Rugby - what's the attraction?

[turk]

How do northern hemisphere RL matches compare to southern ones, Turk?

Howya Eamonn

In Super 15 there tends to be much less kicking away of possession and most players are very comfortable with the ball in hand. The tempo tends to be a bit higher.

[Two Hands FFS]

I went to one of Ireland's 6 nations matches & thought it was a terrible spectacle. If there a ruck(if thats right- basically there is bodies everywhere ) and the ref gives a penalty most if the time you don't know what it was given for. I spent most of the match watching the big screen wishing it was over.

What was the score in the France - NZ final? 8-7? Boring

I hate the 6 nation bandwagon supporters who watch 5 games a year and know everything about it. Embarrassing

[IolarCoisCuain]

Rugby is a fantastic game, for all the reasons that the boys have mentioned. But there is also the magnificent pageantry of the internationals. The French singing the best anthem in the world. The Welsh Guards lead by Private Gwilym Jenkins. Bread of Heaven. Flower of Scotland. The Lions tours. They're all fantastic sporting events.

Rugby has lost a little of its soul through professionalism. The rise of the defensive couches means that you always always here this stuff about work-rate now. Work-rate is for the factory. Rugby should be about glory.

David Duckham quit rugby when he thought it was moving too much from players to coaches, and that was in the seventies. God only knows what he makes of it now. And a lot of the stuff here about the provinces is ersatz horseshit of the highest order.

But at the international level, there's nothing to compete with it. That's the real engine of growth of rugby in Ireland. The fact that those of us that love it loved it from watching Ireland in the Five Nations as kids. People were predicting the demise of the Six Nations after the game turned professional, on the basis that England and France would be that much better than the rest. Hasn't happened. After the Championship, the Six Nations is the highlight of my sporting year.

[ONeill]

West Brits.

[ross4life]

On another note I've seen a number of our underage talent choose Rugby over GAA for example we lost number key players off the U21 team that played in this year All Ireland final &

Ehhhh??
I certainly hope not.

I meant to say could have played in this year U21 final for example Daniel Qualter would have made a big difference to our midfield.

I agree entirely. Ludicrousness is subjective and even inconsistent at that. And I'm all for respect, if we exclude basketball.

Yer head's cut!  Basketball's a great game to watch. And they usually seem to be tight games with only a point or two in it at the end - nothing like seeing that last-minute three-pointer going in from halfway down the court.

I agree great game to watch it's even better live & whenever i'm the USA i try to catch NBA game.

[Eamonnca1]

West Brits.

Chuckies.

[Hardy]

So basketball - what's the attraction? I can only discern one skill - hitting the target with a thrown ball. I don't really rate being able to throw the ball to a teammate or being able to poke it down into the net from above. Throwing it from distance into the net is a fine skill, but it's not much different to darts. Oh, and being tall - that seems to be the other skill of basketball. But then darts has being fat.

I haven't that much time for indoor sports anyway. Except boxing. Now there's a sport.

[Eamonnca1]

So basketball - what's the attraction? I can only discern one skill - hitting the target with a thrown ball. I don't really rate being able to throw the ball to a teammate or being able to poke it down into the net from above. Throwing it from distance into the net is a fine skill, but it's not much different to darts. Oh, and being tall - that seems to be the other skill of basketball. But then darts has being fat.

Dribbling. Catching (I think we have that one in Gaelic football too). Ducking. Weaving. Feinting. Blocking. Passing (I think we have that one in rugby too). Accurately shooting a ball into a horizontal target not much bigger than itself, sometimes from a considerable distance (last time I played it was quite different from playing darts).

[deiseach]

What was the score in the France - NZ final? 8-7? Boring

Really? I thought it was thrilling, utterly compulsive viewing. Different strokes etc.

[Hardy]

So basketball - what's the attraction? I can only discern one skill - hitting the target with a thrown ball. I don't really rate being able to throw the ball to a teammate or being able to poke it down into the net from above. Throwing it from distance into the net is a fine skill, but it's not much different to darts. Oh, and being tall - that seems to be the other skill of basketball. But then darts has being fat.

Dribbling. Catching (I think we have that one in Gaelic football too). Ducking. Weaving. Feinting. Blocking. Passing (I think we have that one in rugby too). Accurately shooting a ball into a horizontal target not much bigger than itself, sometimes from a considerable distance (last time I played it was quite different from playing darts).

Ducking is a skill?

We can come back to the others, but really?

[mackers]

Rugby can be really entertaining as a TV sport but less so watching it live.  Have only been to a few live matches but due to the massive physicality any break in play is accompanied by a mass invasion of medical staff to tend to injured players.  This leaves it very stop-start viewing.  At least on TV they fill these gaps with replays and analysis.

[camanchero]

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.

Completely agree with all of the above.
Can only add to it that I like rugby league. the English and French RFU's new euro rugby deal will mean less money and less power to the Irish provinces (but I think its an uneven playing field right now as Irish and Welsh provinces play against the smaller 'clubs' of rugby.

finally - rugby referees dont blow for half the stuff they should. if they did, it would not be possible to watch as a spectacle. most attacking teams play on the gain line and as a result a huge proportion of passes are actually forward passes. There is offside at almost every ruck that isnt penalised and it now seems like every team (not just international) is following the example of the former tri-nations in resorting to foul play and illegally stopping the ball etc in contact etc - again rarely penalised.
rugby can be a great game to watch- most (team) ball sports are imo.

[Rossfan]

On another note I've seen a number of our underage talent choose Rugby over GAA for example we lost number key players off the U21 team that played in this year All Ireland final &

Ehhhh??
I certainly hope not.

I meant to say could have played in this year U21 final for example Daniel Qualter would have made a big difference to our midfield.

Ah I see.
I don't think any of the other lost to rubby bucks were any great shakes at football anyway and wre not very likely to have been on the team this year.
I think DQ's best asset was his size which would become less relevant as he moved into the adult ranks without ability to go with it which in my opinion was limited enough too.

[Billys Boots]

Ducking is a skill?

It's important in boxing, though you may call it something else? 

[LeoMc]

Ducking is a skill?

It's important in boxing, though you may call it something else? 

If Mickey Linden had Ducking in among his array of skills he might still be playing.