How many times have we heard this over the past couple of weeks form ex pro 'pundits'.
'Games got soft...they'll be banning tackling next' (or words to that effect).
Beale, Haylett-Petty, Brookes. All players that rightly or wrongly may have felt aggrieved by their marching orders in recent weeks.
Firstly, if you throw accusations like 'games gone soft' around, it instantly smacks of rose-tinted nostalgia of your own career, when kicking people in the head and punching people at the bottom of a ruck when the ref wasn't looking was seen as the height of alpha-masculinty. The world has moved on guys, so should the sport. No one is debating a bit of measured violence isn't sometimes a bit of a shot in the arm for a game, but long gone are the days of Dooley, Ackford and Richards strolling around the pitch smacking people to assert their authority because taking your warrant card on the pitch was frowned upon.
Secondly, the game very clearly hasn't gone soft. The rules have changed, not the players. They still love smashing people, its just become harder to judge how high you can get away with.
Thirdly, I agree that some of the yellows being chucked out are ludicrous, but World Rugby and the constituent unions have a huge PR problem at the moment with parents reluctant to let their kids play a sport that you can so clearly draw a direct line between repeated head trauma and later life health problems. They have to take action for the sake of participation in the game and the image of the game. I am not usually one to defend World Rugby, but on this front they are just adjusting to a changing sports market, with the most noble of concerns at the core of it, player safety.
So please just calm down. World Rugby doesn't want traditional fans turned off the game, so will probably look at the laws and adjust accordingly when necessary. They also don't want kids and parents scared of early onset dementia if they go near a rugby ball, so the game has to change. Lets just all take a deep breath.
Hartley was definitely a red card though. Naughty.
'Games got soft...they'll be banning tackling next' (or words to that effect).
Beale, Haylett-Petty, Brookes. All players that rightly or wrongly may have felt aggrieved by their marching orders in recent weeks.
Firstly, if you throw accusations like 'games gone soft' around, it instantly smacks of rose-tinted nostalgia of your own career, when kicking people in the head and punching people at the bottom of a ruck when the ref wasn't looking was seen as the height of alpha-masculinty. The world has moved on guys, so should the sport. No one is debating a bit of measured violence isn't sometimes a bit of a shot in the arm for a game, but long gone are the days of Dooley, Ackford and Richards strolling around the pitch smacking people to assert their authority because taking your warrant card on the pitch was frowned upon.
Secondly, the game very clearly hasn't gone soft. The rules have changed, not the players. They still love smashing people, its just become harder to judge how high you can get away with.
Thirdly, I agree that some of the yellows being chucked out are ludicrous, but World Rugby and the constituent unions have a huge PR problem at the moment with parents reluctant to let their kids play a sport that you can so clearly draw a direct line between repeated head trauma and later life health problems. They have to take action for the sake of participation in the game and the image of the game. I am not usually one to defend World Rugby, but on this front they are just adjusting to a changing sports market, with the most noble of concerns at the core of it, player safety.
So please just calm down. World Rugby doesn't want traditional fans turned off the game, so will probably look at the laws and adjust accordingly when necessary. They also don't want kids and parents scared of early onset dementia if they go near a rugby ball, so the game has to change. Lets just all take a deep breath.
Hartley was definitely a red card though. Naughty.
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