The Orange

Before I revisit what is becoming a pet topic, let me put my hand up to at least acknowledge I’m swimming uphill here.

I’m a Catholic in the Protestant sporting world so to speak (although as I understand it Orange is associated with the Protestants).

In any case, I have catholic sporting interests (which does not mean I play for Celtic or St Pats!).

My point is that I have a personally preference for league over union which could be seen to pollute my view of rugby as a game.

That may be the case but there does appear to be a considerable movement heading in the general direction of my own personal crusade.

(Don’t worry, I’m just about out of religious references!)

And it’s not just nameless, shameless two-bit bloggers putting the boot in.

Aussie Alan Jones (remember him – from when the Wallabies could win in NZ?) is talking about the demise of rugby union.

There’s a lot of issues facing rugby in Australia but in essence it’s dire (which is not the same as Greg Dyer!):

Supporters watch brilliant rugby every week at schoolboy and club level. But the wheels have fallen off at the next level.

We are boring people rigid.

Part of the problem with the Save Our Teams brigade is that they hark back to the amateur days but the game has gone professional:

I have long argued that in the professional era, to survive you’re going to have to play rugby that will make the turnstiles turn, or supporters will vote with their feet.

Well, supporters of Queensland, NSW, ACT and Perth Super 14 teams have done just that, in such a way that those franchises are losing big money on every game they play. And for the first time,  this year’s Bledisloe Cup match in Sydney was not sold out.

With respect, the only country not complaining in Sanzar is the one team that is consistently winning.

Meanwhile, Pommy rugby journalist Mick Clearly thinks rugby is rubbish:

Mates and colleagues tell me that the rugby has been ho-hum for the most part, rank at times and only occasionally worth a hill of beans. Why is this ? The laws ? The players ? The coaches ? The weather ? The salary cap, which means that the superstars are no longer with us ?

There is of course a rich irony in the Poms complaining about the loss of superstars when NZ rugby has been pillaged for the last few years.  Professional rugby has done NZ rugby little favours once the rest of the world went pro.

Clearly (ha ha!), there is a major problem – the first of which is that many rugby administrators simply haven’t adjusted to the needs of running a professional game.

When they do – NZRFU trying to keep a lid on the costs of the NPC – we get emotional responses such as Save Our Teams which is doing more to kill rugby that the laws.

Nevermind, in a couple of months the NRL will be back and we can watch some running rugby again.

New Zilders tend to have a binary reaction to rugby – it’s either all good in the hood or doom and gloom.

There’s no mid-field so to speak when it comes to our view of rugby.

So while we seem to be in another boom period, the Aussies have a different spin on things with David Campese suggesting the game is in disarray.

We shouldn’t ignore it as more Aussie bleating as Teacher Ted himself has opined that rugby is losing its appeal.

Campo is not impressed by the new improved game of force back:

Australian rugby legend David Campese suggested the Wallabies were in “disarray”, labelling the Cape Town Tri-Nations debacle a game of “AFL” after the ball was kicked “77 times.

…

“At the moment it’s just kicking, kicking, kicking. In the game in Cape Town the ball was kicked 77 times. It was a game of Aussie Rules.

Hmm, now I’m sure if the Aussies were winning it would be a different thing.

But what about the rule changes?

Ex-Wallaby coach Eddie Jones was equally scathing about … officials who rubber-stamp the rules, suggesting the law-makers had been drinking too much of the South African white wine “Stellenbosch”.

The general consensus among the rugby fraternity is the game has become bogged down in too many technicalities and penalties and the rules mean it is too defence-orientated, ruining the appeal of the code once renowned as the “running game”.

The irony of course is that the while rugby league lurches from embarassment to worse OFF the field, it’s not having an impact ON the field:

A friend of [Campo] coaches an under-10s side and he said the heroes for the kids are rugby league players, not rugby union players.

…

Rugby league’s thriving. They’ve got so many problems off the field but people are still coming to the game because they’ve got a good product.

Indeed.

As for Henry, he’s also concerned for the Aussie game:

Henry – who also recommends the value of a penalty goal be reduced to one – said the increasing preponderance of kicking at the top level of the sport was also a disadvantage to the natural running instincts of his side and Australia.

But that’s the problem.

Only NZ and Australia are worried about playing running rugby.

South Africa only concern is to play winning rugby.

And the rest of the world just wants to stop the ABs and Wannabees from winning.

Fair call ref, I don’t have a great record of being an ardent rugby fan.

Frankly, anyone who uses a word like “ardent” isn’t your average rugby fanatic.  Naturally, I prefer league.

Having said all of that, I do make an effort to watch the home tests altho my days of getting up in the middle of the night to watch rugby are long gone.  Showing my age, I still get up in middle of the night, just not to watch rugby.

Anyway, I after the Bumble A Bees had bumbled their way to three straight losses against the Boks, it was great to see the Blacks dick the Wannabees comprehensively.

The only problem was, to quote my teenage daughter, the game “sucked”.

Sure, there were a couple of flowing moments.  Like when the players ran out on to the field at the start of the game and again after half time.

For the rest of the time, the game seemed to a scrummaging competition (which neither side won) or a game of force back.

I linked to a story on Sydney’s Daily Telegraph web site a couple of days ago to highlight the Aussie reaction and this was one of the telling comments:

I was waiting for a real game on nine and watched some union,scrum took ten minutes to pack and carter had kicked 5 goals aust 2.This game should be called forsman back were you kick the ball from one end to the other then when you get there kick between the posts.Australia are struggling big time just leave the talent of league players alone you waste there talent playing your pathetic game,actually it shouldnt be called a game.your press conferences are that boring they had to talk about who lifts the most weights.

Rugby means something to New Zealanders – and it did to me too on Saturday night.

But jeez if we’re going to be honest that was a crap game of football with a few bits of action built around a core of repetitive whistle, kicking and scrums.

Partly you have to blame the IRB and the incessant changes to the rules which I suspect have been done partly to undermine the AB’s brilliance counter-attacking and the Poms love for kicking the shit out of the pig skin and clapping.

But compared to other contact football games – AFL and rugby league in particular – rugby is drab, monotonous and lacking in any inspiration.

The AB’s may have won the game but I doubt they would have won over many new fans to rugby.