This is an opinion piece arguing Rugby has increasingly become an all forwards game. The interesting section is a brief note on statistics that show the amount of dead time (real-time minus ball-in-play) is very high these days in international rugby.
International games will take a minimum of 95 minutes (40+15+40), but increasingly internationals are pushing 120 minutes plus, and a huge chunk of that is time just standing around. In the World Cup some games have had in excess of 70 minutes dead time, while the average is 65 minutes.
So much dead time allows players aerobic recovery, and this is what is allowing forwards to get bigger, making the collision even more important, and its why SA is going for 6-2, or 7-1 benches.
Big forwards in Rugby are now as important as the big lads in NFL, seen through that lens you can see why the bomb squad makes so much sense.
As an NPC fan, this helps to explain why I can’t stand watching International rugby nowadays. The NPC averages mid-50s dead time, and some games are even lower.
But, on top of the entertainment from the actual game* I suspect this is likely to be causing more lower level brain rattles that aren’t obvious concussions and will potentially be a bigger cause of concussion related injuries and illnesses amongst former players in 10-20 years.
*The way I look at entertainment is twofold; firstly the game itself - if you were a neutral with absolutely no interest in the result would the game be fun to watch. But the bigger factor is the stakes, which comes from the competition and loyalty to the team.
Most of the games i’ve watched in the World Cup, even from highlights have been failures in terms of game fun, and the only thing making them interesting is the stakes of the tournament itself.
The best games have been from teams like Portugal, Uruguay etc where we all know there’s no chance they’ll progress beyond the pools so the entertainment isn’t from the stakes but they way they’re playing.
For starters because the laws don’t tell you to. Pretty much the laws boil down to don’t do foul play. What is better is the new moves to say a tackle is only legal if it is below this line.
But while the concussion debate is very focussed on head contacts at the moment, that’s only part of the problem. Big heavy players running into each other at speed causes the brain to shake about within the skull whether or not the head is actually hit. The reason Rugby has bigger & heavier players is because of the amount of dead time that has crept into the game.
Couple that with teams substituting an entire tight five around half time and the biggest players just aren’t tested aerobically enough to cause their size to reduce which would help to reduce the impact of collisions.
I’d definitely be in favour of reducing/eliminating tactical replacements.