Loose Pass: Law issues, Jones on the brink, ticket farce

Colin Newboult
Add as a preferred source on Google

This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with a tweak to the rules, England’s mess, ticketing and commentating phrases for the ages…

A new negative that needs neutralising

It’s not all that often that Loose Pass would actively seek out to announce to a waiting world the following words: ‘We agree with Austin Healey!’

But watching a rather dour Friday night Premiership encounter between Newcastle and Wasps, it was impossible not to. The same pattern of play had repeated itself three or four times, with the same predictable and eyes-glazed-in-stupor ending and it was doing the game no service at all.

What was it? Well, one team – or the other, they were both guilty multiple times – would regain possession either from a lineout or deep kick, and a ruck would ensue just in front of the 22.

The next phase would be played, with the scrum-half passing back to a forward, flanked by at least two other forwards, standing in his 22 and showing absolutely no inclination to move forward, run, kick, or do anything more active than allow himself to be tackled inside his 22. This ensured that once the ball was recycled again, the phase would be inside the 22 and therefore one or the other half-back would be able to hoof it directly into touch.

And Mr. Healey’s take? (N.B. words to this effect, we don’t have the verbatim written down) “I can’t stand this. What’s the point in creating a rule that is so easy to manipulate and get around by being negative? All it does now is reward negative play.”

So true. So here’s a suggested tweak: the receiving team, or team with the lineout, is deemed to be inside or outside the 22 at the moment the entire spell of possession starts and not when the phase starts. Hey, presto! No more deliberate negative yardage rucks, probably more kicks which keep the ball in play, but equally, probably a new pressure point on the pitch leading to more effort by both teams to compete. An easy tweak to make and one we reckon would add a bit more spice to the game and fewer dull rucks and booming touch-finders.

Quo vadis England?

It’s rarely good for a head coach to be summoned for an explanation as to a team’s poor performance, but Eddie Jones does have some collateral on his side: the last time England finished fifth in a Six Nations they were in a World Cup Final 18 months later.

He also went through some dips in form in other roles, and greeted them with a now customary abrasive dismissal as a ‘part of the process,’ and so they turned out to be.

But this is not now a normal process. Not only has Covid decimated the finances of the union he draws a significant salary from, he is also contending with a number of stalwarts in his side looking horribly out of form, and another number of stalwarts looking likely to be playing nothing except second-grade rugby for the next six months at least – possible Lions selections notwithstanding.

Perhaps most pertinently, he is also dealing with a number of players whose domestic form looks far above that of many of those ahead in Jones’ selection sheets, and he is now dealing with a media who are publicly deserting him; one of Monday’s reviews of Jones’ Six Nations stated quite explicitly that he had ‘lost the media’, rarely a good thing in England.

Mr. Jones has now at least hinted that changes to the squad could be coming, while the team is said to be giving input to his review, meaning we’ll soon know if he has the buy-in from all the side that a couple of the senior players have said he does. That will probably save him.

But counting against him will be such a clear lack of strategy, coupled with the squad’s continued inability to adapt and change to what’s in front of them. Mr. Jones has always made it clear that players’ inability to do that is a chief bugbear of his, but he does not seem to have changed it much.

All the other teams developed this Six Nations, England did not. To see them look so helpless against an Ireland side which had itself looked lethargic and half a yard off the pace at the start of the tournament was damning to the leadership in the team off the pitch.

That, and the sour atmosphere around the side, may well count more against Mr. Jones than his players’ loyalty.

Was it really better?

Loose Pass, along with thousands of others, logged on faithfully to the World Cup ticketing website twice over the past couple of weeks, eager to test out the new ‘first to the line’ system and to avoid the ballot system that has been prevalent in World Cups past and which, to the sceptical among us, always seemed clearly open to manipulation.

I’d rather have taken my chances with a dodgy ballot.

I logged on shortly before 6pm CET, and was placed in a queue, for which progress was measured in per cent, coupled with a fancy image of a ball going over the posts. The queue progressed slowly, but reasonably surely, so that by around 6.25 pm, I was at 100%

Then a little window popped up, telling me I could get in. ‘Get in!’ I thought. I clicked on the window, looking forward to arranging my tour.

And I went back to 0% on the queue, where I waited for another four hours, and then I got in, by which time there was nothing left.

Judging by the memes of skeletons hunched over laptops that proliferated in the aftermath, I was not the only one to go through this either. Meanwhile, some who queued as I did got in first time, while most irritatingly, some who joined the queue at around 6.15 also got in first time and were able to buy tickets, while others who got in and started buying packs were kicked out to the back of the queue again.

A farce. Which is a shame, because software exists off the shelf which could ensure an ‘honest’ queuing system, while the pack system which allowed you to choose packs, but then ensured you actually couldn’t because some of the games were sold out, already meant so much pinging around from venue to venue, pack to pack, wasting both my time and, presumably, the time of those behind me in the queue.

A good concept, rendered useless by poor infrastructure. France 2023 has not kicked off well.

One of the all-time great Colemanballs

Some of you from a more middle-aged generation will remember the Colemanballs books, where sports commentators’ verbal improvising gaffes or misworded attempts at building drama were collected. My favourite used to be John Motson’s immortal words: “for those of you watching in black and white, Spurs are in the all yellow strip.”

But there is now a new favourite. During commentary of the Georgia-Russia match on Saturday, Johnnie Hammond, having stumbled over one of the Georgian names, apologised for his mix-up, reasoning that: “Sometimes there’s just too many Vili’s to get your mouth around.”

Loose Pass compiled by Lawrence Nolan

 

England