this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2023
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Rugby Union
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France have been playing with a 6-2 split for ages so this it’s the logical extension, I guess. Probably also inevitable as firwards get fitter and more skilful. Even ten years ago you didn’t have forwards with anywhere near the same level of handling etc.
Though I will say that Eddie has been trying make players playing in any position a thing for ages, so when he says the saffas are brave, he really means him.
Fair forwards are very skillful now and I feel keeping the forwards fresh is important
That's certainly the point of a 6-2 bench (set aside 7-1 as that was a slightly different situation). But I think its one of the things that is making Rugby more dangerous and counteracting any benefits to trying to reduce tackle heights and speed up the game etc.*
The idea of 6 forwards on the bench is you have your biggest players running at full speed for longer in a game, which means bigger collisions for longer. It also helps add to the dominance that defense has over attack in Rugby as well. The downside of that is that it leads to territory gains predominantly from referee decisions, when ideally referee's would be making fewer decisions.
On the old /r for Rugby there was a fairly constant debate between mostly Australasian/Pacific fans wanting to speed the game up, and SA/EU fans arguing that what they were asking for was to reduce two players from the field & just play League instead.
I think that ignores what Rugby Union is right now. The League criticism was 5-tackle, kick. But really Union has probably degenerated to 3-tackle, kick. Or worse, 3-tackle, penalty.
If we force forwards to play longer and not allow teams to substitute entire forward packs so they only play half a game, then the idea is that the forwards would have to boost their aerobic fitness and probably reduce size. That would (in theory) lower the impacts from collisions and eventually, through fatiguing the defense allow for the attack to find more holes and let the players make territory, rather than milking penalties and piggy-backing downfield.
*Though there is some argument as well that some players are more likely to make accidentally bad contacts due to fatigue.
I'm not sure the main criticism of league is 5 tackle - kick, so much as they've stripped out most of the interesting contests in the game. It's the battles within the battle that make Union so interesting imho.
I do think, however, that reducing subs is a good idea and I think it would probably have the safety benefit you mention. Personally I'd like to see a trial of no tactical subs at all
I know that l the argument against that is that coaches will fake injuries to make substitutions. They probably will, but not often. You just have to see what happened to Dean Richards after trying to game the blood subs laws to see that, if enforced properly, it will rarely be worth the risk. If we saw multiple subs every game for apparent "injuries" and all around the same point in the game WR would have to act.
I suspect that most coaches would only very rarely use a game injury in extreme circumstances because of this risk.
Of course, if WR applies the level of enforcement that we've seen for things like, for example, straight scrum feeds or hooking in the scrum then if it would all just be a joke.
Its an interesting criticism of League for sure. But it kinda overlooks what the League Tackle-Ruck creates. Because each tackle resets the play, you're kinda getting a series of high paced downs a la American Football from which to set up different formations, structure and strike plays etc.
If Rugby Union is nearly fully unstructured, and American Football is nearly fully structured, Rugby League kinda sits halfway between the two. It drops two highly technical and physical battles in the scrum & lineout, but opens up more space and pushing the defense back 10 metres every ruck allows for more interesting attack opportunities. I barely watch any League, but I think Union fans being fully closed off to its good things* overlooks opportunity.
With regards to the substitutions - I think there's 3 effective ways to do it, 1) you reduce the bench and the teams can still have total freedom with substitutions or 2) the bench stays the same size, but the maximum number of substitutions is reduced.
With the latter there's a couple of ways you could do it, eg you can only swap *x * forwards and y backs from the starting lineup; or just a flat limit - probably around 4 players either way.
Either way if some team really wanted to put a prop on in place of their centre they could but it would probably be a bad idea. In both cases once you've used up your substitutions thats it - if someone is injured they can't be replaced, the only exception being the safety subs for the front row etc, but the team would still be required to drop another player (similar to a yellow card).
*Not to say you are of course!
interesting didn't think about it like that. Thank you for this very thoughtful and in depth analysis. Its definitely a tough balancing act between gameplay and safety