Rugby - what's the attraction?

[deiseach]

But while holding rugby forth as a paragon doesn't stand up to scrutiny, I agree that we could learn some things from rugby administration and law-making as well. The respect for referees is probably the biggest one. It doesn't happen by accident or because the players are nice middle-class chaps. It happens because it's in the rules and enforced. As trileacman says as well, they are probably that bit better than us in ability to identify and willingness to tackle flaws in the laws that promote undesirable aspects of the game, such as the "professional" foul, with meaningful sanctions and we could learn frrom that.

Good point. It ultimately comes from having ethics. When people invoke rugby and golf as examples of sports where fair play is much in evidence, you can almost smell the snobbery at times. What about snooker though? A sport with a more rough-and-ready clientele you won't find, yet players routinely call fouls on themselves because, well, it's the done thing.

[Billys Boots]

Hardy, would you not agree that the reason that rugby have got the referee issue right is because it's a very 'new' sport in terms of mass participation - imagine trying to effect the same change in gaelic football, hurling or soccer now; it might have been possible 80 years ago (which, in my view, would be the equivalent to rugby's initiative), but it would be nigh on impossible nowadays. 

[Jonah]

But while holding rugby forth as a paragon doesn't stand up to scrutiny, I agree that we could learn some things from rugby administration and law-making as well. The respect for referees is probably the biggest one. It doesn't happen by accident or because the players are nice middle-class chaps. It happens because it's in the rules and enforced. As trileacman says as well, they are probably that bit better than us in ability to identify and willingness to tackle flaws in the laws that promote undesirable aspects of the game, such as the "professional" foul, with meaningful sanctions and we could learn frrom that.

Good point. It ultimately comes from having ethics. When people invoke rugby and golf as examples of sports where fair play is much in evidence, you can almost smell the snobbery at times. What about snooker though? A sport with a more rough-and-ready clientele you won't find, yet players routinely call fouls on themselves because, well, it's the done thing.

Is snooker a sport? Likewise with Darts?
Would consider both to be glorified pub games.

[deiseach]

Is snooker a sport? Likewise with Darts?
Would consider both to be glorified pub games.

It has rules/laws, participants and referees so it shares that much with other rugby, soccer and Gaelic games. Feel free to start a thread on whether it's a sport.

[Billys Boots]

Is snooker a sport? Likewise with Darts?
Would consider both to be glorified pub games.

It has rules/laws, participants and referees so it shares that much with other rugby, soccer and Gaelic games. Feel free to start a thread on whether it's a sport.

I think your point has been proved about snobbery. 

[Jonah]

Is snooker a sport? Likewise with Darts?
Would consider both to be glorified pub games.

It has rules/laws, participants and referees so it shares that much with other rugby, soccer and Gaelic games. Feel free to start a thread on whether it's a sport.

So does Professional Poker.
I don't consider that a sport either, it's just another glorified pub game.

[deiseach]

Is snooker a sport? Likewise with Darts?
Would consider both to be glorified pub games.

It has rules/laws, participants and referees so it shares that much with other rugby, soccer and Gaelic games. Feel free to start a thread on whether it's a sport.

I think your point has been proved about snobbery.

Thank you for saving me from any more communication with the troll.

[thewobbler]

Hardy, would you not agree that the reason that rugby have got the referee issue right is because it's a very 'new' sport in terms of mass participation - imagine trying to effect the same change in gaelic football, hurling or soccer now; it might have been possible 80 years ago (which, in my view, would be the equivalent to rugby's initiative), but it would be nigh on impossible nowadays.

This is a truly bizarre post.

I'd guess there were more people playing rugby in London 80 years ago than are playing hurling now.


It's very easy to stamp out cheating and stamp out hounding of referees: punish the offenders. But it's not a culture that exists in soccer, and football is following suit.

[deiseach]

Hardy, would you not agree that the reason that rugby have got the referee issue right is because it's a very 'new' sport in terms of mass participation - imagine trying to effect the same change in gaelic football, hurling or soccer now; it might have been possible 80 years ago (which, in my view, would be the equivalent to rugby's initiative), but it would be nigh on impossible nowadays.

This is a truly bizarre post.

I'd guess there were more people playing rugby in London 80 years ago than are playing hurling now.


It's very easy to stamp out cheating and stamp out hounding of referees: punish the offenders. But it's not a culture that exists in soccer, and football is following suit.

I think the point might be that rugby had a 'year zero' when the game went open. The introduction of sin bins was a relatively minor innovation when set against the earthquake that was professionalism.

[Aristo 60]

Aye Rugby & American Football - both nonsense sports imo.

[trileacman]

For me rugby is about club and country, I coach three teams including a Leinster under-age development team but I rarely go watch Leinster play and am very apathetic these towards the Leinster professional team. In fact the way in which professional rugby has grown in the sense of crowd attendance, marketing and TV coverage absolutely amazes me, it really bought into our sense of tribalness (is that a word). I have always supported my country, first game was the Millennium game against England in 1988, Chris Oti scored a hat-trick for England. There is no bandwagon for the national team, those were dark days for Irish rugby but yet Lansdowne Road was always a sell-out and you could only get tickets through your club.

The bandwagon is around the Provinces, Munster been the worst of any sport in Ireland in living memory (The Brave and Faithful et al) although Leinster these days aren't far behind, still amuses me that so many "passionate" Leinster fans have never been to a club game.

Rugby clubs have the exact same problem as many GAA clubs - emigration, lack of funding, competition from other clubs/sports, lack of volunteers etc etc.

On the development team I coach at least half play GAA, some of these are on Inter-County development squads, Kildare, Meath and Laois. They are now at a stage in both codes where they have to make a choice as the demands mean they need to focus on one sport or be left behind, most of these kids are only 15 years of age, tough decision for young minds. Rugby though in general is not a threat to GAA - there are more less the same number of GAA clubs in Kildare as rugby clubs in Leinster and there is more GAA clubs in Cork that there are rugby clubs in the whole island.

Unfortunately there is a stigma attached to certain rugby supporters, a cliche becomes a cliche because their is an element of truth. Within rugby circles there is still a certain snobbery element, typified by the question "What school did you go to?" - it still exists not as common as say 20 years ago and Leinster rugby and Irish have generally lost this kind of supporter, these days you find them only at a Leinster Schools Cup games.

My own favourite team sports to watch are Football, rugby union, soccer, rugby league and hurling. Apart from boxing find individual sports boring to watch but ok to play.

To be fair the snobbish element of Irish Rugby is mostly limited to Leinster and in particular South Dublin.

[rodney trotter]

For me rugby is about club and country, I coach three teams including a Leinster under-age development team but I rarely go watch Leinster play and am very apathetic these towards the Leinster professional team. In fact the way in which professional rugby has grown in the sense of crowd attendance, marketing and TV coverage absolutely amazes me, it really bought into our sense of tribalness (is that a word). I have always supported my country, first game was the Millennium game against England in 1988, Chris Oti scored a hat-trick for England. There is no bandwagon for the national team, those were dark days for Irish rugby but yet Lansdowne Road was always a sell-out and you could only get tickets through your club.

The bandwagon is around the Provinces, Munster been the worst of any sport in Ireland in living memory (The Brave and Faithful et al) although Leinster these days aren't far behind, still amuses me that so many "passionate" Leinster fans have never been to a club game.

Rugby clubs have the exact same problem as many GAA clubs - emigration, lack of funding, competition from other clubs/sports, lack of volunteers etc etc.

On the development team I coach at least half play GAA, some of these are on Inter-County development squads, Kildare, Meath and Laois. They are now at a stage in both codes where they have to make a choice as the demands mean they need to focus on one sport or be left behind, most of these kids are only 15 years of age, tough decision for young minds. Rugby though in general is not a threat to GAA - there are more less the same number of GAA clubs in Kildare as rugby clubs in Leinster and there is more GAA clubs in Cork that there are rugby clubs in the whole island.

Unfortunately there is a stigma attached to certain rugby supporters, a cliche becomes a cliche because their is an element of truth. Within rugby circles there is still a certain snobbery element, typified by the question "What school did you go to?" - it still exists not as common as say 20 years ago and Leinster rugby and Irish have generally lost this kind of supporter, these days you find them only at a Leinster Schools Cup games.

My own favourite team sports to watch are Football, rugby union, soccer, rugby league and hurling. Apart from boxing find individual sports boring to watch but ok to play.

To be fair the snobbish element of Irish Rugby is mostly limited to Leinster and in particular South Dublin.

Roysh!

[trileacman]

As an example how many top level rugby games are decided simply by a referees mistake? How many end in hollers of abuse where he has to be escorted of the field or threatened?

I can only think of two such examples, Munster several years ago in the Heineken Cup and NZ v France in 2007, even then the action the referee missed was minimal at best.

I would suggest that rugby doesn't appear as prone to refereeing mistakes as Gaelic games or soccer because games are rarely level going down the stretch. It feels more devastating when the match turns on a refereeing decision in those circumstances. But when you consider the abuse Alain Rolland got for making the right decision in the Wales-France semi-final last year, this idea that rugby is free of referees deciding matches is fanciful.

Agreed. And it's not limited to questions of competence. Look at the World Cup Final. No way were France ever going to get a scorable penalty in the second half.

I disagree with trileacman that rugby is a shining light in sports administration and rule making. There are plenty examples of shortcomings in laws and practices - the scrum, discriminatory administration at the World Cup, inconsistency between regions in application/interpretation of the laws are some that come to mind.

But while holding rugby forth as a paragon doesn't stand up to scrutiny, I agree that we could learn some things from rugby administration and law-making as well. The respect for referees is probably the biggest one. It doesn't happen by accident or because the players are nice middle-class chaps. It happens because it's in the rules and enforced. As trileacman says as well, they are probably that bit better than us in ability to identify and willingness to tackle flaws in the laws that promote undesirable aspects of the game, such as the "professional" foul, with meaningful sanctions and we could learn frrom that.

I didn't say that rugby "is a shining light in sports administration and rule making", I said they are ahead of the game when compared to soccer or rugby. If you disagree with that then say so, don't disagree with something I didn't say.

[BennyCake]

Didn't think this thread would gather this much interest tbh. I'm not really much further forward though.

Alot of posts about rule changes, referees, class of supporters etc, but still not many posts on the attraction of the game of rugby. What excites you about the game, what is it about rugby that sets it apart from other games, and mostly, what would make you attend a game?

In my original post, I listed things about GAA sports/soccer that catches my eye, that is exciting and skilful about those games. I don't see anything in rugby to add to such a list. Perhaps someone could tell me their views on that?

[screenexile]

Didn't think this thread would gather this much interest tbh. I'm not really much further forward though.

Alot of posts about rule changes, referees, class of supporters etc, but still not many posts on the attraction of the game of rugby. What excites you about the game, what is it about rugby that sets it apart from other games, and mostly, what would make you attend a game?

In my original post, I listed things about GAA sports/soccer that catches my eye, that is exciting and skilful about those games. I don't see anything in rugby to add to such a list. Perhaps someone could tell me their views on that?

I like the high catching of a full back, the skill required by someone like O'Gara, Pienaar or Sexton to compose themselves enough to score that last gasp drop goal or penalty to win a game.

A small tubby guy has to throw a ball accurately and straight in all weathers through a sea of 6 foot giants being lifted to serious heights.

The hitting which is just unreal and bone crunching at times yet lads get right back up on their feet. The bravery of the players e.g. Tommy Bowe's against Wales in 2009 where he could have been flattened but then ended up under the posts

Watching O'Driscoll when in full flow, he had that ability to do something nobody else could think about.

The fact that a watery skitter like Peter Stringer is in the same side as a giant like O'Connell and a geezer who looks like he's had too many fish suppers yet is probably fitter than you or me!

I like the fact that when I go to a rugby game I don't have to listen to mouths ganching at the referee ALL THE TIME, and I have yet to hear Rugby supporters call a rival player a gypsy or a tr**p.

I like the fact I can go to a match and have a beer. Any Rugby game I've been to has a really positive and respectful atmosphere and the fact that most crowds now have complete silence when a kicker is taking a penalty further underlines this.