It's Way Past Time We Sorted-Out Implementation Of The Laws

I HAVE long held, during my many years at the coal face, covering sport, that of the various forms of football: American, Association, Australian Rules, Canadian, Gaelic, Rugby League and Rugby Union – just to name the most-popular, Association Football is the purest version, the most free-form.

All the rest have artificial breaks built into the Laws: the American “downs” system, Rugby League's six tackle law, Union's scrums and lines out. In Association Football, (hereafter in this post to be referred to as simply “football”) in theory, it is possible for there to be non-stop action for the full 45 minutes of a half. Of course it never happens, we have fouls, and the subsequent free-kicks, corner and goal kicks, but, in theory, you could see non-stop whistle to whistle action in any half of a football match.

So, that is why I have always argued, given its free-form, football ought to be the most-closely policed form of the game. Football match officials and authorities should come down harder on malpractices and foul play than in any of the other forms of the basic game of kicking a ball around.

Sadly, they don't. Indeed, it could be argued that, in modern football, virtually anything goes. Very rare indeed is it to hear a manager say: “Aye, he deserved that red card,” when one of his players is sent off for foul play. No, at the very least the boss will produce half a dozen, usually outrageous claims as to why the red card should have stayed in the referee's pocket.

“Auchinleck Laws: “Nae bluid or broken leg – nae foul.”

If it was up to the professionals, there would never be a foul awarded. Mind you, if like me you cut your footballing teeth in the East Ayrshire Coalfields, you would be familiar with this protocol - “Auchinleck Laws” we call it, basically: “Nae bluid or broken leg – nae foul.”

I put this institutionalised disinclination to properly police the game down to professionalism – when money becomes involved, strict adherence to the laws goes out the window, it's every man for himself, seeking whatever advantage, legal or illegal, that can be had.

Even more sadly – this attitude is creeping ever more into rugby. Football might have been allowing professionalism for some 130 years, but, in the quarter century or so since Rugby Union recognised professionalism some nefarious football practices have crept into the game.

One of the latest sneaky wee tricks to come into football has been the stealing of millimetres at a corner. I have only started to notice this in the last couple of seasons, but, whereas, when I was playing at school, we had to place the ball on the painted or sawdust quadrant around the corner flag when taking a corner, today, the ball is always placed outside that quadrant for a corner.

It began on the unpoliced side – since assistant referees as we must now call linesmen, only patrol half the length of the park. But, increasingly, I see millimetres, inches even being stolen, when an AR is standing there, supposedly supervising. And they are getting away with it.

But, we in Rugby need not be so holier than thou about this. Have you looked at how penalty kicks from hand are policed in our game today? It used to be when a penalty was awarded, the referee would indicate the mark, where the penalty was to be taken from. The kicker then had to start from behind that mark, and kick the ball more or less through an imaginary vertical line above it, otherwise, his side lost possession to a scrum to the opposition.

Can anyone tell me when it was decided to ignore this law? Because, today, the mark indicated by the referee is usually interpreted as the starting point for the run-up prior to kicking, and a good practitioner can easily, and without censure, gain some five or more metres before kicking.

Now, I might be an old reactionary, but, this conduct is contrary to the ethos of the game, and really should be stamped-out.

And it is not the only area of Rugby where standards have not so much fallen as been done away with.

Perhaps the most-obvious repudiation of the laws is at scrum time, where scrum-halves “feeding” the ball in some cases directly to the feet of their own second row, happens at almost every scrum. It's wrong, it is cheating, but, the authorities condone it – why?

Then there is the offside law. How often, at the breakdown – I could not embellish some of the piles-up of bodies after the tackle as “rucks” - do you see the defending side yards offside in midfield.

Now, the Assistant Referees, as touch judges are now known, are meant to police this. In my experience they seldom do. Yet, this would be so easy to sort out.

We need to see football's offside signal brought into rugby 

Simply instruct the ARs to do what their football cousins do, and stick their flags up in the air when someone strays offside. A spate of offside penalties in a game and we might see fewer instances of what is called “line speed,” the situation where a 19 stone prop covers ten metres faster than Usain Bolt at his peak could have managed, to tackle an opponent.

There is no way whereby Joe Marler is faster over ten metres than

If that happened, we might see a better, faster, more-open game, with more tries.

This guy

Another blot on Rugby Union's landscape about which I have blogged before is the scrum – away from the blatant crooked feeding. I would make it a law that, other than at a five-metre scrum, the side winning possession had to get the ball out immediately – thereby stopping the current practice of “milking” penalties.

I love a pushover try as much as any former forward, but the way sides who are in the scrum ascendancy hold the ball in to try to win a penalty, that grates. Mind you, advancing this argument goes somewhat against the grain for me. In my first game, as a 15-year-old hooker, for Cumnock against Ayr A2s, at the Old Racecourse in Ayr, I had a scrum which today, 57 years later, I can still remember.

Our stand-off kicked straight out at the start of the second half; scrum back on half-way, Ayr put-in. I nicked it against the head – to be fair, the local Ayrshire legend that was Sam Muff, my opposing hooker, skinned me something like 12-1 in that match, but, enjoy your small triumphs eh!

We held the ball at the back and marched that Ayr pack backwards until, padded posts being unheard of back then, Tom Gilchrist the Ayr number eight, found himself with a post jammed between his arse cheeks, only then did we let the ball out – for our inside centre to knock-on!!!!

My suggestion about immediately releasing the ball would negate such scrum dominance, but, to be fair, we weren't trying to win a penalty, we were going as far as we could.