RugbyFuture
Lord Logo
ADAM FREIER
January 31, 2010
http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-union/u...our-game-is-in-the-contest-20100130-n5dy.html
The Sun-Herald's new rugby columnist, Adam Freier, says the code is moving on from the folly of the ELVs and is still the game they play in heaven.
Attractive rugby. It is a piece of sporting terminology that has been thrown around very loosely in the past year or so. Some people might speculate if 15 grown men cutting around a green pitch wrestling 15 more grown men could ever been defined as attractive, but the debate continues anyway.
The argument on whether modern-day rugby is boring could be stretched further to look at whether professional sport has become more about entertainment than the actual contest. Are we buying a ticket to the circus or a rugby match?
Our game has suffered over the past two years not because it is ''boring'', but its inability to settle from the dust the Experimental Law Variations created. We tried to adopt a free-flowing game with less interruption and less kicking. Has it worked? Probably not.
I don't blame the people who sat together and proposed the ELVs. It was the rugby community who demanded changes that would take our great game to the new heights. Somewhere in the experiment, something has gone a little awry.
It is interesting to look at other sports that have not tinkered with rules despite calls at times that they are boring. Take soccer, or football to be sport-politically correct. Take nothing away from the ''world game''; to have three-quarters of the planet following it, it deserves great praise. But ask me to take 90 minutes to watch a game any level, and I really struggle to find a 1-0 victory that invigorating.
As a whole, the entire match is not entertaining. However, in watching a player go left, shimmy right, then guide the ball to a teammate's forehead to put the ball in the back of the net … that is something I can appreciate and a skill worth watching for any sports fan.
Cricket is Australia's national sport, and in summer Test cricket can be a religion. A match can go for five days, 30 hours of play, and in the end sometimes there isn't even a result. Entertaining? There are some people who will take five days off work to watch a Test match. Some think these people are mad. But a cricket enthusiast can appreciate a player battling away in 35-degree heat, evading 150km/h bouncers aimed accurately at their head, even if they bat out the session with only a handful of runs. They appreciate the fast bowler who sprints 20 metres towards the pitch, wrenches their shoulder ball after ball, over after over, sometimes for little or no reward other than the rare hope they're maybe one delivery closer to an elusive wicket. It takes a special athlete to have the skill and will to do that over and over again. The appreciation of that effort is entertaining.
Which brings me back to my sport. Rugby is unique. The game is designed around the contest for the ball, the contest for possession, the contest for physical supremacy.
The laws of the game have been designed so that for 80 minutes, every kick, scrum, lineout, tackle, ruck and maul can be contested by both teams. Every facet of the game is a contest, and the team that takes the greater ascendancy will see the result on the scoreboard and at the full-time whistle. Is there any other sport which has so many players of different shapes and sizes on the field at the same time? Any other sport where the fleet-footed male model winger holds equal billing with the fat, stumpy anchor of the forward pack? Get an NFL offensive lineman to cover the kilometres that Benn Robinson or Al Baxter cover in a match and he'll be calling for the oxygen just so he can walk over and hear the quarterback send him away.
It makes me wonder: have we lost an appreciation for the contest? An appreciation for the game? An appreciation for everything it is that makes rugby great? Look at Phil Waugh's eyes on the big screen as he lines up for a lineout with five minutes left, trailing by six points. Look at David Pocock as the clock winds down, making the Cliffy Young shuffle look like Usain Bolt's warm-up. Look at George Smith who cops punch after punch at every breakdown, but like a great boxer continues to get back up to fight again. Watching the will, passion, commitment and individual skill of these players is entertaining.
You can't tell me the good people of Newtown dished out their hard-earned to watch Tommy Raudonikis's skill and brilliance. They paid to see the little Trojan play his heart out. Are we entertained by Lleyton Hewitt because his skills are better than anyone else? Absolutely not. We love him because he has a never-say-die attitude, and will push through any obstacle to put his best foot forward.
Make no mistake, rugby is as much a competition of skill as it is of will. And when the will of the players matches their collective skills for 80 minutes, it is truly impressive.
There has been a commitment from all Australian rugby teams to exhibit both of those this year. When the Super 14 kicks off, every player knows that it is game on. And when it does, I for one, will be entertained.
one of the most articulate, best written article on rugby (and why its better than everything else) ever (in my opinion)
