JEFF PROBYN
A FRONT ROW VIEW OF THE GAME
WITH the inter national window now over for the men’s game, the focus has returned to club rugby with some strange results as the players begin to refocus on their weekly jobs.
Last week’s match between Saracens and Harlequins, if that is what you can call such a one-sided contest, was notable for the size of crowd. Playing at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in the north London heartland of Saracens, the game attracted an audience of around 61,000 fans. If Sarries could attract an audience that size on a regular basis you would expect them to either increase the capacity of the StoneX Stadium in Hendon that currently seats just 10,500, or consider a long term coalition with the football club to share the stadium.
Considering the number of inter national players they have, it must make it virtually impossible for them to break even, let alone make a profit. There are mounting debts at every club in the professional game, the Premiership clubs alone have collective debt of around £300 million, it seems that the game has lost its way and is not being helped by World Rugby who, by continually changing the laws rather than improving the game for spectators and players, are just creating more confusion.
I hate saying this but back when I played, the game had a fluency that seems to have disappeared. From the kick-off to the final whistle every element of the game flowed from setting set-pieces to kicking at goal. Scrums and lineouts are a perfect example with the referee or touch judge making a mark and both teams forming as quickly as possible without the need for instructions from the ref. Once in position the ball was put or thrown in straight down the middle allowing for a fair contest for possession. When lineouts were formed, players were not allowed to leave until the ball had left the hooker’s hand with a coded call to indicate who the ball was being thrown to.
Unfortunately the idea of the referee setting the scrum has caused a number of delays and resets that creates frustration for players and spectators and so should be removed and left to the players who should know their job.
The reason the referee got involved was because of injuries in youth rugby but there are now variations in the way the game is played at different age groups that should enable the scrum to revert to how it used to be, which would speed up the whole process.
Areas where I also think the game should think of reverting to the laws of the past include breakdowns where players were not allowed to put their hands on the ball on the floor, unless in a one-on-one situation, and the tackled player had to release the ball immediately.
The so-called j
