Blood & Mud

And another thing

by Richard O'Hagan

And to think you thought I'd stopped griping along about Saturday's Tri-Nations opener.

To put it bluntly, when the bloody hell are the IRB going to do something about injury stoppages and blood replacements during games? When I was first introduced to the game, one of the selling points of rugby was that you played on irrespective of the number of dead and dying on the pitch. Not all grinding to a halt every time someone broke a fingernail was one of the things that distinguished rugby from those wimps that play soccer and I loved it.

On Saturday, we had the game being halted after about three minutes so that Adam Ashley-Cooper could have treatment on a hand that was already bandaged up. Stopping the game because someone has a sort pinkie is madness enough, but when it is to have treatment on a pre-existing problem then, frankly, the player should leave the pitch altogether.

And then there are the blood replacements. Once upon a time they didn't exist. Either you bled onto the pitch, or you left it and your team soldiered on with fourteen men until you'd had a few stitches. At the weekend, CJ van der Linde was on and off the pitch so often I wondered if he was on a bungee rope. At least two of those occasions were because the Springbok medics had failed to stitch up Grayling properly. In wendyball you don't get a blood replacement at all and I'm astonished that rugby is allowing itself to be in a less grown up position than that bunch of prima donnas.

More seriously, no blood replacements would mean that we never saw something as ridiculous as Bloodgate again.

In short, there's a World Cup coming up and I don't want to have to endure ten minutes of stoppages in every Wales game because someone scratches a bit of fake tan off of Gavin Henson, so get a grip, IRB, before it is too late.

On Jerry Flannery's ludicrous ban (with video)

With the debate already raging in the comments here, I thought it best to have a proper post about this. Flannery was banned for six weeks on wednesday for this trip on France's Palisson (and by "trip" I mean "bludgeoning");  a ban which is wholly inadequate.

Our French friends of the blog have been quick to come back following the Attoub discussion to use this as yet more evidence of an anti-French agenda in the corridors of power.  I'm not so sure, it is more about incompetence and inconsistency rather than nationality-based prejudice.

There are some differences between the Flannery case and Dupuy/Attoub:

1) Flannery didn't gouge - On the scale of offences gouging is the most heinous at the minute, the Irishman simply wellied someone with such force that it lifted his victim off the ground.  Of course, in real life this would be Actual Bodily Harm, but on a rugby field it can be dressed up as a "misjudgement".  Utter nonsense, this was a vicious assault with zero justification; Palisson had the ball, and even if he didn't there is a difference between hacking a ball on and executing a manoeuvre akin to something from a Van Damme film.  Watch the video, Flannery had plenty of time to pull out but decided to scythe him down anyway.

2) Flannery was apologetic and owned up at the hearing - In any situation where you are being "tried" for a misdemeanour, owning up and saying you are sorry does shorten your sentence, fact.  It is the same in a court of law as it is in a workplace disciplinary - I spent some time as a full-time Trade Union rep so I have first hand experience of this being the case.  So it is natural that Flannery's confession and contrition would have a more positive effect on the outcome for him, rather than Attoub's "evasiveness" which contributed to his lengthy sanction.  By the way, I refuse to believe, as has been put forward by some, that Attoub's evasiveness was anything to do with a language barrier, he could easily have said to his interpretor, "Tell them I'm very very sorry and that it was stupid and I won't do it again."

Where the authorities have ballsed up here is in drawing distinctions between violent foul play of one sort or another and ranking them, e.g. gouging is worse than punching.  This is the fundamental flaw in their disciplinary approach.  The IRB need to give a very strong line that violent foul play - gouging, punching, stamping and kicking - should be treated as one and the same level of offence and treated accordingly.

Taking into account the offence and then his contrition, Flannery should have had a ban similar to Dupuy's, instead he will miss a few Six Nations matches. More worrying is that the disciplinary committee has told the rugby playing world that you can take a violent foul play action that could cripple someone, but they are not really that arsed about it.

Deconstructing WRU man Roger Lewis's PR guff re: Lee Byrne

Lewis: "I used to be TV and music exec you know?  This explains my dead, shark-black eyes"

Roger speaks, we translate - it's that simple.

Roger Lewis "It has been an extremely difficult time for the player, but we have been determined to give him all the support he needed to achieve this fair resolution of a difficult matter."
B&M Translation "It has been a very difficult time for the player, but we have no other proper full-back available so we shat ourselves and threw the lawyers at it."

RL "It has not been an easy decision either for the original independent committtee hearing the evidence or the appeal panel and I applaud them all on their diligence in this matter."
B&M "This was a very easy decision for them, as we all know most people from Bridgend can't count, and you can't hold that against them, or Lee, really." 

RL"I hope this sends out a message to the followers of Welsh rugby that the WRU is an organisation which will always stand by individuals who deserve and need our help."
B&M "... the WRU is an organisation which will always stand by individuals who deserve and need our help.  Unless your name is Mike Ruddock"

Julien Dupuy's ban appeal

Stade Francais and Marc Lievremont are not happy that Julien Dupuy is banned for six months.  This is understandable as he is arguably the form scrum-half in Europe at the minute and his absence from his club and country will hit them hard. So what they are actually doing is taking the usual scoundrel's way out by bleating about technicalities.  The fact is that they have a case under French law for the decision to be reviewed, that will undoubtedly lead to a reduction in the ban and they are pursuing it. Shame on them.

At a time when the entire game is abhorring the practise of eye-gouging, and the authorities finally hand out something resembling a proper sanction, France chooses this time to focus on the detail rather than the principle. 

Let's be honest, the game in France has always had the worst reputation for this practice - John Eales threatened to take the Wallabies off the field in the 1999 World Cup Final, such was the extent of the gouging of his team -  and this was a clear opportunity for them to show to the world that they believe Dupuy acted in a despicable and cowardly manner.

Instead, we have Stade owner Guzzardi uttering crap like "The ERC wanted to make an example of a symbolic player of Stade Francais and of the French team which has never had a disciplinary problem."  No, the ERC wanted to make an example that gouging has no place in the game and those that are caught doing it are going to get their arses kicked. Gouging is a violent criminal act that should shame the perpetrator, and no-one should be offering public mealy-mouthed defences. 

The loss of Dupuy will hit his teams hard, but not as hard as it would hit Stephen Ferris to lose sight in one eye.  I know this didn't happen, but the fact is that this is more by luck than design, because if you stick your fingers in a person's eye socket you have no idea what the outcome will be.  Given the evidence above, six months was probably too light.

Dupuy, his club and FFR should be thankful he didn't blind anyone, shut their yap and take the sanction on the chin.  Or in the eye.

The question of physicality and dangerousness, in its many forms

Paul Rees made the point in his Guardian column this week that the increase in the size of rugby players due to professionalism has led to the wee backs in particular getting themselves injured all over the shop.  But is he - and others who are keen on the "it's too physical now" rhetoric - not overstating the case a little?

Interestingly, the two examples Rees uses to support this theory are Jonny Wilkinson and Mike Tindall; but are they not just injury prone?  Bryan Robson spent a great deal of his football career is some sort of dressing on the sideline, but few would extrapolate that to conclude the game inherently too physical.  Fact is that for every curtailed Henson and Wilkinson, there is a Mortlock, Umaga, O'Driscoll and Jason Robinson to offfer the longevity balance.

Rugby League has been professional for 100 years yet there is little of this hand-wringing. RL also has the added dimension of the attackers and defenders having 10 more metres to gather speed and momentum before collision.  Yet the best team in the land has the 5'5" and 10 stone Rob Burrow, the smallest player in elite professional rugby in the UK; he somehow manages to tackle very big men running at high-speed every weekend without splintering like a lolly-stick deckchair.

Professionalism leads to better conditioning, which leads to more physicality, this fact is not in doubt.  But the worried utterings of many who see this as a problem tend to come from a nostalgic rather than medical point of view.  Even James Robson, the Lions doctor couches it in such terms.  "Players are so big and bulky that maybe skills have dropped a little," he says. "I hope coaches recognise that and that we get a little bit faster and smaller and more skilful with players trying to run around opponents rather than through them."  A fair point, but more a stylistic and strategy-based yearning than a hard-science argument.

The transition to professionalism is still an ongoing process 15 years on, it is better to accept this as an organic process that remains true to the game rather than see every issue as a cue for moral panic. 

To roll or not to roll, the subsitutions are the question..

We're a bit late on this, but we thought we'd throw our opinion into the ring anyway...

The 'let's all behave better' committee has spoken, and they have come up with 16 recommendations to make sure that the game of rugby never again does terrible things involving blood, winking, England-playing legend revisionism and the like.  Most of them are so couched in the language of the administrator as to be impenetrable to the fan; for example recommendation 1. "Gamesmanship, foul play and cheating", which has the definition: "Include a definition of cheating in the Rules of the RFU and create a specific regulation covering this issue with severe sanctions associated" No, me neither.

The one that stands out like a beacon among a muddy sea of membership-justifying committee speak is number 7.  "Rolling Substitutions".  Before anyone gets too carried away about this starting next week, they are suggesting another committee (of course) to look at this and a trial in the Guinness Premiership.  

The voices for (Dewi Morris) and against (Stuart Barnes, Shaun Edwards, and our mate) have come out thick and fast, but what do we think of them?

Rules changes in principle are not wrong.  However, rule changes as a knee-jerk to a single issue are if they do not benefit the game in the round.  So where will the data and evidence for this greater analysis come from?  Rugby League probably.  As much as RU don't like it, RL have led the way with such things; sin bins, play-offs and citings, whatever you may think of them, started life in the northern code, so it is to league that we must look to check out the damage that could occur.

The introduction of rolling subs in Australia was a disaster, for the main reason that they were unlimited and no-one had a scooby of what was going on as players went back and forth like a busted toilet door.  But, the subsequent change to a limited number of twelve has had benefits.  Most of the interchanges are reserved for the front-five, the main carriers and hitters in the game: four props on each side who play 20 minutes each, likewise for two locks; also the half-backs tend to be mixed around, which offers some rebuttal to the opinion that bringing on more bulk is the primary outcome of such a rule.

This change would of course completely get rid of the issue of criteria-based subs, i.e. blood and front-row, where there can be cheating and lies, as we found out in the summer and in every game when the Wasps scrum is not going well.  Also, more fresh legs makes for faster rugby for the full 80 minutes. The counterpoint to this is that in a game that is already weighted towards defence, having less knackered defenders in the last 20 minutes will simply exacerbate the problem.  Remember, in RL there are only 13 players, that plus the 10-metre offside rule means more room to operate in even when players are fresh.

So, some positives, some negatives.  But any decision made anywhere has to be done with the balanced scorecard approach as other than when selling Iain Balshaw, a totally obvious and unarguably positive course of action is rare.  Remember that no decision has been made yet, the recommendation is to have a committee to consider it, a sensible approach with regard to an issue of such great change as this.

Yes, I did just say that the RFU had done something sensible.