A word of thanks to Rugby League from me. Kept the season going, worked out a fair way of resolving the league, two brilliant Challenge Cup semi finals, an excellent final, two great play off matches last week and the semi finals still to come - Hull v Wigan and St.Helens v Catalan this coming Thursday and Friday evening on Sky, before the final on the 27th.
Tough, sometimes brutal, skilful, massively committed and a Covid necessitated minor rule change has actually made it even quicker.
Used to play, but looking at the physiques and collisions so glad I’m just watching these days.
Reintroduce line outs, add 2 to starting line ups, no limitation on time of possession, 5 points for a try, 3 for a penalty or drop goal and hey presto, a better game
Have you noticed that, in Union, at the breakdown, play seems to have become very much like League. Nothing like as many rucks and mauls as there used to be. It's not as ceremonial as in League where the ref declares "tackle" and then only one player is allowed to stand close to the man with the ball while he rolls it back to the dummy half.... Union still has the odd player in there but they all line up, defensively, in the same way they do in League.
I was one of the ‘girls’ in the backs, MA...centre, full back or, if I got selected up a level, usually on the wing. Used to try and keep out of the way of the forwards until they passed the fags and the beer round in the communal bath afterwards.
Never really understood scrums, rucks and mauls...still a generally dull part of the game imo, although on cold days in northern England I did look on at the literally steaming forwards with envy as exposure became a real risk stuck out in the backs.
I agree with you about how Union is looking more like League in some respects. To me both codes are at their best as running games and I’ve always thought that the additional two wing forwards in Union are counterproductive to entertaining rugby.
Glad I played when I did...there’s a lot of talk at the moment about how repetitive heading of a ball in football may lead to dementia, but some of the collisions between increasingly huge men in rugby must be causing long term damage and in the unlikely event of me ever having been selected to play in the front row I’d have walked away...just so much pressure on necks and backs, particularly in Union.
Ah well as a schoolboy hooker* I am familiar with the unpleasantness of the front row, but that was in the days before it was anything like as regulated as it is now. Bindings, what bindings? Slip them and nose to the ground most normal, and virtually crouch side on to "hook" - well divert the ball. Back then the hooker was not trusted to throw in at the lineout, the winger did it, underarm, so basically the hooker was unskilled - probably why I was put there. However it was nicely warm mid scrum - and the winds on the heights of the Cotswold hills in the winter, bearing horizontal rain, were every bit as fierce as oop north I'd wager
* sounds worse than it was
I played both at school and at club level. Club in both England and the Netherlands. During the rugby years I played every position from full back to #8. Early years in the back row. Later, wel... everywhere. When I moved on to club rugby, I still got asked to play the odd game in the pack in various positions but played more often in the backs. Moved to Holland and, when I started training with Amsterdam they saw a full back in me. My last season saw us on tour in Prague. That was an interesting tour. 2 games in 3 days. Against Dukla and against Slavia. In the last game I was promoted to fly half, a position I'd only ever played half a dozen times and it was possibly the most frustrating game I've ever been involved in. There were no posts, therefore, there were no penalties from which to score, no drop goals. Only tries. They beat us 7 tries to 4. If we'd had posts, there was no doubt in anybody's mind we would have won. They had no worries about giving away penalties inside their own half as we couldn't gain the 3 points due to a lack of posts. The end of the game was approsching, we'd lost and we knew this was the last movement of the game. We attacked and were looking dangerous, they got a tackle in, a ruck formed and the ball would have been out on our side in the next few seconds. Foul play in the ruck, penalty to us about 25 yards out and reasonably central. Ref told us this was the last passage of play. I told the scrum half to take a short penalty and feed me the ball. Forwards lined up to go left towards the corner flag Full back and blind side winger on halfway and the 3s spread out right. Tap penalty, ball flies to me and......... I hit the perfect dropped goal......... or it would have been had there been posts to aim at. As the ball sailed "over", the opposition clapped. They understood perfectly my frustration. Game over.
If any of you haven't been to Prague I thoroughly recommend it. Wonderful place, wonderful people.... and we were there in the Communist days.
Another day I'll recount an evening's sojourn away from the tourist area aroung Winceslas Square when 4 of us wandered off with the idea we'd walk for about 10 minutes, take a left and go in the first local bar we came to to try to get to know the locals.