Rugby should return to old-fashioned rucks

RECENT “controversial” decisions resulting from incidents at rugby’s tackle area have provoked much discussion. There are clear and obvious difficulties with the contest for the ball at the breakdown. The complexity of rucking laws coupled with concern over possible incidences of concussion resulting from contact with the head at this area are confusing for referees, players and spectators.

There is an obvious answer to all of this which would not only simplify the laws for all but which would radically speed up play and prevent the endless Eton wall game scrabble on the goal line, criticised to by a recent writer to this column. It is something that often arises in discussion between old forwards and is almost universally seen by them as the answer to many of the problems that now affect the contest for the ball after a tackle. That is, the return of proper rucking.

Nigel Owens is one of a number of referees who are now saying that rugby should be played by people on their feet. Some of the positions that players now get themselves into at “rucks”, whether jackalers or players seeking to protect their possession, strike me as potentially dangerous, hence the reaction of referees with the recent red card incidents. Being at the bottom of an old-fashioned ruck was far less dangerous. With all the cameras and officials present at matches nowadays it would be impossible for players to get away with the gratuitous stamping rather than correct rucking that sometimes happened in the past.

The game – and old-fashioned attitudes – have now moved on and I don’t think you would see a return to that kind of thing at grassroots level either. I watch a lot of grassroots rugby and have had a long involvement in local club rugby. I would say that the game generally is now much faster and more skillful at all levels than when I played and there is not the same level of relentless physical confrontation as used to be the case.

The laws regarding the tackle area in the old days were simple and easily understood by all. The tackled player must release the ball, the tackler must not interfere with the ball, players from both sides should stay on their feet and step over the ball to try and gain possession. In effect this was a “loose scrum”, as some of the old commentators used to say, and resulted in a fair contest for the ball unlike the present pile-up situation. More players were committed to the ruck and possession was often quicker with less defenders to beat when the ball emerged.

Another advantage was – and would be – that it would prevent players from lying around on the wrong side of the ruck, which has been the bane of the game over the last 20 years or so. The way in which, for example, the Leicester players of the Dean Richards era or their Munster equivalents continually lay around offside on the wrong side of the ball have no doubt driven many a saintly rugby fan to swear.

I have a vivid recollection of talking to a coach from New Zealand a few years ago who was originally from Wales. Over the protestations of his wife who said, “Don’t start him on that again”, his last words to us were, “Bring back proper rucking!” Amen to that.

Ian Seaton Mumbles