Written Saturday 13/02/2010

SUPER 14 2010.

3 games in,  only two watched,  and already some glaring issues and inconsistencies in the interpretation of the tackle law coupled with the laws surrounding it,  a glaring difference between New Zealand and Australia (to date in any case) at the scrum,  and generally two games that were pedestrian at best,  never reaching any height,  never seemingly getting out of first gear.

Firstly the tackle law interpretation.  Really the refs have just been told to police the law as it is written,  and as it has been written for a long time,  and that is first and foremost, at the tackle,  the tackler must release the tackled player and allow him to play the ball.  Been the law for a long time.  Where the law now falls down in my opinion is that the next sanction is now a full armed penalty,  where as it was a short arm last year, under the ELV's.  A full arm sanction in today's world will yield many,  many penalties from this interpretation.  It will not,  and clearly did not get the game flowing,  as the law making boffins seemed to think it would.  However,  short arm sanctions would,  there would be tap and play on,  defences would be in disarray,  and we would see more football in play,  if that is what they want.  I am just not sure how they thought the combination that is in place now would produce more running footy,  it just makes no sense.

Coupled with that,  Stu Dickinson had a sublimely disgraceful game in what he saw and decisions he made.  Walsh was a little better,  but not by large amounts.

THE SCRUM: I think one scrum reset in the Hurricanes vs Auckland match up,  one,  and ten thousand in the game between the Brumbies and the Force.  Is there any coincidence in the fact that the Brumbies scrum is coached by Bill Young,  ex Wallaby,  a serial collapser of the scrum through his lack of strength and ability at the set piece.  Bill Young could not scrummage his way out of a Big Dad's pie shop and now he is coaching the scrum at one of our leading provincial sides.  That is a joke and is clearly bad karma for our ability to scrum at that and ensuing levels.  One cannot say it enough,  Bill Young was a very,  very ordinary scrummager that was protected by a softly softly refereeing approach.  He would have been destroyed under a fully competitive scrummaging environment,  so to me the Brumbies will keep putting them on the deck.  From my perspective,  not great amounts of time for the STeven Moore game either,  and I hold in particular disdain his time consuming and over emphasized set up routine and his continued failure to pack,  penalize the rubbish straight away and let's play.   If he can't get it right alot more often than he does in relation to set up and distances etc,  then he is wearing the wrong number.

Both games were slow moving affairs that will have the rugby league fraternity having a quiet chuckle.  If that type of display continues,  rugby won't get close to challenging as a spectacle,  and the spectacle is what brings the non rugby people through the gates,  and gets them to pay money,  money that is badly needed by the code and the provinces.

Drab and dismal kickoff to Super 14 with stupidity reigning in the law combination,  happy to see the tackler policed,  but it must be sanctioned by a short arm.  The lawmakers must also always be very conscious of never killing the contest,  one of the key and very strong differentiators of this game from others.