Across the country at all levels teams are up sizing to counter the oppositions' big hits, and it is creeping down into the club rugby grades where forwards and backs are wearing the same sized jerseys. Only the absence of necks and knee pads makes them distinguishable from the sideline.
Why is this? Where is it heading was the follow on sideline korero while watching club rugby on Saturday.
Have we placed the big hit and the "smash 'em bro"' ahead of the inward, outward swerve of a fleet-footed inside centre, a la Bruce Robertson, who glided across the footy field like a matador picking the moment when he would strike the winning blow?
Not much bigger, with knobbly knees and chicken legs was Terry Wright, another legendary All Black winger, who had the ticker of a tiger and seemed to have an inbuilt radar that kept tacklers away and the tryline close.
How would these two survive in a Super 15 team of today?
The backline of big boys we are seeing today is changing the face and the grace of rugby and I have reservations about what it is doing to the game.
Once we had a Jonah who was a whale amongst fish but now the whole backline is a giant pod and there seems to be no place for the Batty sized wingers and skinny centres.
When we look at the profiles of all of the Super 15 backlines there is a uniform of buffed up 100 kilogram plus players, many of them islanders, with a sprinkling of Maori.
After that it's "where's the whitey?".
Does this dictate the aspirations of our Kiwi kids who run around the paddocks dreaming of the day when they will don the black jersey? Somehow I think it must sit in their psyche knowing full well the thought of being hit by a 130kg Samoan steam train won't be any fun. 'Nek minit' soccer is looking like a much safer arena to showcase their talents.
I know if I was a parent of a JMC junior rugby player and my son didn't have the genes of a giant, I would be steering them toward a safer sport, given the physicality in the modern game.
Concussions and long term head injuries are a ticking time-bomb, say leading neurologists and many players, coaches and parents agree.
And what part do we play as couch coaches who demand the big hits and howl like wolves when the head on collisions echo out through our televisions?
Are we manifesting the gladiatorial days where blood spilt was the thumbs up to stand and applaud before the thumbs down demanded the coup de grace?
Maybe I am becoming a soft-hearted sook in my old age and need to harden up? Whatever it is, my dislike at the increase of sickening bone-on-bone body blows is slowly turning me off the game.
Will we see the introduction of compulsory headgear like we do in the American game of gridiron? Water polo already has that fashion statement covered.
One thing is for certain. The chances of concussion increasing in the modern game of rugby are much more likely to happen than Grant Batty has of coming back home to Tauranga. We all need to take some ownership of this burgeoning problem.
broblack@xtra.co.nz
Tommy Kapai is a Tauranga author and writer.
