Rugby For A new Decade. - The Instant Solution.

[Bullitt]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Little Richardjohn @ Dec 22 2009, 11:16 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Teh Mite @ Dec 19 2009, 06:28 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That makes as much sense as... Well, a little.

However, with modern stadia already at their limit for allowed pitch area, that idea simply isn't workable. At least not without £millions of revelopment literally everywhere there's a fixed grandstand.[/b]

They're not at their limit at all, especially given the distinctly scanty attendances at most matches. What we're inevitably facing at some point is the loss of a few rows alongside the touchlines. So the capital cost would be minimal. [/b][/quote]

Somebody clearly knows nothing about structural engineering or economics.

To "lose a few rows along the touchlines" would involve ripping down every grandstand and rebuilding them from scratch. Nower days they're all built with poured concrete, not bricks and mortar, the entire structure is designed to be self supporting - therefore impossible to just "cut a bit out" without making them no longer structurally sound and they'd all become condemned by the building officer. That idea doesn't work.

The cost of redeveloping these stadia would run into billions of pounds worldwide, money that isn't in the sport. After all, we're not just talking the Millenium Stadium and Twickenham here, consider Park y Scarlets, Franklins Gardens, Welford Road, Kingsholm, Sixways, Thommund Park... All club stadia recently redeveloped on a limited budget and to do more work work of that magnitude would be financial suicide for those clubs - In some cases, they don't have the land to build more anyway. The rest don't even have their own stadia and share with soccer clubs because they can't afford their own arenas; Would the soccer owners allow their clubs and stadia to be cut up like that, losing revenue from lower attendances (because 'losing a few rows along the touchlines' will decrease capacity) plus making a mess of the stadia? I doubt it.

So the club game would die when the clubs either are all broke or have nowhere to play. No players would come through. Then the international game would die. Then the sport dies completely.

Plus the idea of kick and chase on a 70m wide pitch is like creating a 15 man version of rugby league.

 

[KZNSharksFan]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Bullitt @ Dec 23 2009, 12:33 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>

Plus the idea of kick and chase on a 70m wide pitch is like creating a 15 man version of rugby league.[/b]

Exactly!

Every time I think about how rugby could be made more entertaining (ie more space for the backs) the thought to drop a few players form the team crops up. It is at that point that I am forced to hurt myself for ever thinking of turning rugby into league.

Also, re: the pitch size: removing a few rows is likely impossible for many stadiums and would surely be prohibitively expensive for others.

 

[Buceph]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (KZNSharksFan @ Dec 22 2009, 11:48 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Bullitt @ Dec 23 2009, 12:33 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Plus the idea of kick and chase on a 70m wide pitch is like creating a 15 man version of rugby league.[/b]

Exactly!

Every time I think about how rugby could be made more entertaining (ie more space for the backs) the thought to drop a few players form the team crops up.[/b][/quote]

Go watch rugby league then.

Maybe you haven't caught last weekends matches but there's been some amazing rugby played. This is the first season of settled gameplay and people are just about getting to figure out the rules and how to play with them.

And you're demands of "more space for the backs" to make it "more entertaining" is what caused all the problems in the first place. Some people like scrums, and rucks and mauls, and forwards picking and going, grinding out a metre at a time all the while drawing players in an strategic battle that takes patience, strength, skill, tactical know-how, a balance between power, finesse and control. That's rugby.

Leave it alone, we're just getting back to regularly good games there's no need to go stirring it all up again.

Edit: Sorry, I got into my rage before I finished reading your post.

 

[Little Richardjohn]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Bullitt @ Dec 22 2009, 11:33 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Little Richardjohn @ Dec 22 2009, 11:16 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Teh Mite @ Dec 19 2009, 06:28 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That makes as much sense as... Well, a little.

However, with modern stadia already at their limit for allowed pitch area, that idea simply isn't workable. At least not without £millions of revelopment literally everywhere there's a fixed grandstand.[/b]

They're not at their limit at all, especially given the distinctly scanty attendances at most matches. What we're inevitably facing at some point is the loss of a few rows alongside the touchlines. So the capital cost would be minimal. [/b][/quote]

Somebody clearly knows nothing about structural engineering or economics.

To "lose a few rows along the touchlines" would involve ripping down every grandstand and rebuilding them from scratch. Nower days they're all built with poured concrete, not bricks and mortar, the entire structure is designed to be self supporting - therefore impossible to just "cut a bit out" without making them no longer structurally sound and they'd all become condemned by the building officer. That idea doesn't work.

The cost of redeveloping these stadia would run into billions of pounds worldwide, money that isn't in the sport. After all, we're not just talking the Millenium Stadium and Twickenham here, consider Park y Scarlets, Franklins Gardens, Welford Road, Kingsholm, Sixways, Thommund Park... All club stadia recently redeveloped on a limited budget and to do more work work of that magnitude would be financial suicide for those clubs - In some cases, they don't have the land to build more anyway. The rest don't even have their own stadia and share with soccer clubs because they can't afford their own arenas; Would the soccer owners allow their clubs and stadia to be cut up like that, losing revenue from lower attendances (because 'losing a few rows along the touchlines' will decrease capacity) plus making a mess of the stadia? I doubt it.

So the club game would die when the clubs either are all broke or have nowhere to play. No players would come through. Then the international game would die. Then the sport dies completely.

Plus the idea of kick and chase on a 70m wide pitch is like creating a 15 man version of rugby league.
[/b][/quote]
"Plus the idea of kick and chase on a 70m wide pitch is like creating a 15 man version of rugby league." To begin with, this of course is nonsense. A few yards either side would merely reclaim some of the space and time lost over the years to industrialised increases in overall speed and size. The rugby played in the 1960's and 70s, when players were slower, smaller and less fit, was not seen as a 'kick and chase version of league', but as a golden age of rugby, and rightly so.
As for the dead-end the game has been driven into by its various accountants and senile lawyers, that is a problem which will have to be addressed at some poiint, and I fear for attendances, injury levels and the game as a spectacle if they cannot find some way of undoing their mistakes. The signs were there all the time they were planning their follies.
Luckily there are still some clubs which can prepare for the future at minimal expense. On the international scale, Murrayfield could stretch its lines with hardly any trouble at all. But the lead has to come in a change of the laws to allow a wider pitch and set a minimum for future stadia. How long it will take those laws to unwind is speculation, but as the attendances at the wider pitches would be greater than at the old, cramped pitrches, I would expect the market to reach its usual judgement on any lack of foresight. It's a cruel world, but that's no reason to encourage the same fatal mistakes to be made universal.
Your only real objection is the money. There may be no alternative. In the long term, no investment would cost the game more than all your calculations.

 

[Little Richardjohn]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Buceph @ Dec 22 2009, 11:44 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>

And you're demands of "more space for the backs" to make it "more entertaining" is what caused all the problems in the first place. Some people like scrums, and rucks and mauls, and forwards picking and going, grinding out a metre at a time all the while drawing players in an strategic battle that takes patience, strength, skill, tactical know-how, a balance between power, finesse and control. That's rugby.

Leave it alone, we're just getting back to regularly good games there's no need to go stirring it all up again.[/b]

You talk as if nothing ever changes but the names of the players. As if professionalism and the welfare state had never happened.
Compared with the fairly recent past, games today look a bit like a freakshow parade. 30 distorted, top-heavy, over-specified neckless wonders, hurtliung towards their next aluminium knee joint.
No need to stir up a bit more safety for players? If we're going to talk money, h ow much did injuries cost clubs last year I wonder?

 

[Bullitt]

Glad you're here to <strike>explai</strike> dictate all that.


Even if your reasoning is flawed on a dozen different levels.

 

[fcukernaut]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Little Richardjohn @ Dec 23 2009, 06:35 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Bullitt @ Dec 22 2009, 11:33 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Little Richardjohn @ Dec 22 2009, 11:16 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Teh Mite @ Dec 19 2009, 06:28 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That makes as much sense as... Well, a little.

However, with modern stadia already at their limit for allowed pitch area, that idea simply isn't workable. At least not without £millions of revelopment literally everywhere there's a fixed grandstand.[/b]

They're not at their limit at all, especially given the distinctly scanty attendances at most matches. What we're inevitably facing at some point is the loss of a few rows alongside the touchlines. So the capital cost would be minimal. [/b][/quote]

Somebody clearly knows nothing about structural engineering or economics.

To "lose a few rows along the touchlines" would involve ripping down every grandstand and rebuilding them from scratch. Nower days they're all built with poured concrete, not bricks and mortar, the entire structure is designed to be self supporting - therefore impossible to just "cut a bit out" without making them no longer structurally sound and they'd all become condemned by the building officer. That idea doesn't work.

The cost of redeveloping these stadia would run into billions of pounds worldwide, money that isn't in the sport. After all, we're not just talking the Millenium Stadium and Twickenham here, consider Park y Scarlets, Franklins Gardens, Welford Road, Kingsholm, Sixways, Thommund Park... All club stadia recently redeveloped on a limited budget and to do more work work of that magnitude would be financial suicide for those clubs - In some cases, they don't have the land to build more anyway. The rest don't even have their own stadia and share with soccer clubs because they can't afford their own arenas; Would the soccer owners allow their clubs and stadia to be cut up like that, losing revenue from lower attendances (because 'losing a few rows along the touchlines' will decrease capacity) plus making a mess of the stadia? I doubt it.

So the club game would die when the clubs either are all broke or have nowhere to play. No players would come through. Then the international game would die. Then the sport dies completely.

Plus the idea of kick and chase on a 70m wide pitch is like creating a 15 man version of rugby league.
[/b][/quote]
"Plus the idea of kick and chase on a 70m wide pitch is like creating a 15 man version of rugby league." To begin with, this of course is nonsense. A few yards either side would merely reclaim some of the space and time lost over the years to industrialised increases in overall speed and size. The rugby played in the 1960's and 70s, when players were slower, smaller and less fit, was not seen as a 'kick and chase version of league', but as a golden age of rugby, and rightly so.
As for the dead-end the game has been driven into by its various accountants and senile lawyers, that is a problem which will have to be addressed at some poiint, and I fear for attendances, injury levels and the game as a spectacle if they cannot find some way of undoing their mistakes. The signs were there all the time they were planning their follies.
Luckily there are still some clubs which can prepare for the future at minimal expense. On the international scale, Murrayfield could stretch its lines with hardly any trouble at all. But the lead has to come in a change of the laws to allow a wider pitch and set a minimum for future stadia. How long it will take those laws to unwind is speculation, but as the attendances at the wider pitches would be greater than at the old, cramped pitrches, I would expect the market to reach its usual judgement on any lack of foresight. It's a cruel world, but that's no reason to encourage the same fatal mistakes to be made universal.
Your only real objection is the money. There may be no alternative. In the long term, no investment would cost the game more than all your calculations.
[/b][/quote]

Have you ever seen video of rugby from the 60's and 70's? It is laughable, borderline unwatchable. It is by no means "the golden age" of rugby, it wasn't even good and doesn't resemble anything anyone under 25 has ever played. I would much rather watch the kicks fests of today than the crap of yesteryear. Something needs to be done but let's not get carried away when we get nostalgic.

 

[Fa'atau82]

For every sport, there is a tactic to negate the way to play the game, as in such fashion to completely dictate the way the game is played. Like Inter Milan's catenaccio.

There are times in a game where kicking is a great idea. This works on the basis that early in the game, each team is finding each other out. Put up a few high balls and see who can't cope. Or kick for touch in the actual intention of gaining territory. So whatever the rules are, someone, some team will completely reverse the whole point of it. So, we get the ping-pong scenario. Really, you should only kick when finding touch, clearing your lines, putting up a garryowen on the fullback or the crosskick.

Aimless kicking, that's not even destined to find touch is just a crap tactic.. or not a tactic at all. Kicking is fine, if it's used for it's proper use. Always run the ball in hand. It makes sense. As long as you have the ball, they do not. Is that too difficult to figure out?

 

[Little Richardjohn]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Fa'atau82 @ Dec 24 2009, 03:46 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>

Aimless kicking, that's not even destined to find touch is just a crap tactic.. or not a tactic at all. Kicking is fine, if it's used for it's proper use. Always run the ball in hand. It makes sense. As long as you have the ball, they do not. Is that too difficult to figure out?[/b]

The problem is that the dynamics of the modern game have changed what is a crap tactic and what isn't.
When it is more difficult to gain territory from keeping possession than to surrender it and hope for a mistake by the opposition in their own half, the tactic of giving away possession is the percentage strategy.
Us lowly coarse players know all about this. When you want to get a scrum in the opposition 22, just give the ball to the opposition, they drop it, and you have your scrum with little or no tiresome effort. A decade of intense professionalism and drug-crazed trainiing have brought the game up to the same level as the Bogmouth-on-Sylt 5th XV.
Anyone watching the game today for the first time must be totally baffled, especially when people claim it has never been better. That the open play and skills which they'd heard about are reduced to the absurd spectacles of Ping-Pong kicking and the 'After-You' ruck.