Experimental Laws to Promote Try-scoring Rugby in new NRC

[Omar Comin']

Good and bad games happen in every single sport.

You can't change the laws to get rid of bad games.

I also disagree that games with lots of shots at goal are routinely the bad games.

The Reds definitely played an exciting brand of rugby in 2011 and were very successful doing it. They also have a much, much bigger fan base than the Brumbies.

Aside from the final, the 2011 Reds season didn't really translate into a huge swathe of extra viewers and crowd numbers until the 2012 season though.

The Brumbies could be scoring 10 tries a week and they couldn't get the viewers the Reds got.

But you're a rugby tragic. You're not the person that the game has to convert. It's the fringe supporters. Surely you have mates that would fit into this category? All my mates that are fringe supporters of rugby complain about the amount of penalty goals. You hear it all the time on talk back radio too. To say 'well they can all just go and watch rugby league' is sticking your head in the sand.

There is a pretty common opinion along the lines of 'a good game of rugby is better than a good game of league...but a bad game of rugby is worse than a bad game of league...and there are too many bad games of rugby.' I don't agree with that by the way, it's just a very common perception among general sports / football fans in Australia. And a lot of it comes down to the amount of time bogged down in penalty goals and time completing scrums. There is a massive audience out there for rugby! Rugby games hold some FTA and Pay TV records in Australia. Most of those viewers are fringe fans that could be converted into bigger fans.

And you're right about the Brumbies fan base being smaller, but I think the people that got on the Reds bandwagon weren't just Queenslanders. There was a buzz about them in the whole rugby community. If the Brumbies were thrilling audiences they'd get much greater viewing numbers than they get. They were more popular back in the Gregan / Larkham days for this reason. My point is that the quality of the product (in the eyes of the fringe fans) is crucial to the success of the sport.

 

[Braveheart81]

I would argue that there aren't that many really dire games of rugby league but there also aren't many really good ones.

They've managed to come up with a level of mediocrity that their fans seem to lap up.

Rugby league has basically watered itself down such that most sets of six a team will get just over the halfway line so they can kick towards the opposition goal line and then the other team can do the same back.

There is a very high proportion of tries that come off the back of penalties because a team gets more tackles with the ball and a territorial advantage.

Defences have become organised such that there are a very large number of tries scored from getting to 15m-20m out and putting up a bomb or a cross field kick. Or grubbering into the in goal hoping to get a repeat set of six or a try.

I think rugby league has progressively made their game less interesting and there is very little difference in the types of plays that work.

I would say that out of my friends, the league fans watch league, the union fans watch union and the AFL fans watch AFL. Most of those people will watch the big games from any of the other sports.

I think their viewing has very little to do with whether the actual game they are watching is a good one.

 

[Omar Comin']

I would say that out of my friends, the league fans watch league, the union fans watch union and the AFL fans watch AFL. Most of those people will watch the big games from any of the other sports.

I think their viewing has very little to do with whether the actual game they are watching is a good one.

This is a very simplistic view. Most people don't fit into such neat boxes. Many people drift in and out of sports and there are always a lot more casual fans than die-hards.

If you really believe your last sentence we'll just have to agree to disagree. Perceived quality of the product/content is the single most important factor IMO. These perceptions are created over time and take a long time to change. The Waratahs and Reds (on opposite sides of the coin) are great case studies in this. As is comparing the State of Origin and Bledisloe Cup audiences over the past 10 years or so (despite both being one-sided). Australian Basketball is another good one.

Australian rugby can't afford to be complacent. Especially about the product (how the game is played) and competition structures. Innovation is key.

 

[Pfitzy]

An interesting discussion. Allow me to throw in my two bits:

League - As Braveheart says, the game has become quite generic, with only the odd play being anything close to spectacular; you wouldn't know it from listening to Gus Gould or any of the other media who seem to scream loudly for any play involving more than one pass. Their fans DO lap this up, and the $250M/annum TV rights seems to back them up on this. There are rarely, if ever, any spectacular games.

The comparison that League is checkers while Union is chess is not just about the comparisons of tactical/strategic . In League, attrition is the watch word - you are literally doing the same high-percentage plays over and over until one side runs out of pieces.

Which is not to say there are NO tactics or skill - sit and listen to Peter Sterling break down a play, and you get a bit of an understanding of what a side is trying to achieve. But ultimately the scoring plays come down to poor defensive alignment more than the attacking side being geniuses.

In Union, the mere existence of the three point penalty goal, and the plethora of offences, means you don't simply have to beat your head against the brick wall and hope it falls down first. You can tactically move yourself up field into scoring range from 50m out (35m if you're the Tahs) and capitalise on any breakout plays if you have the skill.

It is somewhat ironic that League fans criticise Union for having too many kicks, when they will register something like 1 kick for every set of 6, of which you can have around 30 in a half. Most of their tries are scored as a direct result of kicking.

The ball is "in play" for longer, but is it really? As I pointed out above, the play-the-ball is a big percentage of every tackle, and there are a hell of a lot of those.

And now the fandom is generational. It has been around as an organisation for over 100 years, with the occasional blip e.g. SuperLeague, even the "new" franchises like Brisbane are well into their second generation of fans, who are brought up on a game they can see on FTA television and get covered in depth (irony!) in the papers throughout the week.

But as Union fans in the most highly competitive football market in the world, we can't simply say that the peasants should eat cake if they have no bread. The game DOES need a boost in popularity, or it will be under serious threat of becoming irrelevant in the Australian sporting landscape.

The Laws are the place to start this engineering - while League has rehashed its Lawbook to the point of mediocrity, it has achieved general consistency.

In the same way that McDonalds is hardly gourmet, you know what you're getting. Every. Single. Time.

Rugby can span the breadth of all meals, from the sleazy kebab stand through to eating sushi off a naked princess, but ultimately it needs to pull that lower end up in terms of consistency, or like that kebab, it will give the unsuspecting newcomer a serious case of gastro.

And trust me from personal experience when I say I'd never go back to kebabs from THAT joint again.

 

[Pfitzy]

Australian Basketball is another good one.

FUCK those guys - I had my recording for Super Rugby Extra Time on ONE the other night, but because the fucking homoball ran over time it cut out just as Dave Dennis was shoving Bismarck out of his way.

 

[Omar Comin']

Another suggestion for a small rule tweak.

If a lineout throw isn't straight, but the defensive team is not disadvantaged (either because they choose not to compete in the lineout or if the throw is towards their side) then play on.

 

[Bairdy]

Another suggestion for a small rule tweak.

If a lineout throw isn't straight, but the defensive team is not disadvantaged (either because they choose not to compete in the lineout or if the throw is towards their side) then play on.

The refs are already lenient with that particular law; you only need to watch a few games to see that they play on even if the lineout is thrown in crooked, because the opposition don't contest in the air and if they're not verbal about it.

 

[Battalion]

Actually more like 11 minutes. From stats taken at the 2011 world cup anyway. Given that's the average, some matches would be closer to 20 minutes.

http://www.theroar.com.au/2012/09/03/how-long-is-a-rugby-match-really/

Some highlights from the article above:

Average in play time = 35:51
Average time on scrums = 13:49
Average time on penalty goal attempts = 10:55

modified comment.

link to 2011 statistical analysis.
http://www.irb.com/mm/document/news...ysis2011irbrugbyworldcupstatisticalreview.pdf

 

[Omar Comin']

Your follow up post with the table is still there Battalion - 2nd post on page 2.

Bairdy, do you really think so? There's always yelling out when a throw is crooked and most refs will blow it up, which is fair enough under the current laws. But when the defensive team doesn't compete I don't think they should deserve the turnover. If some refs are letting that go, and some aren't then it's worth having a directive for it.

 

[Battalion]

statistical analysis from tri-nations. can't find super rugby.

http://www.irb.com/newsmedia/mediazone/gameanalysis/kind=20055/index.html