Rugby’s critical advantage over other sports is its ability to generate long passages of building, fluid momentum that grow and grow.
This includes defences broken down, stretched and eluded in manifold ways before an immensely satisfying conclusion can be reached.
Most other large team sports are hampered by interruption of different kinds be it in the structure of the game (NFL, cricket, baseball), the flow of attack through passing (soccer), or in a case where there is a comparable form of continuity (basketball), the scores are simply too quickly and easily achieved to be as appealing.
Rugby offers the only sport in the world where like a symphony or narrative drama the action develops and moves to ever changing crescendos before emerging mysteriously into something hinted at in the preceding development but ultimately unforeseeable. The result, like a plot twist or final transformation of a musical motif, is miraculous.
Or is it? This would be the case if it weren’t for the northern hemisphere’s influence on the rules and in the case under consideration, turnovers.
Turnovers rip the heart of rugby asunder. They cut down the nascent life force of the game in its prime life. They kill the beauteous, continuous, vital time of the live ball and replace it with the death of a kick to touch, followed by the zombification of the walk to and execution of the line out.
They are a form of anti-rugby, and it is no surprise that it is the northern hemisphere who love them. Not only do they allow for the set pieces which though essential are inferior to the ambrosial sporting transfiguration of running rugby, but in light of the weakness of northern hemisphere teams, they allow weak northern hemisphere packs to defeat high octane southern hemisphere units of skill and speed.
They are an attempt to steal, not win, rugby matches.
No one wishes to see turnovers. They are of partial, but extremely limited aesthetic interest in comparison to the heaven of running rugby their existence must needs slaughter. Stoppage kills movement and life.
Turnovers are monstrous. They stop play. If an interpretation of the rules is current that allows them to attain the dominance they enjoy at the moment, it prevents any team from playing expansive rugby for fear of an isolated player being turned over.
Gone are the sweeping, endless, divine moves to the edge of the pitch to outthink and outrun the opposition, and heavy duty battering must take their place. Gone are the breathless, inspired assaults from deep, gone the halcyon days of rugby from the late 90s at the dawn of professionalism when someone still cared about what the spectators thought.
It is that endless summer dream of rugby that is the pinnacle of all sports, but which requires far less competition at the breakdown in order to string multiplying phases and encourage transcendent sporting ambition.
This is rugby’s trump card, but it is being stamped on by the northern likes of Ireland, whose eight turnovers in the first 60 minutes of the pool match against France mark a desecration of everything that rugby stands for.
Some competition at the breakdown may be reasonable, but as little as possible.
When there is a turnover players should be forced to tap and run so as to preserve what momentum there is. But even then teams must be confident in being able to secure numerous phases of possession in succession, or they will never attempt the life-giving higher existence of expansive running rugby that should be its ultimate destiny.
Paul Nicholls
Roar Guru
I disagree KPM. When a team goes in hard for a turnover they have to commit a few guys to do so. If they get it wrong it opens up the play for the attacking team - in my eyes it's a reasonably high-risk play. If there were more certainty in the rucks, play would just be two long lines with players bashing it up all day long.
Owen
Guest
I disagree with the author. If the player went to ground and his team didn't contest possession strongly encouraged enough they may lose it. These days turnovers and rucks are targeted scientifically and players spread out or come in causing turnover opportunities. Players who make a break may lose the ball to a turnover unless their team mates support them. Rugby is a team game. Turnovers are a fault of every defender who didn't get there.
kingplaymaker
Roar Guru
I'm really referring here to a certain kind of turnover-the pilfer where the game stops, there is normally a penalty where the ball is kicked out and a line out ensues. Therefore the game has to stop dead in its tracks. Also, with fewer turnovers there would be more tries rather than less, because the defences would eventually cracking under the unrelenting attacks.
Lindsay Amner
Roar Guru
Interesting take KPM. Not sure I agree. Turnovers actually allow the team that has nicked the ball to attack a team that has not got its defensive stuctures aligned properly. It's one of the fundamental aspects of rugby which means that you can't be like league and just be set up to attack with your water boys and coaches running behind the attack line. League may as well have an attack team and a defence team like NFL. They may get there eventually. The rugby turnover can see the game change in an instant and a team has to go from attack to defence in the blink of an eye. The ability to take advantage of turnovers is what separates the great sides from the merely good. With the way defences are set up these days, without turnovers there would be very few chances for tries to be scored. the game would be the poorer for them. I love a good turnover if properly executed and taken advantage of.
Harry Jones
Expert
The two pilfer kings, Pocock and Louw, had nice turnover-to-penalty ratios: Poey 17-3 Flo 13-6 But Damian de Allende's 9:0 was the best...
Great WC
Guest
How does someone become a guru here... ?Because if there is a process then surely it can be rescinded. If there was ever a time it is now... This article is an obsolete joke.
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
People who talk about the rugby contest for possession just ignore that the game didn't see as any turnovers prior to about 2000. There was always a contest. As a player who was always great at pilfering, but offered nowhere near enough in other facets, I sadly agree with this article. People watch to see attacking rugby, not a couple of nuggety blokes wrestling over the ball, preventing this.
Old Bugger
Guest
kpm Now you are just being mischievous and stupid - 15 flankers just can't be pilfering turnovers because then we will have no-one contesting scrums or having any line-outs as a contest...... Oh, hang on a minute - that other rugby code doesn't have line-outs or contesting scrums and sooner or later, they won't have any scrums either.....they'll just hand the ball over to the opposition at every handling error and forego the scrum, in its entirety. Then, they'll end up with 13 backs and no forwards whatsoever......heck, they may as well drop a couple of players, change to a round ball and give up trying to catch the ball at all - just kick it from one end to the other. Oops - I think I'm being a mischief now. Give it up kpm and how silly of you to consider this option after the world has just borne witness, to possibly the best RWC tournament, to date.
Paul Nicholls
Roar Guru
Wow. I have just been raving to the Mrs. how the best thing in Rugby is the contests for possession when someone gets tackled. My favourite player of this world cup is Pocock - how he gets in at the ball all the time. Players who hang onto it and kill the contest get penalised - good. My other favourite part of the world cup has been the lineouts - another area where possession can be contested. So would you get rid of rucks and mauls and lineouts as well? That would make it ... Rugby League.
In brief
Guest
I think I have identified an genuine inconsistency in the way the laws have evolved. It's quite funny, the laws now actually contradict themselves> I guess that's what happens when you make minor tweaks over time.
In brief
Guest
Read my post above. Turnovers are great, but should a tackler receive a penalty for getting hands on the ball when the tackled player is entitled to play the ball once tackled?
AndyS
Guest
Not many bites KPM. Guess they're all a bit hook-shy at the moment... ;)
Pat malone
Guest
Yep, you are still the same. Rugby is a representation of everything that is good in the world
Minz
Guest
Where's the "comedy" tag? Personally, watching a player bravely withstand the onrushing clean-out is just terrific drama, and turnovers, so hard to secure, are well-deserved.
kingplaymaker
Roar Guru
Soon there will be teams with 8 or even 15 openside flankers specialising in pilfiring turnovers and then we will have a truly perfect form of rugby.
kingplaymaker
Roar Guru
Stealing might be the wrong word: rugby just gives them away with both hands.
kingplaymaker
Roar Guru
The breakdown is much superior to the league tackle because the ball is instantly recylced without the stoppage of play. Incidentally, teams turn the ball over in many other ways than the kind mentioned here: forwards passes, kicks, illegalities etc....there is no need for even more. The occasional turnover of the type I describe is ok, but not that often and far less than now.
kingplaymaker
Roar Guru
Rugby league by the way, is not comparable as being less fluid than union because of the reset and death of momentum at each tackle. In any case I wasn't saying there should be no contest whatsoever, just as little as possible and followed immediately by a quick running tap. There are plenty of other stoppages in the game already.
kingplaymaker
Roar Guru
And what happens Rob during that respite? The game stops dead. A kick into touch ensues, followed by the glacial progress to a lineout: 8 times in 60 minutes in addition to all the other stoppages in the Ireland/France match. How are 8 stoppages followed by kicks to touch enjoyable?
kingplaymaker
Roar Guru
The problem with turnovers is not only their quantity, in that there are just too many, and the fact that the game must stop, but critically what they prevent: that is the build up of phases. The build up of phases is what rugby should be about, not the end of sequences of phases.