Loose Pass: Cracking Champions Cup semi spoiled by ‘hailstorm of accusations’, the ‘hybrid’ player debate and a new law crackdown
Alfie Barbeary was in the wars for Bath over the weekend.
This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with commentator bias, hybrid players and abusing the caterpillar…
So it’s all the directors is it?
Those French ey? Those dastardly cheats. Those Machiavellian devices for helping their own take the spoils. Not even the TV replays are sacred when it comes to a little fiddle to get the upper hand. What will it be next, tampering with the match balls? Shiny bog roll in the away changing room?
In what is still a benchmark work on the history of rugby in France, Philip Dine writes about a club whose dressing rooms were unique, in that the referee’s contained a shelf adorned with a human skeleton and a plaque proclaiming said set of bones as the last referee to give the away team a game-winning penalty. Light intimidation that may be, perhaps a little too far was the team whose fans, in the wake of a referee decision costing them a three-year undefeated home record, hounded said official to the formal limits of the town and countryside before bidding him farewell and adieu. And it was definitely adieu, and not au revoir. Away teams were routinely subjected to all sorts of ugliness before games. Rarely afterwards, of course, because by and large they did the decent thing and lost graciously. Those who didn’t still tell the tales, not all of them glorious.
The point here is that playing matches in France does hit a little different – and still does in the professional era. Not a fortnight ago, Bob Skinstad was lamenting the fact that even in the Pro D2, teams are still often set up to lose when they have to travel. As long as the terroir is defended at home, all is good. Way back when, Loose Pass also experienced several times what can only be described as an ‘official welcome’ to French grounds, in that said official mysteriously lost the arm that would point for penalties to the away team once said team had crossed the halfway line into the home team’s half.
At the higher levels, this all has become less of a thing, although not nothing. But that is not the impression you would have got had you listened to the English commentary team narrating the Bordeaux-Bath clash at the weekend. Andy Goode and Lawrence Dallaglio were particularly acidic about the lack of replays they wanted for purported head shots on Alfie Barbeary, with the debate on whether all the angles had been used quickly degenerating into a hailstorm of accusations.
Andy Goode doubles down on French TV director criticism: ‘It was clear as day’
Law discussion has already looked capably at what went on behind the scenes, suggesting that the replays were not shown to the TV-watching world because none of them were conclusive enough to trigger a review; or because they conclusively proved that no review was necessary.
But while we are on the subject of bias, what about commentary teams themselves – and especially the colour guys not doing the narration? We’re a long way from Bill McLaren’s superb balance these days, even further away from the balance provided by the hilarious backs and forths between Eddie Butler and Brian Moore. And don’t get us started on the South African or Australian commentators.
Were all three of these incidents really head shots? The referee actively reviewed the first one and decided not. The second one was as clear a ‘rugby incident’ as can be found on a pitch. The third is worth a second look, but with Barbeary changing direction into the contact and clearly dominating it, as well as Maxime Lucu turning away from it, Ben Whitehouse probably thought it was simply too innocuous to bother with. Certainly Barbeary himself did.
Perhaps the least edifying part of it all was the sniping blame game heaped upon the French by the pundits. In a cracking Investec Champions Cup game, with so much good rugby to talk about, it’s a poor showing to sour the air with that much finger-wagging vitriol, not least when so much of it was misplaced.
We don’t need it. A game that produced so much worth talking about was ably narrated as always by Miles Harrison, but the conspiracy theory pot-stirring that was his colour back-up was thoroughly superfluous. And if you are going to talk about bias and influencing as a bad aspect, it would be best done not trying to do it yourself.
The hybrid player is a step closer to rugby league
While most who cross the rubicon from rugby league to union remain in similar positions, it is worth remembering that Andy Farrell was a loose forward or even a second row in league, but wound up in the centres for Saracens and England. Sam Burgess’ transition was similar.
Loose Pass has been reminded of this several times over the past couple of weeks, during conversations about the ‘hybrid player’ concept, which, it has been pointed out in no uncertain terms, is the latest sign that rugby is no longer a game for all shapes and sizes.
In the past couple of months we’ve had Henry Pollock and Ben Earl taking up positions in the backs. There’s Andre Esterhuizen training himself into a role in the Springbok pack. And of course, there’s Leicester Fainga’anuku now packing down on the openside for the Crusaders.
We’ve got locks who can run as fast as centres, hookers who have steps and speed in wide spaces. At what point do we simply have a 1-15 of 110kg and 1m90 fellas all able to play anywhere across the park? And if you take out the props and reduce the teams to 13-a-side…
A focus on a potential new law crackdown
Scrum-halves are a protected species these days – perhaps for reasons outlined above. Box kicks are a crucial part of the game and it’s become an exercise in futility to stop teams forming caterpillar rucks, while it speeds up the game allowing scrum-halves to pick the ball up in a ruck and keep it in, but placing it at the base ready for the box kick.
But on Saturday, the timing was off. Early on in the Bath semi-final, Ben Spencer signalled for his forwards to caterpillar up and then picked up the ball. While the ball was in his hands and he was moving backwards, the two sent-for forwards elongated the ruck further; he placed the ball down at the base of the second forward’s feet.
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Question: if those forwards were not joined onto the ruck when Spencer picked the ball up, and especially if he had moved it behind the player those forwards subsequently joined on to, was the ball not briefly out and in play? To Loose Pass’ mind, yes it was.
Perhaps we need to clarify this: once a scrum-half has started moving the ball back to the base, no other forwards can join the ruck? Or perhaps even once the referee has called ‘use it’?