Rugby has gone soft

It was interesting to read, in dispatches from Perth, that Harry Viljoen was deploring the dominance of defences and singing praises of the drop-kick.

My, my, I thought, this from the coach who in his first test against Argentina last November instructed the Boks not to kick the ball at all; as a sort shock treatment to break habits indoctrinated over many years.

A dedicated disciple of the running game, Viljoen felt he could steer the Springboks on a radical new route of total rugby, but in his first 10 tests has found putting his philosophy into practice far harder than he anticipated.

The coach’s vision has been bedeviled by a wretched run of injuries to key players – a phenomenon that used be commented on but which is now so commonplace that is hardly ever raised in defence of an embattled coach – as well as the fact that in his absence the structure of the game changed to a greater extent than he anticipated.

For this blame greater use of video tape as well as the evolution of the laws.

Viljoen deserves credit for adapting quickly. He soon realised that the way the game is refereed (too often) militates against an open, running style while he was also able to exploit some of the new applications.

I was one of those who had doubts whether Conrad Jantjes was ready for test rugby – especially given the view within the Cats/Lions camp that he was not yet strong enough.

But Viljoen knew that playing the youngster at fullback was less of a risk than one might have thought; especially those of us who come from a time when the Springboks were able to exact fearsome up-and-under revenge on Fergie McCormack for having knocked out Syd Nomis’s front teeth with a stiff-arm tackle.

These days you just can’t do that anymore. Teams chasing high kicks have to play the ball or run the risk of being penalised or having someone sent off for attacking the catcher.

Thus the mindset that dictated that Jantjes would be given a terrible working over was erroneous because to catch the fullback in possession, on the ground, has become too difficult – especially when weighed against the potential downside of giving the ball away.

It may be different in cold, rainy weather at Eden Park when the high ball will become an option, but even then the chasers will have to steer clear of making physical contact with the catcher without themselves trying to play the ball.

Thus it is unlikely that Jantjes will have his confidence destroyed in the manner that Gysie Pienaar was battered by an abrasive Manawatu side when the 1981 Springboks stopped off in Palmerston North.

Manawatu had the All Black flyhalf Doug Rollerson as well as the New Zealand team’s reserve scrumhalf, Mark Donaldson, in their line-up and with driving wind turning the rain into icicles they sent high ball after high ball onto Pienaar and he took such a beating from the chasers – who simply crashed into him without even looking at the ball – that he was never again the same player.

The modification of the interpretation of the law was brought about by safety considerations and I wonder whether others like it do not go to the core of why defence rules supreme in rugby at the moment.

Certainly, the way the law is applied these days when it comes to rucking has robbed the All Blacks of one of their supreme weapons. There was no more awesome sight than an All Black pack going over the ball on the ground, riding roughshod on any opponent who happened to be in the way, and the modern “sanitised” interpretation has definitely caused the All Blacks to be less fearsome.

In fact, when you think about it, the game has been pretty much emasculated… or de-brutalised depending on your point of view.

Take the scrum. You can’t scrum up, you can’t scrum down, you can’t scrum in and you can’t twist your opponent or adjust your grip. How often don’t we see the stronger scrummager being penalised for getting the better of his man?

Players can’t go man-to-man in competing for the ball in lineouts and when it comes to “sorting things out between themselves” there’s the touch judges and, just in case they miss something (as is their wont!), the citing commissioner, supported by video tape, to cause a fuss.

This is going to make me sound like one of those dreadful old ex-players whose refrain is always “the game was better in my day,” but there is no getting away from the fact that rugby is just not as hard as it used to be.