Referee Mike Fraser makes a call during the round 8 Super Rugby Aotearoa match between the Highlanders and the Blues last year. Photo / Getty Images
Referee Mike Fraser makes a call during the round 8 Super Rugby Aotearoa match between the Highlanders and the Blues last year. Photo / Getty Images
OPINION:
Five-or-so years ago a survey of business travellers revealed the 10 most hated items of "management speak", the meaningless jargon heard in boardrooms and offices around the world and so beloved by those delivering a powerpoint presentation.
Near to the top of the list was "blue sky thinking", theconcept that all ideas should be given fair hearing no matter how ridiculous they might sound initially. It's been parodied so much that no self-respecting marketer or consultant is likely to use it these days but it's what came to mind following New Zealand Rugby's announcement of their experimental law variations for this year's Super Rugby Aotearoa competition.
Except, the two law variations – goalline dropouts and captain's challenge – don't even meet that low standard because they've effectively just been copied from league, a frankly bizarre turn of events considering how successful the Super Rugby Aotearoa "product" (to use another management term) was last year and the other real issues within the game that are far more pressing such as the time wasted by scrum resets and teams defending slim leads in the final minutes of matches.
There are also sure to be unintended consequences and it's clear that scrum coaches weren't consulted on the goalline dropout idea because those teams with a particularly strong scrum – the Crusaders, for example – will be disadvantaged by it.
General View during the round 1 Super Rugby Aotearoa match between the Blues and the Hurricanes at Eden Park on June 14, 2020. Photo / Getty Images.
The Red and Blacks, gunning for a fifth consecutive Super title, have the attacking weapons to play virtually any way they like, but one in particular is their ability to put pressure on teams by constant pick-and-gos near the opposition tryline, and, if they get over the line but are held up, via their scrum five metres out.
Under the law variation if an attacking player is held up over the opposition tryline, the result is a goalline dropout rather than a five-metre scrum, a state of affairs likely to have Crusaders scrum expert Jason Ryan searching his bald head for hair to tear out.
Like it or not, the scrum is an integral part of the game, a game which was established to cater for all shapes and sizes, and so for administrators to actively avoid the set piece goes against the spirit of the game. It also highlights a growing perception that administrators and officials don't know how to police the scrum, which at its best can be a fierce and even contest for possession or domination and at its worst is a frustrating waste of everyone's time.
The aim of the goalline dropout according to New Zealand Rugby's high performance boss Mike Anthony, who, incidentally is a former Crusaders head trainer, is to "reward attacking teams by allowing them to build pressure and to encourage defending teams to clear the ball from their in-goal area".
One would have imagined the thought of winning or conceding a five-metre scrum already had that pretty well covered.
Ezekiel Lindenmuth of the Blues charges forward during the round 3 Super Rugby match between the Blues and the Crusaders in 2020. Photo / Photosport.co.nz
The captain's challenge of a referee similarly smacks of needless tinkering made redundant by television match officials who are already on the constant lookout for foul play and review the legality or otherwise of every try.
Allowing a captain to enter the review mix – in Super Rugby Aotearoa he will get one referral per match – will presumably further slow the game and, even more worryingly, bring sideline physios and water carriers into the game via shouted messages. If so it will be an unedifying spectacle.
How strange that New Zealand Rugby didn't look at ways to curb what are becoming real blights on the game.
As well as time-wasting there is also "caterpillar" ruck, a tenuous and elongated vertical line of defenders which allows halfbacks to clear the ball far behind the defensive offside line, and the nearly as hated trend of box kicks which were so beloved, and brilliantly used as it turned out, by the Springboks at the last World Cup.
Apologies in advance, but why go "left field" rather than for the "low-hanging fruit"?
