26-02-2007, 10:32 AM
Having grown up in SA and having (like many others on the boards) played the game in my youth, I have been looking at the professional game and cant help wondering about some of the recent changes in the rules.
1. Scrumming rules... This crouch,hold.engage rule seems to be taking away the adventage from a side that is stronger in the forwards department. There is no real advantage to a side to have bigger stronger guys playing in the forwards. The trend seems to favour a side that will choose faster more mobile forwards.
2. The line out... In many of the recent recent matches (super 14 and 6 nations) where the opposing teams dont even bother to compete for the ball, (mostly I suspect because of a fear of giving away penalties.
These used to be two areas of the game that I looked forward to seeing the clash, and competition in. Sadly these rules do not allow this to happen.
The advantage of some of the rule changes is that the game is speeding up, the disadvantage is that there are many parts of the game that suffer because of the rules.
Whats your opinion??
1. Scrumming rules... This crouch,hold.engage rule seems to be taking away the adventage from a side that is stronger in the forwards department. There is no real advantage to a side to have bigger stronger guys playing in the forwards. The trend seems to favour a side that will choose faster more mobile forwards.
2. The line out... In many of the recent recent matches (super 14 and 6 nations) where the opposing teams dont even bother to compete for the ball, (mostly I suspect because of a fear of giving away penalties.
These used to be two areas of the game that I looked forward to seeing the clash, and competition in. Sadly these rules do not allow this to happen.
The advantage of some of the rule changes is that the game is speeding up, the disadvantage is that there are many parts of the game that suffer because of the rules.
Whats your opinion??
[color0blue]Dit was lekker by die see... Die Bodensee ( Lake Constance )[/color]