I think that view is not quite accurate. Both teams has the same amount of players on the fringe, so if you are isolated, then why does the other team have more players to pilfer it?

Additionally, supposedly the glory days of running rugby was also the days when rucks was a thing and you could actually trying to steal the ball was how greats like McCaw, Iceman, Burger, Pocock & Smith. Thus maybe we should encourage more rucking to get people drawn in, thus allowing more space. Instead of complaining that pilfering of the ball should not be allowed as that will just leave a wall of players on the field defending, thus limiting running rugby.

I think there is 2 different elements here. 1 is the perceived entertainment level and 2 marketing. It is very much on the marketing angle that Australia is losing the fight & where it is not relatable to other countries or World Rugby’s success of Rugby as a whole.
The amount of rugby news articles compared to any of the other sports miniscule, let’s go with the whole newscorp angle on that one, but I believe the real issue is day to day marketing or rather lack of it. For instance the Melbourne round, total lack of any marketing. Some billboards, maybe at least close to AAMI park would work, but zero. Pre-game entertainment, also zero at AAMI park, with gates only opening 1 hour before the main match, regardless if there is some community level game as exhibition. Now that is just poor by any means & no business can survive on that mentality. Closest pub or feed outside of stadium is 800m, surely a food truck or beer tent on the open fields might draw a bit more of a crowd.
No wonder Australian rugby is losing the war, they are not trying to keep people close to the entertainment. And when your team is losing, entertainment level does dwindle. Nevermind multiple years of being the underdog.

Conspiracy theory if I ever heard one. LOL

The reason the 90s & 00s looked more like running rugby was because it was essentially amateur rugby with a bit of extra effort for game tricks (Aus was regarded as the smartest backline in those days). Then proffessionalism & all the analysis that came with started making a proper impact with defensive patterns making very prominent. Teams still score around 4 tries a match, only thing is that it needs a bit of individual brilliance instead of just bad defence from the other side to get it done nowadays.

Super Rugby is being smashed because the top team is always Crusaders, number 2 team a lucky draw from one the NZ franchises and a massive contest for wooden spoon from Aus teams…Thus nobody needs to switch the TV on or go to the game to know the result. This then results in the loud few to only watch the highlights package and come to the conclusion that Super Rugby is running rugby…with a massive shock to the system when they watch a full game…

It is not too dangerous to run the ball…It is dangerous to throw the ball with wild abandon instead of assessing what is infront of you. NZ game style is offloads currently for their main edge, this has only become super prominent since SBW days, before that it was more about getting the ball wide. So because the next runner is looking for the offload & not securing the ball it has now become their risk not World Rugby’s risk…

maybe nothing to do with kicking but rather over extention of reasonable pay packets. Is kicking also to blame for the Rebels going under?

That is a silly comment, if your loose forwards is not there too clean up, the ball is open for contest. So either ensure there is a support player or play to the players abilities. Trying to say if you pass it wide you will concede a penalty is ridiculous, that ball lying on the ground with no protection is where turn over tries is most likely.

30 penalties is defintelly inaccurate, the top 4 rarely concede more than 10 a game. It is about concentration…you concede a penalty either because you are negative on purpose or the game was too fast for you…

How would you propose making the game not defense heavy? Part of the contest is tackling your opponent so that he does not score…It is not the defensive side’s problem if the attacking side is not able to break the line.

There is already a sport like the one you are envisioning…League. So why bother trying to change another sport to make it the same as your dream sport? If you do away with the scrum, then everyone will just be the 1.9m 100kg loose forward types (as in league). So how does that cater for schoolboy rugby exactly? The union game’s great credo is “a game for all shapes & sizes”. the reason for that is because of the scrums & lineouts. When you do away with those, then you just get mind numbing “tap, crash, wiggle, repeat”

Gatland’s whine is a bit contrasting. Moans about too much kicking, then says the 50-22 must be expanded to allow more kicking? Then states the mark must be abolished? the mark is there to discourage aimless kicking. All in all just a bit of moan…

Probably a bit naive too think this will result in more tries. Reason for no hand in the ruck penalty was to speed up the game. Reason for staying on your feet penalty was to speed up the game. Reason for multitude of scrum penalties was too ensure attacking team has clean ball to again create opportunity to speed up the game. Rugby rules are there to ensure positive play, players are there to ensure to other team does not have an easy run in. The enfringment is purely a risk factor. Read the great Ritchie McCaw book…”The first 10 minutes I overplayed my hand to see what the ref will blow up and then adjusted from there”. That is what rugby is all about, not giving the other team 6 runs at you and then it is our turn, but rather how can I win this contest.

And winning the contest is not about scoring tries, scoring tries is just the quickest means to an end. But as defence is becoming a day job and ability to score tries a night out, the reality of scoring points any way possible should be part and parcel of the game. Players are conceding penalties because they want to or simply not smart enough to not get themselves into bad situations.

Mate, the reason we are loosing viewers this side of the world is because I don’t need to switch on the TV to know that no Aussie team will beat a NZ team in Super Rugby or that the Crusader will win or that Aus will get thumped in the bledisloe. None of those things has Rassie’s fingers in it…In Super rugby we play & focus on basketball rugby, but that has not changed the decline of viewership.
To enjoy rugby you must be able to enjoy club games, if you only watch rugby for the international games then you are already lost as a supporter. True rugby appreciation happens at the local footy fields.

So whatever does not confirm to your view is an outlier and should be disregarded? Have you actually considered South Africa play various different game plans dependant on the personell they employ and change it up according to the opposition? Case in point against France they kicked on the wingers and capitalized greatly. Against Scotland they sent out wide, against England they went tight.

But nope, your myopic view just casts the discrepancy as an outlier to be ignored. It is actually this variation of play that brought them the eventual success instead of sticking only with one game plan and thinking you can outrun everybody all the time.

A thought for you, the All Blacks of 2011-2015 was regarded as the greatest because of their ability to convert turnovers into tries. Go and have a look at SA’s success in turn over ball, then also look at their conversion rate of tries after a line break. You might see a bit more of the light, instead of placing teams into a box only to fit your narrative.

My point is actually to highlight to you that rugby, nevermind the springboks is there to played in a multitude of ways, and this multitude of ways then gives the creedence to the main rugby credo of “It is a sport for all sizes”. Not just wingers, or the silky centres or the yappy scrumhalf or the badger loose forwards or the big boppa front rowers. But how you can use the combination of it.

With you missing the variation of SA and linking basketball rugby as the epitomy of rugby you and your fanclub will be the death of rugby. Because the more you complain that only one way is best, the closer you are trying to force the game to being league.

We should embrace what is different to league, otherwise we might as well just close up shop and play league only.

W Evans, you are again sampling stats only to give one version, try the stats from the Twickenham game as well. A balanced view might go further in having a conversation instead of trying to force the issue.

W Evans, the reason you believe people are misinterpreting your articles is because you flip flop on what you are saying and is very loose with your stats to only show your bias.

In your article “Rugby’s descent into cynical play: Why neutral fans should back the All Blacks for the good of the game” your opening argument was “England and South Africa, cynically trying to slow the ball or kick the leather off it skyward.” thus implying that with NZ being the antithesis of this they don’t kick the ball nearly as much, but as has been highlighted with facts NZ kicks 2nd most on average of all teams with SA a fair way behind. But you don’t use that stat, only then using the comeback of “It is the way the kicks are used”.
This implies NZ then uses their kicks not for territory or getting out of danger but to use it I assume in an attacking fashion, which is what? Only kicking to the winger? You are very flawed in that assumption. You then make the statement SA only kicks high ball all the time, you might want to view the no-look kick from Manie Libbok as a prime example of what SA actually do with their kicks.

We can then go to your newst gripe as evidence of SA negative play, being that they made over 200 tackles in a single game. It is not as binary a view as that I am afraid, tackles is a mixture of commitment & how many runners are coming at you. A good example would be the tackling stats from the game of Ireland vs NZ (with both teams commonly regarded as running teams). This game had NZ with 226 completed tackles & Ireland at 155. So should NZ now also be regarded as cynical due to the amount of tackles they made? Offcourse not but it does show up how your bias inluences your statements & how you then don’t comprehend how people misunderstand you.

As for your other gripe about SA trotting out behemoths and then using a stat that ’95 World Cup average was 85 & now everyone is doing a 105+ ,because of the “Just as it looked like the average size of international players may be plateauing, well, along came Rassie.”
Another ridiculous statement. Look at the emblem of the 95 World Cup Jonah Lomu and what his size was. Or maybe look at School rugby where for instance in Victoria where there is strict size grading being applied, the cut-off for u13 is 103kg. (which gets exceeded as well…) So some bit of reality might be beneficial instead of your bias.

In simple terms, if you are going to trot out some statistic to vilify one party, probably best to see how that same stat compares to the saviour of the future of Rugby.

We all come here for good rugby banter and analysis, not “The world must change because I cant change”. But if you are on a commenting site, everyone is free to comment so your holier than thou comment is a bit off as well

Maybe he retired because of the death threats from the NZ fanbase…fairly poor

A bit of a “Sour grapes” article, you play to your strengths & it is up to the other team to use their strengths to counter it. A few facts for the biased views. Avg kicking out of hand for the RWC before the final. Eng no 1 with 34, NZ no 2 with 30 then SA no 9 with 22. In the final it was 38 kicks for the boks & 36 for NZ. So the boks is not leading the charge here for a kicking based game. Then for quick ruck ball the leaders are averaging 61-60% clearing the ball in less than 3 secs, the leaders is Ireland & Argentina. NZ is only averaging at 54%, marginally better than SA at 52, for the final NZ only got 2% of their rucks cleaned in less than 3 seconds compared to SA at 8%. Additionally in the final the boks managed to get more ball out wide than NZ. A big talking point as well is that the game is being slowed down with the now famous example of Ian Foster that people want to see more ball in play time & then referencing his game of 32 minutes against a minnow team and the “dour” game of Ire vs SA with a “lowly” 29 minutes, the final had 38 minutes ball in play time, but again supposedly the boks is killing rugby?

Headline “Cynical play”, but the Scott Barret alone has received multiple yellow cards this year for Cynical play, SA not one…but go for the moral superiority card…

Traditionally, key word…not this world cup though. So maybe compare current Boks with current AB’s.

The Penalty was actually given for 1st infringement of Sinkler on his knee, ref then allows the scrum to continue to get a game instead of constant resets (Like we all want them to do), then the scrum goes into chaos mode anyway with Koch scrumming in. Thus penalty against Sinkler, not for the magical lottery ticket.

Don’t we just love this “Morally superior ” playing style narrative, regardless of facts. For this RWC campaign England trumps it with 40 kicks a game, France 33, NZ 30, SA 22. As for % success after a line break SA 51%, France 49%, Ireland 49%, NZ 47%. From just these stats it should give a different perspective of the teams…But that is fairly boring…Additional stat for the “ball in play” fanboys. The Sa/France game had 22 minutes ball in play in just the first half, but why use this stat if we can just use the England/SA games as an example. Question could even be why aren’t we reporting on all the games ball in play time instead of just when the morally superior NZ had a game against the blind school?