RUGBY MATTERS
Reducing penalty sanctions may resurrect old quick-tap
THERE’S been much talk recently about the demise of the dropped goal but what I want to know is whatever happened to those well-rehearsed tapped penalty drills of yesteryear? We used to spend hours and hours practicing intricate moves at school and college. Wall-balls, one pivot, two pivot, loop and dummy, cutback, American Football passes, kick passes to clusters of four huge forwards on one touchline. The defence had to fan out and cover it just in case – which left holes in the middle of the field. Sometimes the tapper, his back to the opposition, would kick the ball back over his head, other times he would drag it back for another back to grubber through for a cluster of four or five players on the hoof. Another time there was a move whereby the tapper would sprint laterally, place the ball on the ground while continuing to run on with the incoming attacker kicking through as the defence rushed up. I saw Les Cusworth and Leicester successfully pull off a similar move on a couple of occasions. England in the 70s used a variety of tapped penalty moves – often from 50-60 yards out – designed primarily to work Andy Ripley into space while wall-ball moves were big in the noughties. I remember Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe romping through the middle of a parting Sale wall to score a cracker in the Heineken Cup against Ospreys and Newport Gwent Dragons took Clermont by surprise one year down at the Stade Michelin.
Down in Australia there was the tuck it up your jumper trick when everybody scattered and the defenders had no idea who had the ball but, alas, that was soon stamped on by the authorities.
Two observations. First, the mania for the very quick tapped penalties from glory-seeking scrum-halves has helped kill off the wider skill of tapped penalties. Such darts work less and less, largely because defences are given too much leeway in encroaching within ten metres. I can’t remember the last time a side properly retreated ten. Just occasionally they get pinged, 90 per cent of the time they don’t.
Instead why not do it old school and slow things down a tad. Get organised briskly but don’t execute until the opposition are demonstrably back ten. Make sure the ref is on their case so not only are they back ten but on the backfoot slightly as he looks to ping them.
The other observation, and possibly the main reason for the tapped penalty’s demise, I will leave for Paul Turner, a great tapped penalty exponent himself, to explain: “The biggest problem of all is that in the modern game far too many full penalties are awarded for minor or technical offences, especially at scrum time and in the lineout. Foul play, and professional fouls, must always be full penalties, but I’m not sure other offences warrant it.
“The consequence of having so many full penalties is that teams now take the percentage option of going for touch where they will have the throw in and the opportunity of building pressure and/or forcing another penalty.
“Take that kicking for a lineout option away and I believe the tapped penalty could make a bit of a comeback. It’s a lost art, fans used to enjoy them, it was fun trying to invent something and great if they ever came off.”