Rugby must return to the painful days of jolly ruckers
Original Article: http://www.timesonline.co.uk Sunday 10 January 2010
WELCOME to what you may feel is a vision of hell. Dare rugby lift the ban on contact between studded boots and prone bodies? It was once called old-fashioned rucking, before nanny-state attitudes banished it. Admittedly, there was sometimes a thin line between rucking and deliberate trampling. It hardly seems a palatable prospect, does it?
Except that the real question is this. Can rugby afford not to bring back boots on bodies? The pain might be the only way to save the game.
Some readers may be unable to believe that the ruck was once the most dynamic part of the game, the most urgent, the fount of all quick ball. Brendan Venter’s courageous outburst on the state of rugby and refereeing last weekend had several targets but at the heart of his argument was the death of the ruck and the rude health of static, crabbing, infringing play. And here is an incredible thing. At ruck-time after the tackle, players are supposed to get back to their feet immediately or else roll well away. So why, in the Saracens v Leicester game last Saturday and in every game you see nowadays, are there at least six beached whales lying around the contact area? Unpenalised.
The classic ruck was a surge over the ball and over the prone players, leaving the ball lying there, begging to be used. But referees have been told to penalise unmercifully any rucker whose boots make contact with the prone players. If there are six prone players, there is nowhere safe for the ruckers to put their feet, so they have to stand lamely and emasculated, and find other illegal ways to win the ball. A further disaster has been the dispensation this season that allows the first defender at a ruck to keep his hands on the ball — creating an even bigger pile-up. As Venter says, the death of the ruck has seen the birth of blatant cheating.
To read the complete media release, kindly click on the link below:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/columnists/stephen_jones/
article6982305.ece
