The Waratahs’ slippery, slippery slope

 
The Crowd Roar Guru

By PC, 23 Aug 2012 The Crowd is a Roar Guru

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    The Waratahs’ slippery, slippery slope + enlarge image

    The woeful Waratahs have the Wallabies staring down the barrel (AAP Image/Paul Miller)

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    I have been buying family Waratahs memberships since 1996. I am saddend to say that the current administrators of the Waratahs have betrayed rugby in New South Wales.

    Not only have you not attracted new followers to the code, you have alienated rusted on followers like myself.

    Look at the massive TV NRL deal and tremble. In 1996 you had it easy with the Super League war and have missed opportunity after opportunity ever since.

    I only attended two games out of the membership last year and will now only renew my basic membership with no packages.

    The two games I did go to were average and the others I watched on TV were rubbish.

    Forget Tah Man, Flash for Cash and the peripheral rubbish.

    The team seems to have no passion, no sense of urgency and no spark and are an embarrasing bore to watch.

    The same was reflected in the appaling first Bledisloe Cup match, in which about half the players were Waratahs.

    The game was played in the same passionless thoughtless style of slow motion drudgery as a Waratahs game.

    Many of my non-rugby friends who did go on Saturday commented on the lack of urgency, skill and atmosphere and virtually said “never again”.

    This is not entirely NSW’s fault, but the only thing the Waratahs are creative about is making up lame excuses for killing off rugby as a competitor to league and AFL.

    Banning waterboys, leg rubbers and other message deliverers from the field at every breakdown would be a start.

    Sacking incompetent referees and assistant referees would be great as well, as too may games are decided by officials who see forward passes that aren’t there and miss ones that are.

    Officials can’t see crooked throws or scrum feeds, can’t adjudicate on tries under there noses and worst of all have no idea of enforcing the offside laws.

    At least the IRB has seen the light and put a 5sec limit on “Meercating” a favourite pastime of halfbacks these days.

    Rugby needs to bring in a five metres law at all rucks as most teams like All Blacks and ‘Boks are masters at infringing this and getting away with it.

    There are no contests after the first one or two seconds at the breakdown. Most of the Tahs players think they are playing American Football, lining up across the field with no attempt to counter ruck.

    Then there was the farce of Jonathan Caplan allowing repeated infringements just outside the try-line, stopping possible tries in the last few mins of the game and finally deciding to give a yellow card after the full time siren.

    There needs to be video ref review of forward passes and offsides to give the game some credibility again.

    Maybe the captain can ask for a video review of three decisions (league looks like bring this in as well, leading from the front).

    Some of the problem falls at feet of the IRB – the worst thing they did was get rid of real rucks.

    However despite all this, the Woefultahs will not be getting more than the basic rego next season from me.

    I am sure if I want to, I won’t have a problem getting a ticket anyway as the stands are getting emptier and emptier.

    And don’t think that the game against the Lions will suck people in to fork out more money. By the time the tour comes around I think the Tahs will be more lifeless than Monty Python’s dead parrot.

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