Introduce a distance penalty into rugby
Roar Guru By Ken Menz, 14 Aug 2009 The Crowd is a Roar Guru
- Tagged:
- American Football, ELVs, NFL, Rugby Union, running rugby
The recent rugby test results show that we have headed back to the bad old days of stultifying rugby, with play dominated by the kick and chase, and points coming predominantly from penalties.
The (former) ELVs, as practised in Super rugby, did largely eliminate this problem. But the downside was that the short arm penalty provided insufficient ‘penalty’ to prevent many transgressions.
Furthermore, there were inconsistencies in that some full arm transgressions seemed no more serious than those punishable by a short arm penalty.
While there have been other suggested reasons for the ELVs being changed, such as Northern Hemisphere styles of play versus Southern Hemisphere, these inherent problems with the old ELVs did require a change.
But things seem to have moved too far in the other direction.
We need to find a means of penalising that is sufficiently strong but not to the point of allowing kicking to dominate the game.
Fortunately such a penalty is at hand in American football: distance!
Let’s simply allow the team receiving the penalty for ‘minor’ transgressions to advance the ball (say 20 metres) before taking the tap or scum.
This approach essentially represents a compromise between the short arm and the full arm penalty, while retaining the advantages of the short arm penalty in speeding up the game and giving due weight to ‘running rugby’.
Penalty received within 20 metres of the goal line? No problem. Advance the ball half the distance to the goal line again as per NFL.
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- Explore:
- American Football, ELVs, NFL, Rugby Union, running rugby
August 14th 2009 @ 10:29am
Skip said | August 14th 2009 @ 10:29am | Report comment
Knives,
I coach at a reasonable level in Australia. I find it extremely difficult to referee our live break down session.
So much happens so quickly and I dont have to run all over the park yelling instructions blowing a whistle with 80,000 people screaming at me. Realestically you could stop almost every break down for some kind of infringment.
I dont know what the answer is but I hope unlike the ELV’s experiment that it can be debated with an open mind from both sides.
August 14th 2009 @ 10:07pm
Knives Out said | August 14th 2009 @ 10:07pm | Report comment
‘I dont know what the answer is but I hope unlike the ELV’s experiment that it can be debated with an open mind from both sides.’
This is one of the issues I had with the ELV’s, Skip. If the IRB want to debate serious issues about the game then there should be current representatives from every nation: a coach, the captain (perhaps) and a smattering of relevant players. Those involved in the ELV’s despite past pedigree are out of the game, and if you’re out of the game for a few months then you’re old news.
Regarding the breakdown you highlight the two key issues: the speed of the game and the willingness of players to consistently infringe. Then there is the issue of entering a ruck when not bound and going in off your feet and trying to ruck when the contest is static. There has to be a uniform response to these things otherwise we get the Botha yellow card in the 2nd Lions test scenario.
August 14th 2009 @ 10:38am
Skip said | August 14th 2009 @ 10:38am | Report comment
James,
The use of Yellow cards has a massive impact on the game. If you look at the Richard Brown incident on the weekend.
His actions were perhaps reckless but not cynical. He was just doing what he had done a thousand times at training.
If the Bok player had been 1/2 a second slower over the ball (and in through the gate) then it would have been play on.
His actions didnt warrant a yellow card.
August 14th 2009 @ 6:19pm
Darryl SA said | August 14th 2009 @ 6:19pm | Report comment
Skip, for the record, as a Saffer I agree with what you say re Browns yellow. Also thought it was a tad harsh given he was the tackler. A penalty at best, but not a yellow.
Not to fall on my Saffer sword here, but there was another call that confused me. When Jean de Villiers chased Giteau and effectively smothered him as he made contact with the ball causing the ball to be spilt back into the in goal area, previously I’ve seen the call going the other way i.e. that JdV would have been penalized for killing the ball – for not allowing Giteau to stand up. Was there something different about that incident with JdV and Giteau? I realize this could open the door for a “yeah the ref was blind” moment, but I’d certainly appreciate an informed response.
August 14th 2009 @ 10:46pm
Knives Out said | August 14th 2009 @ 10:46pm | Report comment
Brown spent the entire first half making borderline infringements, I think the yellow he received was always coming. Until his second half revival I thought he was putting in one of the most Scott Fava-esque back row performances that I have ever seen.
August 14th 2009 @ 11:39am
Jock M said | August 14th 2009 @ 11:39am | Report comment
Why not close Rugby down altogether and we revert to Rugby League?
The corporates have ruined Rugby as we knew it- now we have a League lookalike complete with a line out and endless rules and arguments because the game has been tampered with.
The Springboks show some drive and determination and put pressure on the opposition and we seek to change the rules to nullify them.
I feel sorry for present day Rugby players who have to be part of this ‘crap’-they don’t know what they are missing out on.
August 14th 2009 @ 11:55am
Hoy said | August 14th 2009 @ 11:55am | Report comment
Bring in shoing, and you remove all doubt about hands, lying on the wrong side, etc. It would clean the ruck up completely. Self regulated.
Tackled player not releasing? Shoe him.
Tackler not releasing the ball carrier? Shoe him.
Hands in the ruck? You guessed it! Shoe him.
It would seriously clean the ruck up completely. At the moment, I am see a lot of defensive sides holding the tackled player, preventing him from being allowed to play the ball. This is usually a penalty to the attacking side, only these days, the onus seems to be on the ball carrier to release a lot more than it is for the tackled player to let him play the ball. I bet if you bought in rucking again, the ball would come out of 90% of these rucks where it is getting stuck now.
Blokes get “stuck” in the ruck, and now players are made to lift them out of the way. This is often not possible to do on the run, causing stale rucks where penalties can go to anyone. Shoe him, and watch him move quickly, freeing up the ball to be released.
August 14th 2009 @ 12:00pm
Jameswm said | August 14th 2009 @ 12:00pm | Report comment
Skip
The Brown one was very unlucky and I’ll guarantee the ref didn’t realise Brown was the tackler. There were two (and only two) players in contact but they were about 1.5m past the ball, so is it a ruck? With another ref you could easily have seen that as good play – play on. That was a big crowd call and it’s so disappointing that the Fox commentators don’t know the rules – that he was the tackler and doesn’t have to go through the gate. As I’ve said all along, they need to do a ref’s course.
Even with George Smith’s one – he was on his feet and the ball was out. He was also almost behind the last feet.
August 14th 2009 @ 12:10pm
Jack of said | August 14th 2009 @ 12:10pm | Report comment
I watched it on FTA and I’m pretty sure the commentators thought the Brown call was touch and go. They seemed to know the rules just fine but felt that perhaps just maybe a ruck had been formed but weren’t sure. But to yellow card him for that seemed way too excessive. It was just an issue of timing. Liistening to you (replays I presume), he was okay anyway.
August 14th 2009 @ 12:15pm
Jameswm said | August 14th 2009 @ 12:15pm | Report comment
I agree Hoy that there is too much leniency to the defending team. They keep their hands on the ball when they are off their feet.
That all makes it harder to retain possession, so teams are more reluctant to attack and take the ball into contact, hence the “kick it and let them try” approach.
August 14th 2009 @ 4:40pm
AndyS said | August 14th 2009 @ 4:40pm | Report comment
For mine, it is nonsense to think that all the games problems will disappear and the world will be a happy place if we just mess around with the penalties. IMO, the ELV exercise should have been broken down to:
1/ Focus on distilling and clarifying the laws governing the breakdown. Basically, remove or revise any that are typically just ignored in favour of flow (or only apply in a small number of specific cases).
2/ Once at the minimum of governing laws (and it is worth noting that we may well already be there), the next and more important step would be to make sure everyone shares a common understanding of what those laws mean so that they are applied consistently around the world. FFS, if we are going to have an international governing body, surely that would have to be one of their primary functions?
3/ Only once those elements have been achieved can the real shape of the game be established. We had the stupid situation where different competitions played to different sets of laws, administered differently based on location, with a moveable feast of transient refereeing “priorities” (like straightness of feed etc). Is it really surprising that everyone had a different perspective on the laws?
For mine, there is a problem now that penalties can be kicked from pretty much anywhere in the attacking half and even from within the defensive half. That has never really been the case before, and as a result the laws do not really address this new reality. But I don’t think there is necessarily anything wrong with what the penalties are awarded for, or the number of points the penalties are worth. The issue is simply that they are being taken more often now than before, because they are now doable from longer range. But rather than try to legislate exactly what distance they can be taken from, surely the first step should be just to up the risk factor associated with a miss? Rather than tell players that a penalty is fine from this spot, but not from another foot back, just tell then that if they miss the ball is still going back to a restart on halfway. If they still want to take the shot from 45m out on the angle with a bit of wind, good luck to them – I would not like to see a good kicking team told how they are allowed to play. But with a miss still meaning that the team will be hard back on defense, the captain would have to at least consider a line-out, scrum or tap as the safer option. As a first pass at least, surely this would be a more easily administered change that may well achieve the required balance?
But before anything, get consistency at the breakdown regardless of the laws!
August 15th 2009 @ 3:03am
wannabprop said | August 15th 2009 @ 3:03am | Report comment
All good points Andy S – please forward directly to IRB via the Queen or Prince Charles or whoever it is they actually listen to.
August 14th 2009 @ 5:22pm
Ben J said | August 14th 2009 @ 5:22pm | Report comment
The answer is not to tinker with the rules, if anything the South African teams adapted rather well to the ELV’s as well. The real issue is for the Wallabies not to lose 9 lineouts, receive 3 yellow cards and concede 9 lineouts. It will be a rather sad indictment if the laws have to change for certain teams to become competitive.
Having said that I do not think the Boks will continue with the current gameplan simply because they know that the other teams will improve. With that I mean they will still use their kicking and lineout game but will introduce their backline more simply because teams will expect them not to. The Wallabies and New Zealand also have been quite impressive in the defense of their tryline with more tackling around the legs and thus preventing tries.
August 15th 2009 @ 8:47am
Knives Out said | August 15th 2009 @ 8:47am | Report comment
Interesting thoughts, arbitro. I fully appreciate what you’re saying about referees having to make decisions about what not to penalise but that is part of the problem because the past three games has seen certain infringements penalised for a brief period and then completely ignored: crooked scrum feeds, diving into the ruck contest simply because at certain points the referee has chosen to ignore these infringements because they are too wide spread. By and large players are not respecting the referees initial wishes and thus the referee tends to collapse and just ignore certain things, and as you say keep the game going in the right direction. This is something that I do not agree with because essentially the referee is allowing the game to travel in the direction that the players who are infringing want it to.
I still believe that ex-players are the key on the basis that nobody understands the top level game like an ex-player. You can be one of the best referees in the game but I would still suggest that a player like Richie McCaw could handle the ruck contest far better than any of the current refs. Nothing beats experience. The same should apply to the scrummage which from the Lions series through the past three games has been handled very badly.
Your writing deserves a far more thorough response but I’m feeling sick as a dog so I shall have to thank you for your time and crawl into bed. I hope that Steve Menzies hasn’t given me swine flu.
August 15th 2009 @ 1:55pm
craigb said | August 15th 2009 @ 1:55pm | Report comment
how hard is it to allow free kicks to be kicked out on the full AND the team retain possession, but not allow a shot on goal. That way you get your metres and structure and sufficient penalty, and only foul play,offisde and pro fouls reult in shots at goal. Its really not that difficult.