Taking up the whistle Clerc’s ‘hollow’ record The gossiping classes North is neglected Unfair contest
I don’t understand why there aren’t more former good players refereeing. They are in the best position to follow the spirit of the laws and to understand players’ intentions. It’s also enjoyable.
As a player, you notice the difference when the referee is somebody that played at a high level. I completely agree with Alan Pearey in his comments regarding the growing trend of gifted tries ( TheRugbyRant, August 2018). He does, however, seem to defeat his own argument when he excuses Vincent Clerc’s gifted try on the grounds that it was his final game and the try took him to a Top 14 record.
I wonder if Clerc feels any reflected sense of achievement in holding the new record, or if Laurent Arbo feels a little cheated having had his record overtaken by a gifted try. It’s no secret that a lot of football fans are obsessed with transfer rumours and news that their club has ‘splashed the cash’ on the hottest thing to come out of South America since whoever. But rugby looks like it’s going that way too.
There’s now a band of ex-pros sharing water-cooler chat, which then gets eaten up by fans. I fear the game is hurtling towards madness over transfer fees for foreign imports, with major pressure on clubs to deliver massive signings every season while academies get neglected. One area regarding English rugby’s development that is seldom debated is the massive North-South divide.
With only two Premiership teams, two Championship teams and four in National League One being based in the North, we have a major part of England where youngsters can’t watch top-level games locally, which misses the potential of attracting new players to the sport.
While I appreciate that union is in direct competition with rugby league in much of this area, the northern-born players at our top clubs, such as Owen Farrell and George Ford, suggest the North of England is a prime area for the RFU to invest in and so tap into the potential that clearly exists. Just catching up on my reading but
I’m totally in favour of size banding ( Face-off , May 2018). My 11-year-old son plays against a team that have a boy the size of a 15-year-old and it’s pointless. They just feed the ball to him and three of our best tacklers can’t stop him. Neither side learns anything.