Moving forward with Rugby Union

Rugby has to be a fast flowing, exciting try scoring game.

not a boring, grind it out until your within cooee of the posts and tap the ball over style chess game.

Rugby is a professional entertainment proposition. It needs to be entertaining to be self fulfilling...more people watching = more TV revenue = more gate revenue = more money for the players and the grassroots game.

England is fucking boring to watch play. it's not entertaining...sure..its effective and it wins games....but farkin yawn.
IMO, the two most skilled sides, who play the most expansive and entertaining games, played last night. I really enjoyed last nights game...and that is how rugby should be.

I agree with Grant Battys comments from last weekend. Drop goals should be reduced to one point.
Penalties....2 points.

If the IRB had any sense, it would make these changes.

If you did that, you'd run the danger of teams intentionally commiting penalites to stop try scoring opportunities. You could give away 4 penalties in your own 22, before it would cost you as much as one try.

Penalties should stay at 3 points as a dis-incentive to foul play. Tries ought to go up to 6, and conversion be worth 1. Drop goals should drop to 2 points.

Teams ought to be given a foul count, say 7- 10 penalties a half. After you have used up all your penalty count all subsequent penalties are taken from the middle of the offending teams 22 - i.e. a "gimme" 3 points, sorta like basketball when they go to the free throw line. Professional fouls should attract "micro" sin binning - like ice hockey. Kill the ball deliberately, and its 2 minutes in the bin.

they need to move the advantage line to 5m behind the hindmost foot of the defending teams players at the breakdown, if you are more that 5m from the ruck.

That should do it.

there is ways to do..I just gave the most basic way.

the rules are revised every year...every year I played there was always a new rule that came in..designed to make the game more "freeflowing" and more of a visual spectacle.

eg - trys went from 4 -5 points.

bring on some radical change I say...shake the game up.


Let aussie have a 4th team in the super 12. (more on the reasons behind that later)

To me, the game has never been the same since they started fucking around with the tackle ball rule in the early 80's and tied that to the virtual outlawing of rucking. Once upon a time, the tackle ball rule was simple and the use of rucking meant the ruck was self policing - you only got caught lying on the ball on the wrong side of the ruck once!!!

Exactly Fush_Boy. Bring back rucking. Unfortunately the English are pussies and can't cope with it.

I don't think the changes need to be *that* radical... (at least not all at once)... I definitely think drop goals should go down to 2, probably 1. They're good for a tie breaker, but besides that, they don't add a lot to the game. It's really only been the last 2 or 3 years that a few sides (including Canterbury and the Crasaders) have started milking drop goals, and it's taking a lot away from the game.

I agree with the ideas behind foul counts, but I think the ruck/maul laws need to be tidyied up first... there're way too many penalties that go the wrong way as it stands.

Despite the fact that two defensive sides are in the final of the WC, rugby is in incredibly good shape. It's one of the most successful team sports in the world, and the WC has been a huge success.

I think the IRB really needs to focus on bring up the level of the countries outside the top 5. That, to me, is more of an issue than improving the quality of the games between the top 5.

Rugby could be in better shape. 2 defensive teams in the final does not a spectacle make.

rugby in the islands is fucked...and needs some serious help.

International eligbility law is fucked...

Isitola Maka played one game for the all blacks.......now he is not allowed to play for Samoa.

thats wrong in my books....and its killing island rugby. Samoa had 14 players it wanted to pick that were either not eligible, or would not be released by their clubs. fix that up, and you will have 3 more sides that will match if not beat the 2nd teir of world teams within 3 years.

yep, i agree Damien, there are problems... but I think short term, the game is pretty secure...

I don't really think the teams in the final is that big a deal... i mean, the semis and final of the soccer world cup are normally amazingly boring, very defensive games... but that doesn't stop it being the #1 tournament in the work... world cups are a lot about luck.. most sports can produce one off upsets, and Aus beating us was one of them... and Eng / NZ final would've been very intersting...

Long term, the game needs a bigger top tier, and a bigger second tier (or maybe do away with tiers altogether, and have 10 - 20 teams who move up and down the ladder with time). That's should really be the focus... the game itself can do with improvement, but I don't think it needs a complete overhaul right now

Style of rugby is not everything. Winning is. We need to develop a hard nosed tough and uncompromising style of forward play that will ensure we have the right sort of ball to play our attacking game. I would have been stoked if we had won the world cup 3-0.

Why don't we treat the Islands the same way the Lions relate to the Home Unions? In other words, why not let the Island nations choose between Aussie and NZ as to which country they affiliate with (for say a period of 5 years), then the All Blacks or Wallabies have first pick from the affiliated Island states, but if your not selected your available for your country, whether or not you played for NZ or Aussie the previous or even same season???

That way, someone like Samoa could negotiate with Aussie to change their affliation status if they think they are not getting a good deal from NZ, and vice versa, AND there players would be playing for the best teams all the time...

IS that a good idea????????

Agree drop goals should be downgraded to 1 point, maybe 2. I also think that penalties should be for deliberate foul play and more use made of free kicks.

I'm not sure how to do it but more needs to be done to make players commit to rucks and mauls. With 13 guys in a defensive line rugby will always be boring, reduce it to 8-10 and you will see more action.

Another small point, one use of advantage should be reversing the lineout throw. If a team with advantage kicks it out then give them the lineout feed rather than taking play back to the penalty where they just kick it out again and feed the lineout in basically the same position, net effect is just wasted game time.

I don't think that'll work... as soon as you get advantage, you'll just punt it down the field as far as you can, rather than trying to run with it... a lot of the time, if the kick is good, the ref will say advantage was used, and play the lineout.

Easy solution, the punt down the field is considerered as the penalty then, if it goes out you throw in, if not play continues.