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Ladies and gentlemen, I have something important thing to tell you. If you follow my game, rugby union, you will be part of the best thing ever.
You will be enthralled with the power of bulldozers, the grace of gazelle and the intellect of a scientist. There’s only one condition. You need to play it first.
Because if you have not, you will see it only as 1500 kilos of meat grinding each other into the dirt. You will scratch your head thinking these players are so stupid, they don’t know how to push the ball out of a scrum.
The pile of people who coagulate after a tackle will look an excuse for young men to stomp on each other. The ball again, is irrelevant.
If you have not played it, this jumping competition called a lineout is a total waste of time. The ball again, is being thrown sidewards and not really going anywhere. You may also wonder why only seven players run with the ball in hand. Well, eight if you add a Wallaby backrower…
You may wonder why these guys can’t just run and just tackle.
The answer, my friend, is because rugby is a game within a game. It is the fight for the right to run and tackle. This fight is intellectual at the highest level. The coaches and players connive and scheme the best way to win, one skirmish at a time.
Rugby has many forms of skirmish – Scrums, rucks, mauls, kicks, decoys and the pick and go. Choose your weapons, because your opponents will choose theirs. There is no other game like it.
Just like true war, the plan goes out the window when the whistle blows. The game is won by the leaders on field, who are left on their own for 80 minutes to think, skirmish and fight for themselves.
What fight? On second look, it still looks like slow moving meat across a 100-metre by 70-metre patch of mud.
Unfortunately, it takes more than one article to show you. It might take thousands actually. Each skirmish is its own game. Its own law, and it all happens in a split second. In fact you won’t be surprised to find the odd rugby back looking at skirmishes, scratching their heads.
So, it’s too quick. It happens too often even for ‘expert’ live commentators to make any sense off. Unfortunately, after games are over and scores have been etched into history, nobody bothers to mark and analyse the skirmishes which actually won the games.
I do not have the budgets of SANZAR or ARU to show you the highlights or careful analysis. I do not have the teams of astute (and unbiased) researchers. But if I did, you would see how days, weeks, years and decades of hiring, training and development culminate into split-second successes.
You will see how scheming and planning are combined to usurp a better team on the field.
In any case. Trust me. Just because.
Apparently this works for a few rugby administrators, coaches and players. But if SANZAR and ARU use some of their budgets and volunteers to help analyse, research and present, then I assure you that you would be entrapped by the most glorious game in the world.
In fact, if they spent a bit of money to promote that the game exists, it would be a start.
Until then, I can only hope and pray to the high heavens you will come around. Because as demonstrated by various administrations in Australia, nothing else seems to work.
Join The Roar rugby editor Christy Doran, former Wallaby Matt Toomua and a cast of regular and special guests as they look at the biggest issues in the game on The Roar Rugby Podcast. If you’re looking for great odds on the next game check out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.