By RugbyThinker -
December 4th 2009 @ 5:53am
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Loading ...An open letter to Rob Andrew
Dear Rob, I read with interest your comments on the state of the game and that the laws are ruining the game following the conclusion of England’s November Test matches.
It was a series that saw your boys comfortably lose to Australia and New Zealand, while scraping past a spirited yet depleted Argentina.
While we all the know the game is not perfect at present, why is it that the RFU feels compelled to get on the old soap box and tell us what is wrong when most of your problems are self-created:
1. You are moaning about the injuries in the game.
Well, most countries are looking after their players, and while there will always be a few players out injured, the crisis in English rugby is down to the fact that the Guinness Premiership is all about attrition, physicality and contact.
When was the last time an England player ran at the gap instead of the nearest tackler?
Here is a tip: take a leaf out of the Irish and SANZAR player management books and get the players centrally contracted and you can manage their game time better. Everyone knows they are playing far too much rugby in England.
2. You have the temerity to tell the IRB to look at the laws and change them to create a better game.
Where have you been the last few years? We had this thing called the Experimental Law Variations project, which took a holistic approach to the laws, including the breakdown.
Following trials at junior levels, the RFU shot them down, preventing any trials of the breakdown ELVs, and we ended up cherry-picking the ELVs.
You got your reward for such educated thinking.
3. You say the game is boring and fans will turn away.
There is a lack of entertainment. Well, see point 2 above. Did you not watch France Vs NZ or Wales Vs Australia last weekend?
Besides, when has England ever been entertaining?
What English success there has been has always been based on forward play, kicking fly-halves and conservative options. You were good at that.
But also the Guinness Premiership is just not producing quality English players.
Why not?
Too many overseas players playing in the Premiership, that’s why.
Furthermore, the selectors can’t recognise talent. What have we got at present: plodding forwards such as Crane, Borthwick, Bell, Deacon and Payne; Banahan a second row on the wing; Dan ‘tuck the ball under my arm I am not going to pass’ Hipkiss in the centre; and Jonny’ way back in the pocket’ Wilkinson, who leaves no option to anyone but to kick?
What has Matthew Tait ever done to you?
He has more speed and skill than most of the team combined, yet is deemed too small apparently (I can hear those giants Matt Giteau and Will Genia giggling to themselves right now).
Tait? He was the player who almost won the RWC final for you in 2007.
Remember?
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(18)
jools-usa said | December 4th 2009 @ 6:08am | Report comment
Do you really think Andrews would ever bite the hand that feeds him?
Just sounding off to get some notice & ’shuffle deck chairs on the Titanic.
Jools-USA
Mr cheese said | December 5th 2009 @ 2:10am | Report comment
Jools.
his name is Andrew. His surname, c’est-a-dire.
You could at least give him his proper nom.
Anyways, are people still expecting Rugby Union to be exciting ? I wish it were, but I am sad to report that il n’est pas very exciting.
Joh4Canberra said | December 7th 2009 @ 8:57am | Report comment
Why the franglais M. fromage? Does the English language lack the requisite words?
Roger Rational said | December 4th 2009 @ 6:33am | Report comment
It would help if you got your facts right.
1. The England players ARE now centrally contracted.
2. The game was fantastic in 2005. It didn’t need any ELVs. The number of tries scored in the 3N declined enormously in BOTH of the last two years (i.e. including the ELV year). It is the ELVs and the breakdown law which have upset the game’s natural balance. Andrew is quite right to want to turn the clock back.
3. Rugby is a game for all styles. What do you want to do, ban strong forward play? The beauty of the game in 2005 was that it rewarded various styles of play if they were performed well enough – now it rewards only one style: kick-chase.
4. We keep hearing this canard about overseas players, but where is your evidence? It’s just as easy (and makes more sense) to argue the opposite: that an influx of top-class foreigners raises the overall standard and thus drags up the level of everyone within that league (including the locals).
5. The Mathew Tait fan club ought to ask why he spends half of his time on the bench for Sale.
rugbythinker said | December 4th 2009 @ 9:47am | Report comment
Centrally contracted? Clubs still own players and RFU has to pay for their release. It even has to nominate a squad at start of season from which it has to select Test players. Ask Johnson what he thinks of that. Too many overseas players does affect national team – classic example: influx of foreign players have made soccer premiership great product but England hasn’t won any silverware since 1966 – wonder why!!!
Inability to select decent players starts at grass roots in England and Tait on bench for Sale is classic example – where is sale on EPL table?
Roger Rational said | December 4th 2009 @ 12:05pm | Report comment
The players are effectively centrally contracted. The RFU pays the clubs and, in return, it gets to determine how many matches the players can play. That’s as good a deal as the RFU is ever going to get – anything else is pie in the sky and HQ ought to be applauded for working so hard to get this deal. Remember that the English clubs are uniquely powerful in world rugby.
The football point is just absolute nonsense. The English league in 1974 and 1994 was full of English players and the national team failed to qualify for world cups. It’s obvious to everyone but a blind man that the quality of the English league has improved enormously and so, not coincidentally, has the quality of the English players within it. This is why England has a better chance of winning in South Africa than it ever did in the 1970s or 1990s.
I don’t disagree about Sale and Tait – but it’s hardly Rob Andrew’s fault, is it?
mitzter said | December 4th 2009 @ 11:38am | Report comment
2005 was hardly the golden age of rugby and before you say it – neither was 1999. The laws have been problematic (too much assistance to attack (which led to the trenchline defence system) and now too much assistance for defence, and of course goal kickers that are too good destroying the game) for a while now – see the article on rucking
Roger Rational said | December 4th 2009 @ 9:49pm | Report comment
The players say differently. Both Shane Williams and Paul Sackey have commented that rugby over the past two years has become more sterile and more kick-oriented than ever before. Wales won the Grand Slam in 2005 playing attacking, enterprising rugby with a Number 8 (Michael Owen) who wouldn’t have a hope of playing in ‘09 such is his lack of bulk.
Sackey: “I’m playing all right but the game is not suiting wingers – the ball is being kicked more. Before the rules were changed, rugby was at its most exciting. At the moment, it’s not that great. I play rugby because I want to get the ball in hand and score tries. There’s not been any continuity in the games at the moment. They brought the rules in to speed up rugby, but it’s gone the other way”.
Williams: “We used to criticise England then for kicking the leather off the ball but it seems the game has gone that way now and it is not a direction that suits me. Sometimes it is a case of kicking for kicking’s sake and I just wish sides would throw the ball around more. I am a little bit old-fashioned, I suppose, and set in my ways but I am sure spectators would rather watch tries being scored than three points kicked and teams playing ping-pong. There is so much kicking now that when you receive the ball your first thought is whether you are going to be doing something wrong by running with it. I want to beat players and get involved in games”.
The game was fine in ‘05. It’s just that most Australians were too parochial to notice.
Skip said | December 4th 2009 @ 7:29am | Report comment
Roger, The Sanzar teams played under the ELVs and look what it did for Australias forwards. The Elvs allowed for all types of play unlike the laws of 2005-2007 when we wittnessed some of the most boring rugby ever!
Perhaps your rational for the 2005 laws is that Englend were competitive.
Roger Rational said | December 4th 2009 @ 7:46am | Report comment
Look what the ELVs did for Australia’s forwards? I think their improvement has more to do with finally hiring a scrum coach, Skip.
And you obviously didn’t watch the 2005 Lions tour – the All Blacks played some of the most fantastic rugby ever seen.
Skip said | December 4th 2009 @ 10:19am | Report comment
I did see the Lions tour and no disrespect to NZ but they were allowed to play brilliant rugby by a very poorly coached lions squad…which in itself was a shame because on paper it was one of the best lions squad in memory.
Hansie said | December 4th 2009 @ 11:15am | Report comment
Rob Andrew complaining about boring rugby is one of the more amusing things I’ve read in recent times.
Pete said | December 4th 2009 @ 11:44am | Report comment
Maybe we need an independent commision to run World Rugby and put aside the Northern vs. Southern bias
Rowdy said | December 4th 2009 @ 11:01pm | Report comment
I’d vote for that, Pete. I’m sick of it.
Anyway, my open letter to Squeaky would be:
Dear Rob,
please, for the love of God, just go.
yours sincerely
Rowdy
sledgeandhammer said | December 4th 2009 @ 9:14pm | Report comment
How many pompous Englishman have come onto this site to say that rugby is not supposed to be entertaining? (hands up KO). How many English journalists derided the ELV’s attempt to make rugby entertaining? Apparently rugby was not supposed to be entertaining, it was all about winning. And anyway, rugby is so popular in England and the GP is going from strength to strength. Which union refused to even trial the ELV sanctions law? My advice to the RFU: pull your pants back up your voice is muffled – hypocrisy is too weak a word.
Roger Rational said | December 4th 2009 @ 9:54pm | Report comment
The game in the north was going from strength to strength until the IRB started tampering with the laws. The outcry over sterility in rugby has occurred SINCE the balance of the game was wrecked by unnecessary meddling. Do try to distinguish between cause and effect.
Parisien said | December 5th 2009 @ 12:16am | Report comment
“The game in the north was going from strength to strength until the IRB started tampering with the laws. ”
Roger could you please provide some further details to back this statement up? thanks.
Parisien said | December 5th 2009 @ 12:18am | Report comment
I just read Eddie Jones comments about an annual review of the game involving North, South, coaches, administrators and refs, instead of the four year cycle. very interesting.
http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-union/union-news/annual-review-the-key-to-bringing-back-running-rugby-jones-20091204-kb16.html