Simple Answers or Simple Journalism?

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Simple Answers or Simple Journalism?

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The Guardian, that stalwart… well God knows as I never really read it, has given us what it hopes to be an insightful look at how to ‘solve’ rugby (because rugby needs solving didn’t you know). How to fight the dreaded kicking virus by using some rule changes as an antiviral.

Want to know what genius they managed to put together? Try this

The best suggestions in life are often the simplest. Many of the finest brains in the world have wrestled with how to improve rugby union as a sport and, as often as not, have ended up making it worse. Fair play, therefore, to Mr Martin McNeill of Richmond, Surrey who penned a short, pithy letter to the Sunday Times last weekend. The last sentence read thus: “I suggest any kick that is cleanly caught by the opposition leads to….a scrum from where the ball was kicked.”

Genius. Well, almost. Mr McNeill missed out six words. If you insert “outside the 22″ after “kick” and “the option of” in place of the dots you suddenly have a potential remedy for the curse of excessive kicking, currently causing players and spectators alike major neckache. Think about it. All those speculative hoists and aimless punts outlawed. Scrum-halves and fly-halves forced to abandon the lazy hit-and-hope option. Heaven forbid, some teams might even opt to run first-phase ball out of their own half. Welcome to the new rugby: much like the old, only with the boring ping-pong taken out.

So what are the flaws? Well, the little lofted chips over the top beloved of modern sides would need to become grubber kicks. Every team would have to be more judicious in the use of “Hail Mary” cross kicks. Anything else? Half-backs will complain that box-kicks suddenly lose currency. Tough. Remember we are only talking about kicks outside the 22. Anyone who resorts to a box-kick on the halfway line as a first option deserves to have possession taken away from him or her.

In this case I think they are right, the best suggestions in life real are simple, and take this simple one – ignore the Guardian if this is what they call rugby journalism.

The only ‘flaw’ they find is less chipping and cross field kicks? OK, I’ll play along, I’ll ONLY focus on those two aspects.

Here in Wales we know, thanks to a certain Mr Sean Edwards, all about the blitz defence now. Wales play it, the Ospreys play it and frankly we are used to it. It works, but it has flaws, ways and means of beating it. What are the two most effective ways of doing so?

The chip and the crossfield kick. TheGuardianSport

The onrushing blitz defence leaves a big hole behind it. Yes defences utilize a ‘sweeper’ (blind side wing, scrum half, flanker, depends on the position and circumstances) but they can’t cover such a huge gap by themselves and a well placed chip turns the defence and can get your side flooding through the gaps and behind the defenders. Such a threat, when used once or twice, can slow a blitz defence or cut them apart.

Similarly the cross field kick is a great deterrent to the blitz. Most blitz defences use ‘out to in’, where the defenders rush to nail the man inside them rather than the opposite number, looking to smash them before they get the ball away whilst also using the angle to cut down their passing options. This will often leave a wing free, but a long miss pass becomes very dangerous as the players are up so quickly that interceptions are always a threat.

Which is why the cross field kick works, leave a winger as far from the action as possible, let the defence blitz and then punt it over their heads to the forward rushing winger, leaving them one on one with the full back.

These two systems ensure that the blitz isn’t perfect, that it is a choice like any other – where you way up the pro’s and con’s.

But if you change that system, if you allow it so that these two big deterrents to the blitz are removed, you avoid any sensible way of countering it. And marking in midfield, giving a free kick from a caught ball, makes the chip and the cross field kick VERY risky, far too risky to be a viable option very often.

This means that the blitz becomes THE defensive choice, no other option will have the same level of strengths and so few weaknesses. With defences then becoming very same, and with kicking so little and big hits (due to the defenders being in your face almost instantly from the blitz) it becomes even more about power and strength.

Or in other words it becomes rugby league.

So look at that article again. Here is all of it. There is a LOT wrong with the article, much more than I have highlighted here. But I suffer from the same disease they do… I lazy, difference being what I do here is voluntary, what they are doing is being paid for their ill thought through opinions.

Feel free to use the comments to talk about this article and my thoughts on it – or use this thread over on rugby rebels

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