Ben O'Keeffe had plenty to deal with in the Blues-Crusaders match at Eden Park. Photo / Photosport
Ben O'Keeffe had plenty to deal with in the Blues-Crusaders match at Eden Park. Photo / Photosport
OPINION
On a weekend made tougher, in New Zealand and Fiji at least, by inclement weather, there was a sharp reminder that as much as rugby needs to rethink some of its archaic laws, so too do players and coaches need to reset their attitudes towards playing within them.
It was a shockingly bad weekend for discipline, with cards and endless penalties a feature of many of the games, most notably the clashes in Lautoka, Hamilton and Auckland.
The Crusaders have been hit with post World-Cup defections and a horrid injury toll, but on Saturday at Eden Park they were battling their own delusional belief that the basic laws of the game did not apply to them.
As the Blues laid siege to the Crusaders’ goal-line for prolonged periods of the second half, the men in red and black simply lost the plot and barely recognised the laws at all.
The predominant feature of the game became referee Ben O’Keeffe updating the Blues about the new advantage they had accrued and then working out which Crusader to yellow-card.
Ben O'Keeffe had plenty to deal with in the Blues v Crusaders match at Eden Park. Photo / Photosport
The situation wasn’t so different in Hamilton where referee Paul Williams was reduced to doing much the same as O’Keeffe, relentlessly informing the Chiefs that they were playing under multiple advantages.
For those who just want to see a bit of rugby, a contest to develop without constant interruption, it seems that rugby is too often held hostage by its not fit-for-purpose law book that hasn’t been updated to account for the size, speed and power of the modern athlete.
But always blaming the laws, or the fastidiousness of referees can be a lazy argument at times, often shielding the players and coaches from necessary scrutiny, and neither O’Keeffe nor Williams should be cast as the bad guys on this occasion.
Neither of them had any choice but to continually add to the penalty count because the Crusaders and Highlanders played with an obvious disregard and lack of respect for the basic laws.
The Crusaders’ discipline was appalling, needlessly so, and Willi Heinz may have felt he was justified to have adopted a bemused look every time O’Keeffe penalised the visitors, but the veteran halfback knew fine well that he and his teammates were subscribing to rugby’s oldest belief that they should push the boundaries of legality to test the officials’ appetite to indulge them.
And here’s the truth for players and coaches - they need to do their bit in helping rugby produce high-entertainment contests.
The laws are nowhere near as complex as they are made out to be, but too many teams are riddled with this conviction that they should see what they can get away with.
Rather than err on the side of caution and set the defensive line a half metre behind the back foot of a ruck, teams will inevitably organise themselves half a metre in front and put all the pressure on the officials to either let it go or penalise it.
So too will players see if they can sneak into the side of a ruck and poach the turnover; or creep in front of a kick to get a headstart in the chase; or knowingly change their running line to provide interference so the catcher can find clean airspace.
All of this was on view in Lautoka, Hamilton and Auckland, where players deliberately tested referees and their willingness to apply the law and then, incredibly, protested their innocence.
It all adds to a narrative of rugby killing itself in pedantry and inadequate refereeing, but after a weekend of high penalty counts, the pressure needs to go back on the players and their coaches to ask what they are prepared to do to help Super Rugby Pacific maintain its entertainment qualities.
Super Rugby bosses have done their bit to help with the laws - cleaning up the kick-chase loophole, clarifying that the referee is in charge and telling them to focus only on breakdown infringements that materially impact the contest for the ball.
Now the onus has to go on the combatants and their strategic masterminds to do their own housekeeping and change a few of their archaic attitudes and cultures.
Coaches publicly lament their teams’ lack of discipline when they are hammered by a high penalty count, and yet we can only wonder what sort of pressure is applied behind closed doors to demand that their players constantly look for the tiniest advantages that may put them into legally grey areas.
There is reasonable suspicion that there is a reward culture highlighting and praising those who get away with breaking the rules: and that illegality is framed as astute reading of the referee and educated risk-taking.
But coaches and players can’t have it both ways - if they want a better product then they have to do more to produce it and stop pretending that it’s all so hard to get a fair go from the officials.
