Putting boot on the other foot

If rugby players were golfers, cricketers or tennis players they’d all be branded cheats.

Unlike in the other three sports, especially the first-mentioned Royal & Ancient one, playing by the rules is mostly considered imperative whereas in rugby the aim of the game seems to have become to break the laws as often as possible.

In recent weeks referees have come in for quite a lambasting over the new, perhaps correct would be a better word, application of certain of the laws.

All the ills of the game are too often visited upon the poor guy with the whistle so it is time to point out that coaches and players have to shoulder a good deal of the blame.

Watch any game and all you see is a constant stream of misdemeanours which the referees have to punish and it would be a whole lot worse but for the unwanted phenomenon, introduced in the interests of creating more continuity, of the officials constantly warning or coaching players to keep away from sinning.

Players, with coaches as culpable as their charges, make very little effort to stay onsides, to hit rucks and mauls from the correct direction, to let go the tackler or if they happen to be the tackled to let go of the ball.

In fact what we have at the moment is a game in which everyone tries to get away with much as they can and then scream foul when the referee has the gall to pull them up.

How much better it would be if there was a change of attitude and players, never forgetting the all-powerful coaches, set out to play within the statutes of the law.

It was probably a little erroneous of me to include the whiter than white cricketers in my column because no-one walks any more and all bowlers appeal for imaginary snicks but can you imagine what would become of that game if all the players were deliberately intent on breaking the rules?

What would become of tennis if the players simply decided to foot-fault on every serve and left it up to the umpire to call the infringements?

Golf, in fact, would be impossible to play unless players abided by the rules. Of course there are cheats – there always are and you’ll never get rid of them – but the vast majority of golfers pride themselves on not taking liberties in a game in which there are endless opportunities to do so.

How do you think rugby would do if a policy that has been proposed on the European golf tour were imposed on the 15-man game?

The European Tour has embarked on a plan to make sure the players know the more “common” rules so that they don’t have to call for unnecessary rulings.

John Paramor and Andy McFee, two of the European Tour’s top rules officials have made a DVD on the simple rulings and if they believe a player has asked for a ruling he should know, then he would be given three tournaments within which to attend a seminar and watch the DVD before he can enter another event.

“It's for when you get a guy asking for what we consider a frivolous ruling," said McFee, the senior referee in Europe. He was referring to thinks like dropping off a cart path, away from a sprinkler head, unplayable lies, lost balls and water hazards. Millions of golfers around the world regulate these rulings all by themselves every day of the year yet you have professional players who need help!

Bravo for to the European Tour for making the players take on some responsibility.

And wouldn’t be nice if we could have the same in rugby. If a prop constantly baulks the countdown to a scrum warn him off; if a loose forward is persistently blown up for transgressing warn him that he might spend some time out of the game until he learns the laws and plays to them.

One could even introduce a different coloured card - how about a pink one? – to indicate that a player is on a warning for constant law infringements. How about some censure for the coach of a team that contains a serial offender?

Instead of always testing the referee, always pushing the envelope, let’s try and play to the laws. Who knows we may even get to the point where the man with the most invidious jobs of all just blows the letter of the law rather than having to shout out instructions and warnings to get some flow into the game.