Then and Now

As I enter my 70th year.my 6oth watching and playing Rugby Union with memories of both Amateur and professional era. Not wearing rose tinted glasses.I have memories of thousands of great games,players,teams of all nations to sustain me and I would like to ask a question.
NOT whether Amateur and Professional eras are better or the law changes,motivation or what ever but more the setup that has evolvedis it for the better?.
For me the laws were simpler and a lot of areas like the setpiece ,ruck/maul situations better before big money moved in and changed a Sport
in just another job.
For example in your opinion is the current set up in England,Wales,Scotland,Nz And SA better or worse.With teams like Orrell.Mosely,Penarth,Borders vanishing.Is Wales better served by the current system than the old style Club rivalries?NZ with Provincial,SA with Currie Cup.
Was Super Rugby a good idea or not,is too much Rugby played,is it played at the wrong time of day,should it be only outdoors etc.
I Am Bored and really don`t know the answers yet to debate but would value others opinions especially do you miss old style Tours?

I'd definitely say too much rugby is played at the moment. You just have to look at the number of injuries in the southern hemisphere sides especially this autumn to witness that. One of my big fears with the number of injuries is that more and more players seem to be getting recurring problems especially at younger ages. Less rugby would mean more players fit and more competition for places therefore a higher standard of rugby for it and more hunger for it from the fans. That's how my brain works through the matter anyhow!

On the old style tours I'm fairly drawn as I liked the longer tours playing more clubs/provincial sides and a 3 test series but I've also grown fond of the AI's in a way. I just feel it's a good end to the International calendar with lots of teams playing against each other. In recent years they've looked to become more and more of a cash cow though with more game tagged onto the end of series.

If the AI's stay in favour of traditional tours I'd like to see the developing rugby nations included more as well. Surely one advantage of not having two sides tied into a series is that more nations should get exposure to the top sides from the Southern Hemisphere.

It's easy to look back with rose tinted glasses at the past. Nostalgia has a knack of remembering the good and ignoring the bad. I am no fan of the current Super 15 format nor of the conference system. But I'll be the first to admit that this year's local derbies made for the best rugby spectacles this year and some of the Super 15 NZ home derbies like the Chiefs and Hurricanes or the Sharks vs Stormers at the end of the year were great to watch.

That said, I think the season is far too long. The RC has gained a team but thankfully not grown in games. The AIs seem to be more exercises in revenue gathering than creating something meaningful like the June 3 test series in the European summer.

I think the laws, notably the breakdown, are a mess. They need simplifying and removing the ref from the equation. I think the ref should be there to make sure the game is played correctly but shouldn't break up the game and ruin the continuity. At the moment, every ruck or maul seems a lottery and the ref could easily pull up anyone for an infringement. Make it easier for the game to flow. Nobody wants to see scrums reset or players pinged for offences constantly but neither do we want to see anarchy and players getting away with murder.

That said, I think as the rugby order stands today, there is a big cluster in the top ten and things look pretty even moving towards the 2015 RWC. We don't want to see the situation with injuries that afflicted Australia and SA so we must make sure that players are managed properly. What really needs to be addressed in that area is the difference between test and club rugby. We can't allow certain clubs to wield too much influence and money in the game to the detriment of test rugby. Introducing salary caps would be a good idea and separating the club and test seasons. Also integrating the 6N and RC into something wider on a global scale. More has to be done to spreading the game globally. Looking at the success of the sevens circuit should be held up as an example rather than keeping the old boy network. Every major nation has a part to play in that.

Alas rugby will go the way off football. "Player management" will see weak international second strings play out lacklustre "friendlies" outside of world cups and players allegiance lie with their clubs. It's happening already.

There are too many internationals wedged in and the lack of a global season this far into professionalism is just rank incompetent management.

Bring back rucking to end the farce of the ruck laws. It's simple.its only "dangerous" if made so by players acting illegally in the first place.

Who are the ones money grabbing when the AI's come round? The big three from the SH come over, so why can't 3 of the home nations play a 3 game test series, their 4 game can be against other NH teams, plus Samoa, Fiji and Argentina you have enough to share the spoils.

Not a fan of the Welsh provinces but not sure how that can be solved now.

rainbow-warrior wrote:Who are the ones money grabbing when the AI's come round? The big three from the SH come over, so why can't 3 of the home nations play a 3 game test series, their 4 game can be against other NH teams, plus Samoa, Fiji and Argentina you have enough to share the spoils.

Not a fan of the Welsh provinces but not sure how that can be solved now.

The home unions make a bucketful of cash. Home games are where you cash in. The trade off Are the summer tours down under. I can't see why they couldn't have 3 match tours. I' guessing they don't because they all want a piece of the action cash wise. 3 match tours would mean no revenue 1 out of 3 years. Maybe 1 out of 2.if Argentina can!t sort out better contracting for their players.

blackcanelion wrote:

rainbow-warrior wrote:Who are the ones money grabbing when the AI's come round? The big three from the SH come over, so why can't 3 of the home nations play a 3 game test series, their 4 game can be against other NH teams, plus Samoa, Fiji and Argentina you have enough to share the spoils.

Not a fan of the Welsh provinces but not sure how that can be solved now.

The home unions make a bucketful of cash. Home games are where you cash in. The trade off Are the summer tours down under. I can't see why they couldn't have 3 match tours. I' guessing they don't because they all want a piece of the action cash wise. 3 match tours would mean no revenue 1 out of 3 years. Maybe 1 out of 2.if Argentina can!t sort out better contracting for their players.

Wales have capacity crowds for all 6 Nations and that is either 2 or 3 games per season, in fact they can usually get 60,000 for Japan and the less temas too. In the AI's say England play S Africa in a 3 test series, S Africa could play 1 other NH team the same goes for Australia and NZ so the losers of the 3 test series would get one or 2 of the others playing them. It is safe to say that Argentina should be a good team for 3 or 4 years now and would be the 4th and with Samoa now in the top 8 it's a 5th. Alll these Nations should bring capacity crowds into NH stadiums. Let's be honest the SH teams get a good % of the gate as well.

Far too much rugby being played, the IRB need to manage the game better, limiting the number of international matches per season as well as monitoring who plays who for the greater good of developing the sport.

Deleted

rainbow-warrior wrote:

blackcanelion wrote:

rainbow-warrior wrote:Who are the ones money grabbing when the AI's come round? The big three from the SH come over, so why can't 3 of the home nations play a 3 game test series, their 4 game can be against other NH teams, plus Samoa, Fiji and Argentina you have enough to share the spoils.

Not a fan of the Welsh provinces but not sure how that can be solved now.

The home unions make a bucketful of cash. Home games are where you cash in. The trade off Are the summer tours down under. I can't see why they couldn't have 3 match tours. I' guessing they don't because they all want a piece of the action cash wise. 3 match tours would mean no revenue 1 out of 3 years. Maybe 1 out of 2.if Argentina can!t sort out better contracting for their players.

Wales have capacity crowds for all 6 Nations and that is either 2 or 3 games per season, in fact they can usually get 60,000 for Japan and the less temas too. In the AI's say England play S Africa in a 3 test series, S Africa could play 1 other NH team the same goes for Australia and NZ so the losers of the 3 test series would get one or 2 of the others playing them. It is safe to say that Argentina should be a good team for 3 or 4 years now and would be the 4th and with Samoa now in the top 8 it's a 5th. Alll these Nations should bring capacity crowds into NH stadiums. Let's be honest the SH teams get a good % of the gate as well.

Sounds good in principle. I'd like to see tours as well. Maybe tour 1 Country for three tests the year after a World Cup, a SAANZAR team tours 1 country the next year (aka the lions), next year another 3 match tour of a nation, then no tour due to the World Cup. It's the same as we get. I can't see it though. You'd get 1 ab's tour every 12 years.

A couple of issues as well:
1 SH teams only have 3 game tours in the AI's. so another game can't be guaranteed.
2 The finances of the tours are in the public arena. NZ, SA and Aus don't get a huge % of the gates. It's a major reason why the NH teams have to go down south each summer. NZ, SA and Aus have broached the subject of more remuneration. At the moment the get it if they play an additional game aka nz. Vs England in December. Even then, by far the lions share went to the RFU.
3 Scrum.com allows you to pull up all the attendees for grounds. It's pretty clear that all the major grounds ate deuces drop off when major Teams aren't playing (eg there's approx. a 29,000 difference in attendance when wales is playing nz and playing samoa). The same is essentially true for twikerham and lanes down rd. murrayfield has had it's own attendance issues of late.

blackcanelion wrote:

rainbow-warrior wrote:

blackcanelion wrote:

rainbow-warrior wrote:Who are the ones money grabbing when the AI's come round? The big three from the SH come over, so why can't 3 of the home nations play a 3 game test series, their 4 game can be against other NH teams, plus Samoa, Fiji and Argentina you have enough to share the spoils.

Not a fan of the Welsh provinces but not sure how that can be solved now.

The home unions make a bucketful of cash. Home games are where you cash in. The trade off Are the summer tours down under. I can't see why they couldn't have 3 match tours. I' guessing they don't because they all want a piece of the action cash wise. 3 match tours would mean no revenue 1 out of 3 years. Maybe 1 out of 2.if Argentina can!t sort out better contracting for their players.

Wales have capacity crowds for all 6 Nations and that is either 2 or 3 games per season, in fact they can usually get 60,000 for Japan and the less temas too. In the AI's say England play S Africa in a 3 test series, S Africa could play 1 other NH team the same goes for Australia and NZ so the losers of the 3 test series would get one or 2 of the others playing them. It is safe to say that Argentina should be a good team for 3 or 4 years now and would be the 4th and with Samoa now in the top 8 it's a 5th. Alll these Nations should bring capacity crowds into NH stadiums. Let's be honest the SH teams get a good % of the gate as well.

Sounds good in principle. I'd like to see tours as well. Maybe tour 1 Country for three tests the year after a World Cup, a SAANZAR team tours 1 country the next year (aka the lions), next year another 3 match tour of a nation, then no tour due to the World Cup. It's the same as we get. I can't see it though. You'd get 1 ab's tour every 12 years.

A couple of issues as well:
1 SH teams only have 3 game tours in the AI's. so another game can't be guaranteed.
2 The finances of the tours are in the public arena. NZ, SA and Aus don't get a huge % of the gates. It's a major reason why the NH teams have to go down south each summer. NZ, SA and Aus have broached the subject of more remuneration. At the moment the get it if they play an additional game aka nz. Vs England in December. Even then, by far the lions share went to the RFU.
3 Scrum.com allows you to pull up all the attendees for grounds. It's pretty clear that all the major grounds ate deuces drop off when major Teams aren't playing (eg there's approx. a 29,000 difference in attendance when wales is playing nz and playing samoa). The same is essentially true for twikerham and lanes down rd. murrayfield has had it's own attendance issues of late.

1. If SH teams only play 3 how on earth have NZ managed Grand Slams in the past? (Eng, Ire, Sct, Wal)
2. I guess that may be the case, but it evens itself out when SH host their games, NZ suffer because o fthe size of the stadiums I guess.
3. Still get capacity crowds for 6 Nations, as I said the gates do go down for the so called lower sides, but that can not be said now for Samoa and Argentina fir the time being and thus crowds would rise for these nations in the future.


Those extra games outside the IRB dates can come back and bite you on the bum......Wales playing Australia cost them a top 8 ranking and another difficult task in the 2015 WC.

Emack2, I am in my 60's so have only been around the game for 55 years or so but I actually don't feel the essence of the game has changed much at all! Perhaps it's because most of my memories revolve around the club game and not the game at the very top level.

It's interesting that of the clubs you list as having vanished, as far as I'm aware, three of them are still going strong. Orrell play in the South Lancs and Cheshire League, Moseley play in the English Championship and Penarth play in the Swalec League Div 3 SE. As for Borders, they may well still exist, perhaps someone in Scotland could tell me. In your terms London Welsh would have 'vanished' if this was last year as they, like Moseley, were only in the Championship. Yet they have been my team in England for many years, since before the days they had the (still) record number of British and Irish Lions from a single team. OK, I admit they tumbled down the hierarchy of the game for a while, but they never went away.

As for club rivalries, they still exist, believe me. From a Welsh point of view the current desire to defeat the old 'enemy' is just as strong between Cardiff and Swansea or Llanelli and Newport as it always was. All those teams mentioned still play in the same league together, the Welsh Premiership. These clubs simply feed their players into the upper echelons of the game as they always did, it's just that there are new layers in between. The Premiership in England, the Regions in Wales and I suppose the Super Rugby of the southern hemisphere.

I still watch 'live' club rugby nearly every week and I record every single international and professional club game on TV from whatever source I can find it, BBC, BBC Wales, Sky, ESPN, S4C, ALBA, to then watch at my leisure. I personally couldn't care less how the game is structured, just as long as I can watch it, because it is still the game I have always loved. When I played the game it was all about dominating my opposite number and now, when I can only watch the game, I still see the same thing being played out in front of me. As long as I continue to see the one team striving to dominate the other with honest commitment and raw power and not resorting to the lame tricks of cheating seen in certain other 'professional' sports I will continue to watch and I will continue to love and enjoy our game of Rugby.

rainbow-warrior wrote:

blackcanelion wrote:

rainbow-warrior wrote:

blackcanelion wrote:

rainbow-warrior wrote:Who are the ones money grabbing when the AI's come round? The big three from the SH come over, so why can't 3 of the home nations play a 3 game test series, their 4 game can be against other NH teams, plus Samoa, Fiji and Argentina you have enough to share the spoils.

Not a fan of the Welsh provinces but not sure how that can be solved now.

The home unions make a bucketful of cash. Home games are where you cash in. The trade off Are the summer tours down under. I can't see why they couldn't have 3 match tours. I' guessing they don't because they all want a piece of the action cash wise. 3 match tours would mean no revenue 1 out of 3 years. Maybe 1 out of 2.if Argentina can!t sort out better contracting for their players.

Wales have capacity crowds for all 6 Nations and that is either 2 or 3 games per season, in fact they can usually get 60,000 for Japan and the less temas too. In the AI's say England play S Africa in a 3 test series, S Africa could play 1 other NH team the same goes for Australia and NZ so the losers of the 3 test series would get one or 2 of the others playing them. It is safe to say that Argentina should be a good team for 3 or 4 years now and would be the 4th and with Samoa now in the top 8 it's a 5th. Alll these Nations should bring capacity crowds into NH stadiums. Let's be honest the SH teams get a good % of the gate as well.

Sounds good in principle. I'd like to see tours as well. Maybe tour 1 Country for three tests the year after a World Cup, a SAANZAR team tours 1 country the next year (aka the lions), next year another 3 match tour of a nation, then no tour due to the World Cup. It's the same as we get. I can't see it though. You'd get 1 ab's tour every 12 years.

A couple of issues as well:
1 SH teams only have 3 game tours in the AI's. so another game can't be guaranteed.
2 The finances of the tours are in the public arena. NZ, SA and Aus don't get a huge % of the gates. It's a major reason why the NH teams have to go down south each summer. NZ, SA and Aus have broached the subject of more remuneration. At the moment the get it if they play an additional game aka nz. Vs England in December. Even then, by far the lions share went to the RFU.
3 Scrum.com allows you to pull up all the attendees for grounds. It's pretty clear that all the major grounds ate deuces drop off when major Teams aren't playing (eg there's approx. a 29,000 difference in attendance when wales is playing nz and playing samoa). The same is essentially true for twikerham and lanes down rd. murrayfield has had it's own attendance issues of late.

1. If SH teams only play 3 how on earth have NZ managed Grand Slams in the past? (Eng, Ire, Sct, Wal)
2. I guess that may be the case, but it evens itself out when SH host their games, NZ suffer because o fthe size of the stadiums I guess.
3. Still get capacity crowds for 6 Nations, as I said the gates do go down for the so called lower sides, but that can not be said now for Samoa and Argentina fir the time being and thus crowds would rise for these nations in the future.


Those extra games outside the IRB dates can come back and bite you on the bum......Wales playing Australia cost them a top 8 ranking and another difficult task in the 2015 WC.

True. Playing England wasn't pleasant either. In answer to 1. In recent years, by agreeing to play an additional game. This is usually the last game and is outside the international window. However, when the pound is strong it brings much needed cash into the game. In the distant past, the game was amateur, there werer few test matches, few tours and scheduling, etc wasn't as much of an issue.

Agree with you on 3.

Ruggerboy,you maybe right but the set piece was better organised in Amateur days.A Hooker counted taking a loose head as a victory,there were seldom more than one in a match.Scrum collapses were much fewer the way it was set
and special moves could be used.[wins against the head was rare]
A lineout nearly always went with the throw ,Refs as a rule of thumb if more than one went against throw.Then something was being practiced illegally variations were more prevalent peels etc.
I was aware that the Clubs mention still exist in some form BUT not in the same leagues.As to Wales do you think Club games were better for Wales than the current system.
Much of what is wrong today with the game comes from League ,there style defences.endless pick and goes.Pure League pre 4 tackle rule ,yes i`m old enough to remember that too.
I miss the Full 36 match tours I got see Sa,Aus,NZ locally something don`t see now and at affordable prices.
A typical squad would be likely Test team,a few veterans near the end of careers plus young hopefuls.
Mid week matches were very much mix and match so the locals had a better chance of win.
The Boks used to bring a stuffed Bok Head and award it to the first side to beat them.1951 first match,1961 last match.

[quote="blackcanelion"......Wales playing Australia cost them a top 8 ranking and another difficult task in the 2015 WC.[/quote]

Didn't do Oz much favors in the draw either, kind of group of death for us.. we'll be knackered by the time, if, we get out the group onto the knockout stage, but at least we'll been battled hardened!!