Gregor Paul: The twisted thinking killing World Rugby - and the easy way to fix it

All Blacks flanker Ardie Savea tackled by South Africa's Makazole Mapimpi. Photo / Photosport

COMMENT:

Every day it seems rugby has another fire to put out, another mini-drama brews that is rated a threat to the existence of the sport as we know it.

Financial collapse is imminent in Australia; South Africa are plotting a shift of allegiance to Europe; more English clubs are about to be exposed as salary cap rorters and a generation of players could be facing a post-career life of health issues related to suffering repeated head knocks.

The list could go on and yet just as it seems there are hundreds of fires for rugby's administrators to put out, maybe there is just one.

It is not a lack of money, or poor competition formats that is really killing the game at the moment. It is a lack of space on the field and a chronic failure by officialdom to uphold the most fundamental tenet of the game which is to enforce the offside line.

Defensive sides have risen up the world rankings in recent years, not just because they have decided to spend thousands of hours working without the ball rather than with it.

The development of linespeed as a weapon has not in itself changed the nature of rugby and the world order as we once knew it.

What's changed is that referees have given up ensuring defensive lines are onside. They have decided that defensive linespeed is a skill that must be given a chance to flourish and that if teams are stealing a half metre or more to get in the face of the attacking team, then so be it.

Match referee Paul Williams during a Super Rugby match between the Crusaders and the Waratahs. Photo / Photosport

Defence, after all, has become a legitimate form of attack so the non-refereeing of the offside line can be justified in the name of entertainment. Referees can say they are giving fans what they want – more attack and more collisions.

But this twisted thinking is failing to see that many tests for the last few years have in fact been devoid of attacking creativity and that rugby has become one-dimensional as a result.

Its problems, the real ones, all stem from this. Rugby was never imagined as a game where the defence would be handed the only set of the keys to the castle.

For the last few years, for test rugby to work as a genuine spectacle it has needed two teams to take the field with a similar attacking mind-set. The All Blacks and Wallabies are easily the best example of what can be achieved if teams focus more on what they do with the ball and abide, mostly, with the principle that they owe it to the game to keep themselves onside. Japan took a similar approach at the World Cup, which is why they are fast becoming the team everyone wants to watch.

These three sides, though, mostly stand alone and the prevailing view among the rest is to exploit the weakness of officials and take, take, take so they can smother and hound attacking teams.

The Calcutta Cup game last weekend was, hopefully, the nadir. Edinburgh's weather threw its worst at Murrayfield and a swirling wind and driving rain made life just about impossible for both teams.

But even if the sun had weakly shone through Edinburgh's hoppy-fug, the Scots never stood a chance of launching any kind of attack as England were camped at a record offside point for most of the game.

The fact that the BBC commentary – a paragon of impartiality – felt the need to suggest that the English were perhaps a metre-and-a-half offside on occasion, says everything about what rugby needs to fix and fix fast.

World Rugby vice chairman Augustin Pichot. Photo / Photosport

And it's not hard in practical terms to make the fix. World Rugby vice chairman Agustin Pichot outlined a plan during the World Cup – suggesting that defensive lines should be held five metres back from the tackled ball as they are from scrums.

Others have suggested that technology be introduced so a virtual offside line could be beamed across the field, which is fine, but for the fact this won't be practical in the amateur game.

The first option has to be the way to go. An instant fix to the lack of space on the field and inevitably a five-metre gap will become four when the defensive side creeps, but four metres is a veritable acre and will provide all the space attacking teams need to flourish again.

So rugby doesn't need to tear its hair out and lament all the mounting issues and fret from where it's next dollar is coming. Fix the policing of the offside line and they will fix everything, the money will flow and people will return to the empty stands, suddenly aware that what they are watching is worth paying for.