The spirit of the game

A few of you will have seen the England v India game when a highly contentious 'out' was given against Ian Bell. It was complicated because it was the last ball before tea and over the break period the umpires must have spoken to the cap0tain Dhoni and the Indian management team, and they withdrew their appeal. And as a result they are likely to lose the match.

I almost never see that in professional rugby. If you know that you got a false advantage, should you take it? Or should you play in the spirit of the game?

p.s. If England win this cricket series by two clear games (and this would put them 2-0 up with two to play) then they go to no 1 in the world rankings.

Yes I know that cricket goes over five days and rugby is all done and dusted in a couple of hours. But is the spirit of the game worth sacrificing as the be all and end all?

I think because rugby is a much higher paced, adrenaline pumped sport it is much more difficult for a player to realise he is offside for example.

Even when you look at players who are percieved to have entered a ruck carelessly or dangerously it will be very difficult for them to be aware of what they have done

Strauss and Flower actually went to the Indian dressing room to talk to Dhoni and Fletcher. India had a team meeting and then decided to withdraw their appeal.

Not only do you not see that in rugby, you see the opposite. Players deliberately cheating to gain an advantage (front-row forwards in the scrum, back-row forwards in the ruck, tugging support runners/covering tacklers off the ball etc).

The one example of something like this would be Wales scoring off a quick line-out with the wrong ball against Ireland. Didn't see the match (I was in Mexico), but if they knew that it was a different ball, spirit of the game says they should own up. The right thing to do is definitely to own up, but you don't often see it. (Not having a go at Wales here, I'm sure Ireland, England or any other nation would have claimed that try).

biltongbek wrote:I think because rugby is a much higher paced, adrenaline pumped sport it is much more difficult for a player to realise he is offside for example.

Even when you look at players who are percieved to have entered a ruck carelessly or dangerously it will be very difficult for them to be aware of what they have done

No. It's not those momentary decisions. It's the ones when you know the ref's got it wrong in your advantage.

It's a rare occurrence. But it happens.

Rugby has long had a different spirit to the game - the unwritten law that it is legal as long as the ref doesn't see it.

I think regardless of that, the pace of the game makes it impossible in rugby - in the cricket the incident happened with the last ball before tea then there was time for people to discuss and think about what had happened

Agree with most that with rugby being a much faster game its more difficult to think about questionable decisions when the ball is in play.

I have often seen teams score tries when an opposition player lies injured, leaving a significant gap and lowering the numbers on the defensive line.

Happened against England when NZ visited Europe in the last AI series.

Only 1 example of many however.. Its standard procedure to play to the ref so to be honest if the ref thinks its fine then I don't think we can argue that much.

Taking a wicket is 99% of the time clearcut.

Rugby is a game where players are continiously pushing the envelope to gain advatage.

Take Ronan O'Gara in 2006 vs the Springboks

Paul Honis tells John Smit to talk to his team, then proceeds to walk to the spot where the penalty must be taken from, O'Gara takes a tap and Ireland scores while the Boks are talking.


You can't blame O`Gara he did what every other player does, push the envelope

The referee interprets everything was fine, that cost SA the win

So I guess the difference between rugby and crickey is interpreting vs evidence

In this case Portnoy it appears to have been a case of the spirit of the game overcoming the law - Bell was correctly given out under the laws of cricket, but it was considered unsporting as he thought the ball had gone over the boundary before he left his crease. Or should England yesterday have recalled Harbajan as he was incorrectly given out LBW after clearly hitting the ball - there aren't too many cases where that happens.

It's worth noting that there have been a couple of cases in cricket in recent years where players have been derided for unsporting runouts (Collingwood vs NZ and McCullum vs Sri Lanka) so it's an area where there is a clear opinion in the game on how to behave. It's also worth noting that Adam Gilchrist was considered unusual as he was a "walker".

There are cases of sportsmanship in rugby - Umaga stopping to help Colin Charvis, or Olo Brown holding up a scrum to protect Ben Darwin after hearing his neck break for example.

snoopster wrote:Rugby has long had a different spirit to the game - the unwritten law that it is legal as long as the ref doesn't see it.

I think regardless of that, the pace of the game makes it impossible in rugby - in the cricket the incident happened with the last ball before tea then there was time for people to discuss and think about what had happened

yes. And perhaps have a chat over a spot of tea ol chap ay. . what..yes...off we go chaps..

Kiwireddevil wrote:In this case Portnoy it appears to have been a case of the spirit of the game overcoming the law - Bell was correctly given out under the laws of cricket, but it was considered unsporting as he thought the ball had gone over the boundary before he left his crease. Or should England yesterday have recalled Harbajan as he was incorrectly given out LBW after clearly hitting the ball - there aren't too many cases where that happens.

It's worth noting that there have been a couple of cases in cricket in recent years where players have been derided for unsporting runouts (Collingwood vs NZ and McCullum vs Sri Lanka) so it's an area where there is a clear opinion in the game on how to behave. It's also worth noting that Adam Gilchrist was considered unusual as he was a "walker".

There are cases of sportsmanship in rugby - Umaga stopping to help Colin Charvis, or Olo Brown holding up a scrum to protect Ben Darwin after hearing his neck break for example.

And the way O'Driscoll was politely helped down on his head?

Portnoy wrote:

Kiwireddevil wrote:In this case Portnoy it appears to have been a case of the spirit of the game overcoming the law - Bell was correctly given out under the laws of cricket, but it was considered unsporting as he thought the ball had gone over the boundary before he left his crease. Or should England yesterday have recalled Harbajan as he was incorrectly given out LBW after clearly hitting the ball - there aren't too many cases where that happens.

It's worth noting that there have been a couple of cases in cricket in recent years where players have been derided for unsporting runouts (Collingwood vs NZ and McCullum vs Sri Lanka) so it's an area where there is a clear opinion in the game on how to behave. It's also worth noting that Adam Gilchrist was considered unusual as he was a "walker".

There are cases of sportsmanship in rugby - Umaga stopping to help Colin Charvis, or Olo Brown holding up a scrum to protect Ben Darwin after hearing his neck break for example.

And the way O'Driscoll was politely helped down on his head?

I knew that was coming

Haha. You shouldn't really use Umaga as an example of a good sport when talking to anyone from the home nations.

Cheating is part of rugby. I can't imagine Richie McCaw saying "actually ref, that should be a free to the other team. I put my hands in the ruck there". He, or any other good flanker do the opposite. They actively try to deceive the ref. Collapsing scrums, crooked feeds, putting hands on opposition in lineouts - rugby is actually full of cheating when you think about it.

The reason every team that wins is open to the accusation of cheating , is because every single team IS cheating.

biltongbek wrote:Taking a wicket is 99% of the time clearcut.

Rugby is a game where players are continiously pushing the envelope to gain advatage.

Take Ronan O'Gara in 2006 vs the Springboks

Paul Honis tells John Smit to talk to his team, then proceeds to walk to the spot where the penalty must be taken from, O'Gara takes a tap and Ireland scores while the Boks are talking.


You can't blame O`Gara he did what every other player does, push the envelope

The referee interprets everything was fine, that cost SA the win

So I guess the difference between rugby and crickey is interpreting vs evidence

I think I know what Portnoy is really saying though. Is professionalism killing the very ethos of our game?



Answer = NO. In fact, once on the field, there is NO ethos. Except for gouging - everything is cool. Rugby is not "Cricket" anymore? It never was in the 1st place. There is far less skull-duggery going on now than back in the 70's. Blatant cheating (and getting away with it) - is way down in the modern game. Unless your name is McCaw and you ride the ref on your rep. Due to 3 or 4 different camera angles and the TMO. They still mess up, but it is far is more honest by design. Not by individual player choice. Mess up on camera and you get 4, 8 or 12 weeks. And more for the French.. which is fair enough.

Methinks the OP lives in Rugby Neverland.