NWR The road to Stade de France - RWC 2023

Let's face it, England will meet Wales Australia or Fidji in the quarter finals so is almost qualified for the semi finals almost irrespective of how they play. Then their semi final opponent will have had much harder propositions in the run up to the semi. If you add a rainy day with a slippery ball and Ford on Drop goals, England has a great chance to do the final where anything can happen. As for the entertainment of course... different story, this may be bad news for the popularity of rugby.
 
I am not a lover of soccer but I do admire the skill set of some players and therefore the very odd game where it is demonstrated. Ie Barcelona, Manchester City and Real Madrid. In ruby Union The all blacks over the years as well as some early welsh sides have played the game in the manner that all rugby fan’s love to see. Fiji will probably not win the competition but they are playing free flowing rugby as I feel it should be played. At the bottom of that table come Australia and England!
 
3 thoughts fwiw:

1) japan were very well organised defensively and deserve credit for that.
2) england’s handling was probably the worst I’ve ever seem with countless knock ons. Japan’s wasn’t much better though so perhaps the ball just really was that slippy?
3) England’s set pieces were also very poor with numerous line outs turned over and zero pressure applied to the Japanese scrum.

Looking ahead, it's 3 that will kill England in the 1/4 finals, regardless of whether they fix the handling issues.

As to the spectacle, the game really isn't of any interest to me these days. The rule changes have changed its flow so much as to be practically unrecognisable form the game that I loved. Rewatching games like the the famously brutal France vs England RWC semi-final in Paris in 1989 immediately made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up with the intensity, speed and flow. I know I'm just an old dinosaur shouting get off my lawn but the game is practically dead to me now.
 
Great post Max( and yours Dan) I support teams that entertain ——and very few do at rugby nowadays . Partly , of course , because of the ridiculous number of rules , but also the interpretation of them, that changes from referee to referee . No way, will Rugby ever be a truly global and well supported game , when so many teams play boring kick kick grunt grunt rugby.
 
Keith Prothero said:
Great post Max( and yours Dan) I support teams that entertain ——and very few do at rugby nowadays . Partly , of course , because of the ridiculous number of rules , but also the interpretation of them, that changes from referee to referee . No way, will Rugby ever be a truly global and well supported game , when so many teams play boring kick kick grunt grunt rugby.
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This is the crux of the problem. You have a fundamentally broken game when the same two teams can meet on any given two days and get two completely different results depending on who the referees are. We're now at the point where not only can that happen but it invariably will happen.
 
I’m with Sean H re the amount of hand-wringing going on about England.

Rugby at the highest level simply isn’t about pure entertainment - if you want that, go watch the HK sevens. It’s about finding a way to win making best use of the resources you have to hand and 14-man England delivered a masterclass in that against Argentina (much to the chagrin of the ‘I told you so’ crowd).

And as for the late 1980s/early 1990s being the halcyon days of free flowing English rugby. Really? I moved to Australia around this time and exchanged a dire stop/start kicking game personified by Rob Andrew for the gloriously flowing and inventive rugby of the NRL in the days of Mal Meninga, Ricky Stuart and the like. Yes it was League but it put a lie to the idea that Union was a free flowing game and League a regimented tackle fest. Quite the reverse at that time.
 
Adam Holland said:
I’m with Sean H re the amount of hand-wringing going on about England.

Rugby at the highest level simply isn’t about pure entertainment - if you want that, go watch the HK sevens. It’s about finding a way to win making best use of the resources you have to hand and 14-man England delivered a masterclass in that against Argentina (much to the chagrin of the ‘I told you so’ crowd).

And as for the late 1980s/early 1990s being the halcyon days of free flowing English rugby. Really? I moved to Australia around this time and exchanged a dire stop/start kicking game personified by Rob Andrew for the gloriously flowing and inventive rugby of the NRL in the days of Mal Meninga, Ricky Stuart and the like. Yes it was League but it put a lie to the idea that Union was a free flowing game and League a regimented tackle fest. Quite the reverse at that time.
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And League has continued to get even better. Semi finals this weekend and grand final next week. Over time rugby has appropriated numerous League rules so it probably won't be long before rugby eliminates lineouts and reduces teams to 13 players.
 
I realise that my reference to the word flow has been misinterpreted as meaning free flowing which was absolutely not what I meant. It’s precisely the misguided attempt to try and copy the league game that has lead to the horrible mess that union is in today. If you like league, watch league. I liked union way more in the 80s because of the tempo/flow of the game then not because it was more free flowing - it certainly wasn’t!

There’s a host of reasons why (by no means all related to rule changes) but it‘s mainly to do with lack of space for attackers and the insane turnover rules if you’re unlucky enough ever to make a break.
 
Some of the problems with the 'shape' of the game go back to the switch to professionalism. In the pre-professional days fitness levels were lower, and in particular defence strategies more primitive. Lines could be broken, and tackles broken - so much less so now. And with lower fitness levels the games often opened up in the second half at all levels.

On the other hand, I do think we have to live with the need to protect players from head injuries. There is no morally justified way back from that. At some point the refereeing will improve and become more consistent and the players themselves will avoid most high and head contact engagements.
 
Richard Zambuni said:
Some of the problems with the 'shape' of the game go back to the switch to professionalism. In the pre-professional days fitness levels were lower, and in particular defence strategies more primitive. Lines could be broken, and tackles broken - so much less so now. And with lower fitness levels the games often opened up in the second half at all levels.

On the other hand, I do think we have to live with the need to protect players from head injuries. There is no morally justified way back from that. At some point the refereeing will improve and become more consistent and the players themselves will avoid most high and head contact engagements.
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100% agree on both points. Indeed, if they don’t sort out the concussions, there won’t be any game in a decade. However, re the fitness/flow point, the rules have undoubtedly made it much worse eg lots of substitutions of tired players and the possession turnover at mauls.
 
Adam Holland said:
I’m with Sean H re the amount of hand-wringing going on about England.

Rugby at the highest level simply isn’t about pure entertainment - if you want that, go watch the HK sevens. It’s about finding a way to win making best use of the resources you have to hand and 14-man England delivered a masterclass in that against Argentina (much to the chagrin of the ‘I told you so’ crowd).

And as for the late 1980s/early 1990s being the halcyon days of free flowing English rugby. Really? I moved to Australia around this time and exchanged a dire stop/start kicking game personified by Rob Andrew for the gloriously flowing and inventive rugby of the NRL in the days of Mal Meninga, Ricky Stuart and the like. Yes it was League but it put a lie to the idea that Union was a free flowing game and League a regimented tackle fest. Quite the reverse at that time.
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State of Origin at SCG in 1986 - one of the greatest matches I have seen. Meninga, Wally Lewis, Conescu, Andrew Farrar, Brett Kenny, Peter Sterling, Noel Cleal and many more. Great atmosphere and they played all over the test match square. First ever (I think) clean sweep for NSW. Amazing atmosphere.
 
Counterpoint on head injuries - professional sports do exist that just accept the risk. Boxing, for example. I'm not saying it's morally justified but I do wonder whether resolving the risk is actually possible.
 
"pre-professional days fitness levels were lower"

Of course they were. Players went to work on Monday morning after the match on Saturday. The image of Nigel O Hara on the left hand side of the 25 coming up from a ruck and the play transferring over to the right and him with his hands on his knees shooing them away will never leave my memories of the game. Players were also lighter, wingers at 12 stone. Backrow at 14 stone. With fitness levels they were also slower (well the forwards were). More line breaks in the amateur game? Well they didn't lead to more tries. I would say there are much more tries scored today than before. There has to be, we're paying £100 a ticket, rather than a fiver and lifting your son over the turn stile.

With professionalism, players trained 4-5 days a week, after training bulked up in the gym. I am trying to think about one club, I played at that had a gym, let alone a weights area. Only in the professional era in the late 90's. So players got fitter, bigger and faster. The danger levels in the game raised because of it and eventually the game recognised that it couldn't be played with the rules of the amateur era. Thinking back to rule changes, I think lineouts began to change with lifting. It's a foggy time as I went from backrow to frontrow to ensure the lads got a game on a Saturday. That hastened my retirement, fed up of not seeing anything other than the pavement til Tuesday!

I can remember a certain Northern Neanderthal wailing and gnashing of teeth when the scrummaging laws changed, then were tweaked and tweaked to where we are in a position today where scrummaging looks good at this world cup. They also look as safe as they can get. Barnes control of the scrums particularly impressed me. Players and refs are singing from the same song sheet. There was a certain amount of trial and error to get to that point. The same is inevitably going to happen with tackling. We can be critical of the what's happening at the moment, or we can gruff and grumble. What's the alternative? The game stops for a season for players and refs "to get things right".

One thing I've noticed this world cup is that the offside rule is being zealously adhered too. Is this to ensure that the defender has time to make a legitimate tackle? If so good, but the zealous attitude on the goal line, giving penalties for finger tips over the line is going overboard. It's one of the reasons we were critical of Wales not being given a second yellow against Fiji the other week.
 
As mentioned by others less persons on the pitch will create a better game. In the years since it became profession and the players more muscular injuries have increased a lot. Question 13 or 14 players?
 
Julian Seers-Martin said:
Counterpoint on head injuries - professional sports do exist that just accept the risk. Boxing, for example. I'm not saying it's morally justified but I do wonder whether resolving the risk is actually possible.
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It’s not possible to resolve the risk completely. However, for legal reasons, if nothing else, world rugby has to be seen to have done everything it reasonably could.
 
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