Congratulations, Andy Bull, for so eloquently saying what I think but can’t put into words, in his immediate full time match-blog from Nantes on the astonishing Wales v Fiji:
There is something about spontaneous rugby, when it goes right, that makes it one of the most breathtaking sights in sport. The rapidity of thought, action, and decision-making are just marvellous. The ball moves so fast that your eyes can barely keep track, and every foot-shuffle, drop of the shoulder and deceptive swing of the hips catches you and everyone else by surprise.
It’s like the sensation you get when you’re running too fast down a rocky hill, your feet are moving too quickly beneath you and you can’t quite fathom how your brain and body are stopping you from tumbling head over tail. They just do. You have just enough control, and at the same time you’re oh-so-close to falling.
Dozens of decent examples abound on YouTube, including these two French tries v England and New Zealand, but there really is no substitute for being there, both for integrating these breathless moments in the drama of the game, and for the palpable sense of awe in the crowd as a move like this is unfolding.
Yeah, but the truth nobody dare say is that rugby, and particularly rugby union, is essentially a shit game. And I’ve finally started to work out cogent reasons why.
I’ve often taken the piss out of the number of mindless penalties given in rugby union – *peep* “number 9, wearing green underpants on a red pants day. 10 minutes being known as “mister green underpants”. No arguing, back off, back off”. But I’ve finally started to suss out why it is essentially shit.
How on earth can you call a game a sport when the rules allow someone, frequently in defensive desperation, to kick the ball out of play (and therefore stop the game) to his own team’s advantage? What the fuck is that all about? How can you deliberately stop the game and benefit from it? Does any other sport conscience such a lucicrous idea? “Oh fuck lads, our backs are against the wall, the other team have walloped us for the last five minutes. We’re back on our try line, they may get deserving points. Tell you what, shove it up your jumper for 20 metres then kick the fucking thing as far as you can. We’ll get to throw the ball back in on their tryline. That’ll teach ‘em to work the angles so hard.”
A fucking nonsense.
Which gets me conveniently on to goal-line technology (bear with me on this one). The reason video technology works in rugby and cricket is that the inherent states of play of those games are “no play” unless the referee says the game can start. A cricket ball is dead after each and every ball until the umpire says a player can bowl; a rugby ball is dead until the colour of the players pants can be ascertained.
With football though the game is live unless the referee says stop. Which gives us the heart-stopping delight of the goalmouth scramble, the hoof up field and the “defence in to attack” moments of brilliance of say, Elano or Petrov (oh, give me a moment in the sun…). But the way goal line technology will have to differ from cricket and rugby technology is that it will have to allow the game to flow and supply the referee with an answer while one team’s centre-half puts his boot through the head of the other team’s centre-forward, both desperate to stop that truly inevitable flow of good goals or good defending.
Shimmies of hips, drops of shoulder etc are only marvelled at in rugby union because, and let’s be honest here, such uninterrupted ebb and flow are so rare that they are sufficiently infrequent to be genuinely marvelled at.
Yes I am pointing the finger at union more than league, but not out of parochial loyalty. I’ve seen league live quite a few times and what is noticeable is that you can’t kick the fucking ball in to touch to your own advantage so you actually get a game going. And don’t give me any of that “stop-go-stop-go, league is shit” shit. It’s called “not fucking around in a schoolboy ‘bundle’ called a maul and getting the sport going again”.
And another thing…you can always tell how posh a newspaper is by where it puts its rugby union coverage. Daily Telegraph – sport front page, whenever it can; Guardian – whenever it can find a good excuse.
I suppose that whether or not a sport is “shit” is really just a matter of taste, isn’t it? I mean, clearly you don’t enjoy watching it and there’s a fair chance you’re resenting the fact that for 6 weeks in the year, it’s ahead of football in the schedules. That’s fine and you’re entitled to call something shit if you don’t like it. For example, lots of otherwise intelligent and well-meaning people like boxing, but I think boxing is shit and frequently say so.
But to say that you have sussed out the reason and then advance the fact that a team can kick the ball out of play to its advantage is…well it’s a weak argument, not to say a shit one.
Rugby, like cricket and football but more so, is a sport where success is largely built on the ability to apply and withstand pressure. In rugby union, more than rugby league (the latter has uncontested restarts), this pressure is both mental and very physical, in particular as the attacking pack are camped out on the opposition line, launching wave after wave of mauls and rucks.
The ability for a team on the defensive in this situation to temporarily relieve pressure is not only physically necessary, but importantly, necessitates no little skill (because it requires you to turn over possession – like trying to catch a wet fish whilst being beaten with a baseball bat) and remains, crucially, temporary. By kicking the ball out, you hand possession (and the opportunity to apply more pressure) back to your opponents, but in an area of the field where it is slightly harder for them to score. In that sense, a defensive kick to touch is a perfectly well weighted concept. If you do that all day, naturally you will lose (unless the opposition don’t have a lineout, which is their fault, not yours).
If you don’t want to watch it of course, then we can’t force you. But whilst partisan rugby fans need to see the pressure on their team relieved by a turnover and clearance, the vast majority of fans don’t go primarily to see that, any more than the majority of footy fans go to football just to watch a pass back to the keeper or a series of passes across the back four.
Where you’re entirely right is in the fact that people love a running move so much because it’s so rare. That’s true – it’s why in football you like to see a one-touch passing move that ends up in the net. Last time I watched MotD, that didn’t actually happen in every match. Doesn’t mean the rest of the action was shit.