Rugby Morality

[Jacko27]

It's a funny thing, rugby morality.
A poster recently reminded us about Law 9.26. The law that tells players they must do nothing contrary to the "spirit of good sportsmanship". A noble sentiment and some felt that, for example, George Ford taking the full 90 seconds to complete a simple conversion was wrong. I thought it was provocative but OK and I was much more indignant about the other Fly Half's football-style histrionics designed (or so it seemed to me) to draw a penalty or a card. Lose a player for ten minutes in a tight game and you'll probably lose the match.Toby would never have done that when he was at Leicester and then I remember Neil Back's "hand of god" moment a few years ago. He got away with it and Tigers won the Final. Fantastic!
Going back to my (now far distant) playing days, Front Row Forwards who were extremely fastidious about the opposition scrum half putting the ball in crooked would think nothing about using the boot to rake the back of an opposition player lying on "the wrong side". Surreptitious punching was generally accepted as ok particularly if it was retribution for some previously unspotted foul but strangely the less dangerous spitting, biting, hair-pulling were considered totally beyond the pale. Even now fans and spectators love the "warrior" spirit and enjoy the "big hit" but if the big hit is slightly mistimed or leads to player injury, approval quickly changes to accusations of thuggery and calls for long bans.
So apart from the fact that rugby is a rough game and, statistically, you should expect to get injured, what are my conclusions?
1 Rugby morality is full of double standards and hypocrisy.
2 There will always be a conflict between sportsmanship and gamesmanship.
I was going to argue that perhaps gamesmanship with its win-at-all-costs mentality was more prevalent in the professional game and that sportsmanship was more likely to be found at amateur level but all my rugby was amateur and I remember one player in particular (and yes he was a front rower) did things on a rugby pitch for which he would have been arrested if he'd done them in the street. Yet as far as I recall no-one in the club ever remonstrated with him and he was selected week after week. After all he was a tough player and he helped us win matches and sport the as now was about winning.

[Scott1]

Absolutely hilarious! You've got Sarries constantly offside with their "rush defence",Chiefs getting away with BD tactics Richie McCaw would've been proud of,constant squint feeds into the scrum,constant lineouts that arnt straight,blocking,lazy running,forward passes being missed and we have fans,even our own slagging George when he hasn't even broken any laws! I give up! Not questioning the main header,just fans over the weekend.

[mol2]

You cannot criticise the player for doing what is specifically included within the laws of the game.

It's not grey area - it is defined in the laws. (The law is wrong IMHO)

If you don't like it then don't blame the player, blame the laws which are wrong and deprive the ticket purchasing fans of time watching the game.

[Scott1]

Spot on mol!

[Dangerous4]

Hmm. A very touchy subject.

[strawclearer]

I remember a Marketing Director moaning to me that the salesforce weren't selling the lines he wanted them to sell.

I explained it was up to him to structure the incentive/commission scheme such that his sales people maximised their own income by selling what he wanted them to sell. Did he really expect them to work to their own disadvantage?

This is no different.

[Jimmy Skitz]

Diving is so prevalent in Football in large part because refs in football do not call fouls unless the player goes down, someone trips you but you manage to stay on your feet but lose the ball the refs do not call play back to the point of the trip like they are actually supposed to so player take it upon themselves to make sure the ref sees the contact.

What Toby Flood tried to do is an inevitable consequence of the increased focus on high shots and not at all surprising given his DoR was the man responsible for Bloodgate

[Mark62]

Interestingly I messaged Dave Flatman, who I really like as a summariser, regarding the Flood incident, and why he failed to castigate Flood, as he had when Byrne went over for Munster against Edinburgh.

His response was that he had seen the incident 30 times and felt that Flood had done nothing wrong, and it was nothing like the Byrne incident which is why he hasn’t mentioned it

[Scuttle]

Interestingly I messaged Dave Flatman, who I really like as a summariser, regarding the Flood incident, and why he failed to castigate Flood, as he had when Byrne went over for Munster against Edinburgh.

His response was that he had seen the incident 30 times and felt that Flood had done nothing wrong, and it was nothing like the Byrne incident which is why he hasn’t mentioned it

Who did Flats play for ?

[Mark62]

Interestingly I messaged Dave Flatman, who I really like as a summariser, regarding the Flood incident, and why he failed to castigate Flood, as he had when Byrne went over for Munster against Edinburgh.

His response was that he had seen the incident 30 times and felt that Flood had done nothing wrong, and it was nothing like the Byrne incident which is why he hasn’t mentioned it

Who did Flats play for ?

Barf and England to the best of my knowledge

[Scott1]

He was due to sign for us until we signed an Argentinian player named Marcos Ayerza. The rest is history!

[Dangerous4]

He was due to sign for us until we signed an Argentinian player named Marcos Ayerza. The rest is history!

What a diamond he turned out to be.

[Scott1]

At one stage comfortably the worlds best LH.

[BFG]

One of the games assets is/was off field respect.
Something that certain famous players haven't respected recently.
On the field has never been quite as relaxed as off it as far as I can recall.
Those who had a go at Ford for time wasting were taking it a bit far in my opinion and were just moaning for the sake of moaning.

[LE18]

One of the games assets is/was off field respect.
Something that certain famous players haven't respected recently.
On the field has never been quite as relaxed as off it as far as I can recall.
Those who had a go at Ford for time wasting were taking it a bit far in my opinion and were just moaning for the sake of moaning.

BFG I don't condone time wasting, equally I don't think folk were really moaning about George using the Laws, time wasting has always gone on, but I think it was the way George just stood there turning round etc that looked so off! There must be more subtle ways of doing it that would not have drawn so much notice and hence comment. What's wrong with tying laces, sponge, lost kicking tee etc?