How can World Rugby count rucks when we don’t have any!

THERE are of course lies, damned lies and statistics and with that in mind I must raise a quizzical eyebrow at one or two ‘numbers’ World Rugby released midweek to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Rugby being declared ‘open’ – ie professional – at the famous Paris summit on August 26, 1995.

The figure for ball in play seems a little high for 2020 but is probably broadly correct but the number quoted for rucks in 2020, a staggering 211 per game, is complete hogwash. We have not had a proper ruck in first class rugby for the best part of 15 years! They have, alas, been completely eradicated from the game. Rucks are the anti-Christ.

World Rugby seem to be confusing the endless robotic recycling, laying back of the ball and clearouts with the much more dynamic rucking that used to free up the game so well.

Then we come to scrums. Apparently we had 24 per game in 1995 and only 14 now. Now this is pure snakeoil. The 24 back in 1995 would take about 20 seconds per scrum to get away and resets were rarer than hens’ teeth. Today however 14 scrums probably means 40+ because every scrum requires at least one reset, most require two and a considerable number require three attempts before everybody is happy or a team get belatedly pinged.

And the average weight of the players involved? Apparently it was 100kg 25 years ago and 104kg now. My first instinct was to cry foul, the backs are surely much heftier today and that should be reflected in the overall figure, but actually this stat might be sound. Think of that England back five for example against New Zealand at RWC1995 – Bayfield, Johnson, Clarke, Rodber, Richards. That was a big hefty pack by any criteria!

Of course the stat World Rugby have omitted to include is the number of law changes since 1995.

Life is too short to embark on that chore, even in semi-lockdown, but I would suggest you might need all your fingers and all your toes to even come close.