It's just what Alfie does Mal, mention Union to him and it's like waving a red rag at a bull, but he doesn't mean any harm. I just give him a bit of humpty-dumpty back, he likes that. ;D
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Nothing daft about it Mal,League is a much faster flowing game than Yawnion and you only need to count up to six to understand the game unlike Union which has more laws than anything. The term kick and clap does really cover all that's to be said about Yawnion.
Each to their own though Mal.You keep watching Yawnion and I'll keep watching League.
Agree with you alf, I played both about 56 years ago and the Union was so much stop and start, resetting scrums, sorting the line for a lineout, rucks and mauls etc., etc. and then get blown up for some obscure penalty, I found it boring to play the game so won't waste time watching it. It has about as much appeal to me as darts or snooker, which I also don't watch.
Fair crack to those who do enjoy those games, however, certainly not to my taste.
Part of an interesting article by Alexander Wolf in FluentRugby.
"O’Sullivan analysed a match between Munster and Saracens. There were a total of 17 scrums. On Munster’s put in the average scrum time was 74 seconds while on Saracens’ put in the average scrum time was 55 seconds. This took the total of match time dedicated to scrums to a whopping 20mins.
The Munster and Saracens game wasn’t some crazy outlier. Munster averages 15 scrums a game. And during Ireland’s campaign in the 2019 Six Nations the national side averaged almost 13 scrums a match............"
"............The referee’s clock is usually kept running during a rugby union match and only stops because of injuries or when waiting for the video referee’s decision. This may annoy some fans as lots of time is lost at lineouts and scrums but they fail to realise that if the referee stopped the clock for every scrum and lineout the game could easily last for 3 hours, exhausting both player and spectator."
As is plain to see, the Rugby Union fans are being cheated big time because their games are basically around less than half the length that they should be.
You're spot on Sub, the big problem with Union is the set piece scrum. They've known about it for years, but it seems beyond the wit of the games administrators to do anything about it, so it seems something you just have to live with if you enjoy Union, as I do.
I wonder if the players are even aware of the time it takes up though. In the recent France v England game, we got a pen right under the posts and France had a player sent to the bin for 10 minutes, we were behind, but even so it seemed a no-brainer to kick the 3 points and play 15-14 for ten minutes. Instead we went for a scrum and a possible 7 points. The French knew exactly what to do, they dawdled setting the scrum up, and then made sure it collapsed, this scrum pantomime continued for about three minutes before they knicked the ball off us and hoofed it upfield. We now had a line out on the halfway line and France had less than 7 minutes to play a man down.
I was bemused, did our players not know how much time a scrum can take up, especially when the other team are intent on running the clock. It seems not.
Surely they can't be that bad again, and they will be stronger, but a bit like with the football team, this result had been coming, we've been going backwards for a while now, I can't remember the last time we looked like potential World Cup winners. To be honest the England team in the last 12 months has been rubbish, and there are no signs of improvement. Some foreign pundit asked during the game, 'who is the English defence coach ?', he couldn't believe how bad we were.