Can We Save Rugby From Itself?

ONE OF the first things you learn when you join journalism's A Team, and are set free to report on sport, is the different types of reports you will be expected to file. If you are doing a Saturday match, be it football, hockey or rugby, your report for the Sunday paper will mainly be based around the run of play: time of the scoring, order of scoring, key incidents.

If your report is for the Monday edition of daily newspaper, the assumption is, everyone who is interested knows the score, you are now doing reactions, and more in-depth analysis, while, in today's media market, increasingly, the views of the coaches are sought, and your report has to have lots of quotes.

In this latter case, old-timer that I am, I find myself a bit out on a limb. I support the view of an old colleague – a theatre critic, who insisted, in writing a match report, I too was a critic and if the performance was bad, I ought not be afraid to say so.

Then, there was the dismissive view of one of the big beasts, a one time (Glasgow) Herald – you know, when it was a good newspaper – rugby correspondent. Being informed the press corps was off to seek coaches' quotes he said: “In my days the coaches had to read my opinion on how the game had gone, not give me his.”

There would, I fear, be several incidents of toys coming out of prams, followed by spat dummies, if we went back to those days. Then of course, there is how the media reacts these days.

For instance, in yesterday's newspaper analysis of Week One of the Guinness 6 Nations, the party line was clear – England are going to win the Rugby World Cup, in Japan, later this year; after all, from the easy manner in which they destroyed Ireland, the rest of us need not bother turning-up. This has naturally caused great mirth in New Zealand.

Elsewhere, we have that great quote from Warren Gatland, to the effect: “Wales has forgotten how to lose.” I can think of at least four nations keen to reconnect Dai with that feeling, between now and March. France's magnificent first-half performance on Friday night has been discounted by their abject one in the second 0 minutes, while Scotland, well, who cares, all they did was beat Italy.

Even old John Reason, whose writing made Inverdale, Guscott and Davies look like reasonable, fair-minded commentators would have been embarrassed at some of the absolute shite “Fleet Street” has come up with since Saturday. No wonder we are seeing the death throes of the dead tree media.

Then, we have the broadcast media: Inverdale, Guscott, Davies – need we say more; OK, I will, Barnes, or worse some of the Irish pundits, notably Ronan O'Gara. Houston, we have several problems.

Post-match, everyone was going on about the sheer brutality and physicality of the Ireland v England match. Well, let me put it this way: if you were the mother of a young boy, just getting into rugby and keen to play it, would those 80-odd minutes persuade you to allow him to?

If we do not do something to curb the brutality of top-flight rugby, the game has a short future. Yet, sorting the game out is simple:

SORT-OUT THE LAWS AND THE REFEREEING

• England's line speed in defence on Saturday was praised. Yes, they were quickly up on the Irish attackers, because most of them took off from an offside position. Ireland too, were less than legal when it was their turn to defend.
  
  
• Easily sorted, get the touch judges or “Assistant referees” to do their job and make offside calls.
  
  
• The scrums in all three games were messy.
  
  
• Again easily sorted, invoke the Laws of the Game:
  
  
• Make scrum halves put the ball in straight down the middle of the tunnel.
  
  
• Use those wire cameras or drones, have them hover directly over the scrum, so the TMO is aware of props not pushing straight and square.
  
  
• Outlaw holding the ball in the scrum at scrums more than five metres from the goal line.
• This means, pushover tries could still be scored, but the dominant scrum would be unable to “milk” scrum penalties.

{One of the SRU's referee “spotters” once mentioned this one to me, and I think it is worth pursuing. He suggested, outlawing kicking to touch from a scrum penalty, instead, insist scrum penalties can only be taken as tap penalties. I think this idea has merit.}

• Sort out the ruck/breakdown.
  
  
• Difficult to do, I still maintain we return to “real rucking,” if a guy wants to lie on the opposition's side of the ruck, let him receive “a guid shoein'”; with today's all-seeing cameras at the top end, the head-kickers would soon be identified and ought to be harshly punished.
  
  
• At the very least, insist on players staying on their feet, and penalise those making a flying entry, or running up only to fall over the grounded player.
• Players go off their feet, call a scrum, attacking side's ball.
  
  

I honestly believe, if we went back to real rucking, sides would need to put more forwards into the rucks, thereby leaving more space out wide – cut out this obscenity of having 13 or 14 players spread out across the pitch.

• Rewrite the driving maul law
  
  
• As things stand, it is all but impossible for the defending side to compete for the ball, the ball carrier who takes the ball into contact must keep possession, to allow for fair competition.

And, a couple of pet hates of mine:

• Make hookers throw into the line-out from behind the touch-line, and clamp down on this half pace to the side so the hooker is throwing more or less down his own side's line.
  
  
• Make kickers kick through the mark when taking a penalty to touch. Today, the penalty mark is, increasingly, the starting point for the kicker's run-up, which means, every kicker steals at least five metres.

Strict adherence to and application of the Laws hasn't harmed golf, it might save rugby.