan as well and could also be the case in South Africa in a bygone era.

It was with the South Africans that I first felt the force of this when they spoke Afrikaans to each other and English to me. The first time was when I was taking their kickers to Athletic Park before a test. As Graeme Harrison told me to do I stopped the car and gave them a choice. To their credit they apologized. The second was with their delegation at a conference where their members came at it and I remained on the outer. It can be used to discriminate while at the same time allow tactics to be planned in open house.

In development the subtleties of language are a real barrier and it takes a lot of discipline to not talk metaphorically, to not jump ahead but to go through each logical step. A real trap is to put it another way thinking you are creating clarity only to find you are on polar wandering paths.

This occurred when I first went to Hong Kong with the Chinese Taipei team for the Asia Cup. As I entered the hotel foyer I noticed too many male concierges all decked out immaculately behind the counter. As I walked up one was pushed ahead, or was he the last to step back? Anyway I started to explain and he had to give the impression he understood — did Nigel, they all had name badges with English names. We started diverging at an alarming rate. The only solution was to thank him and depart. I waited outside for them to gather and sort things out. I then entered as a new person, took my time, let them lead and went with little hassle to my room.

Being a youngster when I roomed with my seniors I had to develop strategies to get some sleep before the snoring started. One was to put a golf ball under the sheet so the snorer turned onto their side. The other was to knock on the headboard so that they got up to answer the door. Sad to say you were so desperate to get to sleep before they returned to bed it never worked. The classic was the comment the next morning about these people who kept knocking on the door all night. The last is to move your mattress into the corridor or outside if it was warm enough. This worked when I roomed with “Box” O’Shea at Narrabeen but sleep didn’t come — snakes were the worry.

The Emergence of Monitors

Bob Stuart was the contact I had with the IRB and we put together a scheme for the use of RWC profits to develop rugby in all unions. This was based on one huge false assumption that I made in my naivety. It was that the needs of all were similar. This led to a distortion of what the real needs of unions were especially those who were highly ranked from a rugby point of view but whose economy was underdeveloped.

The net effect was that unions applied for funding for activities selected from a major union menu without the means of undertaking the most basic administration. This top down approach still permeates IRB activities but the message is slowly getting there. It stems from a colonial attitude to those who are not from a British background. At the time colonization was taking place the infrastructure that the British were able to provide was state of the art at the time but what was neglected was the local situation. As Britain released the colonies what has tended to happen, especially in the Pacific, is a return to the status quo as if the governance and social structures of colonization had never taken place. They also seem to think that the infrastructure was maintenance free. In many unions rugby is part of the traditional social fabric.

And the wealth here is “top up” not top down. In my experience this is much worse than the IRB’s allocation of wealth.

What works best is bottom up administration that taps into the amateur talent at the club and school levels so that the local needs are met. When the club or school cannot meet these needs there is justification for clubs getting together to form a collective organization. The most obvious of these needs is competitions. As a result a sub-union or a provincial union is formed. As the needs escalate, when competition becomes national or international, there is a need for administration at higher levels. What we cannot over look is where and why this process commences and that it is the foundation of the game.

The administrative hierarchy that has emerged as a result of the game becoming professional has led to a huge increase in ancillary monitors. These can be in marketing, PR, commercial, law, accounting, sponsorship and media. All are peripheral to the game but the numbers in these areas are so great they dominate the organization and have created justification for their own existence as monitors not managers. Accountability is great, suffocating detail is more important than enhancing the playing, coaching and officiating of the game. It is a big brother approach.

The net effect is that these monitors over regulate the sport to self justify their existence. This is assisted by the profusion of reviews, previews, databases, tendering, participation union agreements, host union agreements, competition manuals , etc., etc., that computerization has generated as part of this justification. It has also generated a hell of a lot more of administrivia.

The core of the sport is the development of players, coaches and match officials and conducting competitions is the end product of the development of the core. Such is the monitoring that the core is being neglected and the funding that is generated on the back of the core doesn’t trickle down to the core. “Trickle down” economics never worked it’s just that the middle and working class haven’t worked out that they are being taken for granted.

If and when the cost of amateur involvement becomes a monetary cost the unions may realize what they have neglected and what they have taken for granted.

Maybe this will not occur when the professional game becomes the only game and rugby, a sport that is difficult to play socially due to its physicality, places all value on “bums on seats” and “couch potatoes.”

IRB Bristol

By the time I got to the IRB it had moved to Bristol from the East India Club in London, maybe to be nearer to Wales and the home of Keith Rowlands the secretary (CEO).

I remember, Sid Millar, making a joke on himself when he described the process by which IRB Council members attend meetings.

“A limousine would pull up outside their home equipped with a heart lung machine and a defibrillator, just in case. The councillor would be wheeled out and off to the airport. Upon arrival at the airport, the councillor is rushed through passport control and sits in the seats right at the front of the bus. Upon arrival at Heathrow a helicopter is waiting to take the councillor to a park near to the East India Club. Upon entering the East India club a lift takes the councillor to a meeting room at the highest point in the building. As they sit around the council table they all hold hands in mutual support as they stand and they try and get in touch with the living.”

Based on the FIRA model in rapid succession regional unions started forming and representatives from small unions were given an unprecedented opportunity to become powerful. The classic was Africa in which South Africa played the role of a sleeping partner. This allowed the Chairman, who, at a meeting we had in Tunis, resigned at least 8 times to get his own way, to assume autonomy. He recruited into his fold unions with a secretary, usually a mate/sycophant, few fields to play on, few players to play the game but all with a vote dependent on his patronage. Funding was spent on international tournaments that broke the bank of attending unions whose playing numbers barely constituted a team.

Attending FIRA meetings and recognizing the dominance of France I was, on the one hand respectful of their willingness to become the catalyst in establishing international sports organizations while at the same time I wondered at the strategy of demanding attendance at meetings and tournaments that kept lesser unions poor and their development negligible.

Bristol was a nice place to live but the IRB staff were different.

I once read a short story in Landfall, a New Zealand annual of literary works, about the Kiwi athlete arriving in England to compete. He got lodging as a gardener at the stately home and found the goings-on were not what he was used to. It seemed to be a bit like Lady Chatterley and the gardener. Bristol had elements of this.

On my first day, I was asked to lunch at 12 noon, three pints and two pies later, around 2 p.m., I was back at work. This wasn’t a welcoming it was what happened every day. Thankfully, I met a Kiwi who was coaching Bristol and he gave me membership at David Lloyd’s Gym. If I got it right I could go to the Gym at 11:45 and be back by 1 p.m. in good spirit to continue work.

 Here was an environment in which everything was done in good time, as we were the “International Rugby Board”. It is hard for a kiwi to take on the trappings of a hierarchy. I now realized that the rumour that our delegates conformed to this status conscious situation when they ventured North was true.

The Secretary would drive from his home in Wales arriving around 10 a.m. He would go to the wine library for lunch around 12:30 and drive home about 4 p.m.

Decisions were of a monumental scale. I remember being asked for my opinion on the validity of spending £150 for a change of the IRB logo. Could we justify the cost?

I initially stayed in the Swallows hotel, and then moved to Jury’s, cheaper and acceptable.

The secretary left for two reasons. The first was the IRB’s impending relocation to Ireland for a tax-free existence as a professional sport. The second was to set up a company to run the 1999 Rugby World Cup. There was no thought to conduct the Rugby World Cup internally; maybe the profits were too much of a gift horse for the host union. Rugby World Cup administration has since this time been included in the IRB’s administration.

The secretary wanted me to move into cheaper accommodation, which I did.

The landlady was a clapped out hippy from the 60s who cooked at a local private school. I was away most weekends being flavour of the hour in England to present at RFU workshops and courses.

Arriving home late Sunday, I was always greeted by a drunken landlady, who was becoming increasingly amorous. The last night I spent there, a week before my wife and daughter arrived, I slept with a chair wedged against the door to prevent an intrusion.

When she was off to work next morning, I packed up and had the secretary put me back into Jury’s. I remember arriving at his office, sweating, not with anxiety but with the effort it took to get all my stuff to the IRB offices some distance away.

If it wasn’t for this game called rugby and the opportunity to extend myself and spread the word, I would have had second thoughts.

Now I reflect on what my wife said to me when I got the job.

“When your recreation becomes your job you kill it as a pastime.” There have been times when I wished I had listened.

Like the salaries of all technical people before and since the salary was less in real terms than I was getting in New Zealand, saved only by advice from the new CEO who, as a merchant banker, regarded all such positions as those that took advantage of offshore tax havens.

This is not to say I am alone in this respect. Paying for rugby specific knowledge is low as those in charge can count on a passion for the game making up the difference.

 My first impressions of the RFU.

The Conference on the Game that took place at Bishem Abbey during the 1991 RWC produced a video called “Top Coach” featuring Pierre Villepreux, Brian O’Shea, Bob Hitchcock and myself. You knew how much they made from it when coaches in remote places and small unions told you they had the disk and recognized you on it. I also recognized the unselfishness of the RFU in playing a voluntary role developing the game in other parts of the world. Instrumental in all this was Don Rutherford.

Was competition from the French motivation?

The RFU didn’t have one of their own in the cast. This was indicative of the union’s lack of confidence just below the surface.

Despite an outward overconfidence the Poms always seem to be looking elsewhere to find the best way to play the game. This may be reflected in their inability to sustain their form following their success in the RWC 2003. With everything that was put in place to ensure that victory and the considerable cost that was involved it is disturbing to see that there has been little continuity since that time in the development of the game at the national team level. This particularly applies to the options they take in developing play.

Pre-eminent amongst the others in the four Nations they can’t seem to understand why it is so difficult to beat the All Blacks consistently with obvious exceptions. Given the numbers that play the game and subtracting the numbers who play socially there is still a quantum mass that should lead to domination. Being better than the others should not be an option.

Looking over their shoulder and trying to imitate what comes naturally to others is a cause of the problem.

The recent performances of their national team and U20’s hints at a growing ability to advance their game consistently.

Rugby is a game in which each nation can find strengths in their national identity to play the game in a way that will optimise their performance.

Let’s hesitate for a moment and consider whether professional rugby is leading to sameness?

The best way for the Poms to do this is to invade the opposition’s territory, and at least camp there, if not colonise. The longer they stay, determined by their ability to control the ball, the greater of the chances of scoring points. These opportunities should be taken equally by milking the referee’s penalties at maul, tackle and post tackle and scrum as by scoring tries.

An example of this insecurity was the frequency with which their director of coaching recruited Pierre Villepreux to generate some flair into the English game. But the English are not Latins, they are not French and playing as others do does not come easy for any of us. The extreme example is Japan. Worst of all, if you play as others play naturally, you are always going to be inferior to them because you are a follower not an initiator. In England it is envy, as they would like to play like the French. What is worse even the French cannot sustain the flair. Sustainable performances and flair don’t go together, they are incompatible.

I remember praising French Rugby to Robert Antonin and adding that if they played like that all the time they would surely win the RWC.

“Why can’t you do it all the time?”

“It is because we are Latins and as Latins you learn to accept the ups with the downs because we can be as bad as we are good.”

So each national character has an optimum way of playing to maximize the results and based on my friend Robert some cannot play this optimum way consistently and this being the case they have to accept inconsistent results.   Playing the percentages it is more likely that territory and possession will result in a team receiving the benefit of the doubt.

What frustrates an Antipodean is the willingness of Northern hemisphere unions to use marginal infringements around the speculative contests for possession to win games rather than do anything positive to play the game without depending on the referee. I shouldn’t say all Southern Hemisphere unions. Winning a RWC and playing percentage rugby are one and the same thing as South Africa and Argentina have shown.

I have noticed in the professional era the English have been increasingly successful in accepting who they are and getting on with it.

The path to this realisation came home to me when I attended a national coaching school, just west of London.

The previous August, the RFU technical staff had got together to produce a blueprint for the future mode of play for English rugby. The school was in November. The keynote speaker presented to the assembled experts.

You can imagine the consternation when he came up with something completely different.

Between August and November he had reviewed the style of game played in the first season of Super Rugby.

As I have already said the first season of Super Rugby was refereed with a view to entertain the average punter. This was viewed as scoring points. Basketball type score lines resulted with the team in possession having all the rights. The management of national unions and their marketing arms had a lot to do with this and the scores continued to be high so long as the defence sent more players to the post tackle than needed. It was still a habit.

But getting back to the Poms, their director was advocating that English rugby adopt the hit-and-run tactics of Super Rugby in a union whose players had little instinct for it.

The disillusioned audience questioned him and, when I was spoken to socially, I was able to confirm that much of the motivation to play this way by New Zealand teams was to make use of limited possession.

At the very least, New Zealand’s innovations in the game had been pragmatic to meet the current situation and to not tolerate something that was not giving the best results. England, France, Australia and South Africa seemed to be able to produce an assembly line of locks and props the likes of which New Zealand couldn’t match. Why then didn’t the English play to the strength? They have since come to terms with this.

So many players, so much talent and so much money can create a confusion of options that distracts. It is often better to have fewer resources and, under this pressure, play as well as that talent will allow. Especially if the standards set by previous generations don’t allow for excuses.

By way of contrast in my last teaching job I had the privilege of being deputy principal at Naenae College with Ex-New Zealand opening batsman Bruce Murray as principal. Bruce was a great mentor. And when I asked him about the worry of being dropped, given the often-brittle nature of New Zealand’s cricketing performances, his answer was simple.

New Zealand had a limited number of average to good international cricketers, the choices were limited. Motivation was not so much in being dropped but in being humiliated when you were out at Lords in the first innings for a modest score only to, having made the long walk back to the changing room, know that you had to do it again in the second innings and at Edgbaston, and at the Oval and at Old Trafford, unless you were prepared to do something about it yourself.

This is the guts behind improved performances in rugby, do something about of it yourself, look what others do but be discriminating and only use what fits your situation, don’t copy. Before returning home to New Zealand I was offered the high performance managers job with the RFU.

Who knows I may have been able to move the English to consistent success?

 

 

 

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