Reckoning day is coming, it will be here soon enough. Munster currently occupy seventh place in the URC table, worryingly close to missing the playoffs, and next season’s European Champions Cup. My money is on them to get there, they are Munster after all, but it’s far from guaranteed.
Nobody will ever know if the chaotic cock-up – which saw them play with 14 men for about 13 minutes – contributed to their narrow demise at the hands of Jake White’s Bulls. Every match official must know, and understand, the laws inside out. However, it needed a lengthy conversation with Munster team manager, the excellent, soon to retire, Niall O’Donovan, before the error was realised and corrected.
Oli Jager had left the field for a failed HIA, and, when replacement Stephen Archer was injured, referee Andrea Piardi ordered uncontested scrums. Next, the valuable Alex Kendellen was asked to leave the pitch. A team must reduce by one player when frontrow injuries cause uncontested scrums. It ensures that injuries are not faked. A HIA, blood injury or a foul play injury, are very sensible exceptions. It’s really not too tricky to get it right.
How to fix the Champions Cup?
This has happened previously, very notably when Ireland played Italy a couple of seasons ago, when the visitors were correctly reduced to 13. If that didn’t switch on permanent flashing lights in every union’s referee department, then someone has been dozing off at the wheel.
It reflects badly on a number of people, and cannot be swept under the carpet. If Munster were to drop out of contention, the consequences would be awful; and we would all be left wondering what might have been. The buck must come to a Harry Truman-like stop.
The scrum is a busted flush, we all know that’s a truism. What’s happening to the lineout is the new question? We got one answer when Munster’s Mark Donnelly threw, completely crooked, directly to a team-mate standing at “two”. Amazingly, it was also perfectly legal, under World Rugby’s nonsensical law trial. And it was not the only throw which went directly to the second man in recent weeks.
For a crooked throw, the trial requires the opposition to contest possession, otherwise it’s play on. The rationale is to reduce stoppages in play. However, with a crooked throw to the man at “two”, the opposition have no time to react, no time to put up the necessary jumper to trigger the referee’s whistle.
Is there any other sport, where a fundamental infringement requires a useless, artificial action by the opposition, before it is sanctioned? Of course, it might get rid of a couple of annoying scrums which, the cynic in me might suggest, is part of the reason why some enthusiasm exists for this particular project.
Such a futile jump depends on the referee whistling a crooked throw, and trusting that he will do so. Some years ago, against Wales, Joe Schmidt had planned to attack their lineout. With Devin Toner in situ, it wasn’t a bad idea at all. However, Wales negated the plan by throwing down their own side all afternoon. It was never sanctioned. Understandably, the Irish coach was not particularly pleased, quietly irate in fact.
Like the scrum, the lineout is supposed to be a contest for possession, but this trial appears to be heading in the opposite direction. The coaches have yet to get a full grip on the possibilities, as time goes by they will find plenty more ways to be “innovative”.
Furthermore, a ball thrown to the front man in the lineout must be straight. It is an exception to the trial, as is a ball thrown past the 15-metre line. Recently, we have seen plenty of balls been thrown directly, actually passed, to the front man without hearing a whistle, including a blatant French throw against England in the Six Nations. It should be an easy fix, but it happens so fast that the referee and his assistants have been caught unawares.
Rugby is a sport which has, and needs, structure in certain defined areas. Without that structure, a different game is created. The contests for possession are key, they are characteristics of rugby union which we risk losing at our peril.
Rather than producing a hybrid game, which is where we seem to be heading, the different features and characteristics of union should be extolled and promoted. That would mean, of course, detinkering with the lineout by calling a halt to this trial, and taking a keen look at the scrum.
The way to encourage teams to contest lineout possession is simple. Just make sure a few basic things happen − clearly establish the metre-channel between the two teams; and that the thrower stands correctly on the mark, not opposite his own front man. Finally, make sure the ball travels within the metre channel, along the inside shoulders of the lineout players.
It will mean a serious wake-up call for all match officials, who have become very casual in this area. They might also insist that the thrower is not in the field of play, which too often is the case. The contest at the scrum has long since disappeared over the horizon, the lineout should not be allowed to follow it.
A last word on this for now is from World Rugby. Their very own Charter of the Game states: “The contest for possession of the ball is one of rugby’s key features. These contests occur throughout the game and in a number of different forms: in contact in open play, when play is restarted at scrums, lineouts, kick-offs, and restart kicks.” Quod erat demonstrandum. I hope.
