Planet Rugby Forum

Mahoney wrote:I hate how injury prone rugby is. Feels like it gets worse every year. The run up to the summer, with the European finals & the Premiership semis & final, seems almost guaranteed to break several people I was looking forward to watching play for England.

It ruins that sense of anticipating a team gradually evolving and improving when the single biggest factor seems to be neither form nor selection but random injury.

It feels like rugby's defeated itself; the logic of the game means that bigger, faster and more powerful is better, yet the human body can't cope with the resulting body size and collisions.

Gospel wrote:

Nieghorn wrote:

crash 669 wrote:https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/44209849

Monye blaming 4G pitch for the injury. Has there been any evidence that these pitches are actually worse for players than a normal pitch? Every time there's a serious injury like this it gets trotted out as a reason, but presumably there's enough matches that take place on them now that we should be able to get some data.

Is the full match up so we can see where / how the incident occurred?

Monye's statement about the pitch not moving was true of original astroturf, but I'm not so sure with today's artificial pitches. I guess it'd be more likely if you're wearing typical rugby studs, but the times I've been on that style of surface, I've been fine with low-profile, multi-stud football boots.

These 4G pitches have a crumb which is an artificial 'loose-dirt'. You can see it getting kicked up or stuck to player's skin on close up.

englishchief wrote:Player size is the main problem. Also the league-style glorification of the big 'hit'.

I don't think a maximum team weight would work, the only real solution would be to have a maximum of 3 replacements, I mean how rare is it that a team has 3 players properly injured in a game? Then it would be more like football in terms of game management.

fatcat wrote:Cool it, I don't think Dan Cole was batting for the other side.

Angry_Bull wrote:The Barbarians could have a really strong side out looking at the squad. If England pick a scratch side they could be on for a hiding. The backline is dynamite!

15. Chris Ashton
14. Semi Radrada
13. Malakai Fekitoa
12. Josh Matavesi
11. Josh Tuisova
10. Finn Russel
9. Greig Laidlaw
8. Victor Vito
7. Justin Tipuric
6. Ultan Dillane
5. Flip van der Merwe
4. Sitaleki Timani
3. Ramiro Herrera
2. Benjamin Kayser
1. John Afoa

Mahoney wrote:I hate how injury prone rugby is. Feels like it gets worse every year. The run up to the summer, with the European finals & the Premiership semis & final, seems almost guaranteed to break several people I was looking forward to watching play for England.

It ruins that sense of anticipating a team gradually evolving and improving when the single biggest factor seems to be neither form nor selection but random injury.

It feels like rugby's defeated itself; the logic of the game means that bigger, faster and more powerful is better, yet the human body can't cope with the resulting body size and collisions.

Nieghorn wrote:

crash 669 wrote:https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/44209849

Monye blaming 4G pitch for the injury. Has there been any evidence that these pitches are actually worse for players than a normal pitch? Every time there's a serious injury like this it gets trotted out as a reason, but presumably there's enough matches that take place on them now that we should be able to get some data.

Is the full match up so we can see where / how the incident occurred?

Monye's statement about the pitch not moving was true of original astroturf, but I'm not so sure with today's artificial pitches. I guess it'd be more likely if you're wearing typical rugby studs, but the times I've been on that style of surface, I've been fine with low-profile, multi-stud football boots.

Gospel wrote:

Mahoney wrote:I hate how injury prone rugby is. Feels like it gets worse every year. The run up to the summer, with the European finals & the Premiership semis & final, seems almost guaranteed to break several people I was looking forward to watching play for England.

It ruins that sense of anticipating a team gradually evolving and improving when the single biggest factor seems to be neither form nor selection but random injury.

It feels like rugby's defeated itself; the logic of the game means that bigger, faster and more powerful is better, yet the human body can't cope with the resulting body size and collisions.

It's incredibly frustrating but to some extent its always been at the heart of the game. Just avoiding injury to make it to the upper echelons of the sport is a feat in itself. Then when you get there the training is at such an intensity your body breaks all the more quickly.

eldanielfire wrote:

Gospel wrote:

Mahoney wrote:I hate how injury prone rugby is. Feels like it gets worse every year. The run up to the summer, with the European finals & the Premiership semis & final, seems almost guaranteed to break several people I was looking forward to watching play for England.

It ruins that sense of anticipating a team gradually evolving and improving when the single biggest factor seems to be neither form nor selection but random injury.

It feels like rugby's defeated itself; the logic of the game means that bigger, faster and more powerful is better, yet the human body can't cope with the resulting body size and collisions.

It's incredibly frustrating but to some extent its always been at the heart of the game. Just avoiding injury to make it to the upper echelons of the sport is a feat in itself. Then when you get there the training is at such an intensity your body breaks all the more quickly.

I believe that is largely due to stupid and missunderstood science. The fact is coaches go to improvement technique is "train harder". I posted a podcast a while back that pointed out under Joe Schmitt that super hard training sessions have disappeared. He has changed them to short but far more intense sessions, more breaks and when he's done the rugby stuff the fitness and conditioning coaches work individually with players, who will work with each players body. Now under his reign it seems to me that Ireland are as fit and physical as anybody but far less injured and absent. The seriousness of the IRFU in resting players post-Lions is telling to. The problem isn't the modern professional game, it's the fact the coaches and club bosses are tired to out of date science on fitness (more is better) and fantasy assumptions about players invincibility , hence why they are always rushed back.

fatcat wrote:

eldanielfire wrote:

Gospel wrote:

Mahoney wrote:I hate how injury prone rugby is. Feels like it gets worse every year. The run up to the summer, with the European finals & the Premiership semis & final, seems almost guaranteed to break several people I was looking forward to watching play for England.

It ruins that sense of anticipating a team gradually evolving and improving when the single biggest factor seems to be neither form nor selection but random injury.

It feels like rugby's defeated itself; the logic of the game means that bigger, faster and more powerful is better, yet the human body can't cope with the resulting body size and collisions.

It's incredibly frustrating but to some extent its always been at the heart of the game. Just avoiding injury to make it to the upper echelons of the sport is a feat in itself. Then when you get there the training is at such an intensity your body breaks all the more quickly.

I believe that is largely due to stupid and missunderstood science. The fact is coaches go to improvement technique is "train harder". I posted a podcast a while back that pointed out under Joe Schmitt that super hard training sessions have disappeared. He has changed them to short but far more intense sessions, more breaks and when he's done the rugby stuff the fitness and conditioning coaches work individually with players, who will work with each players body. Now under his reign it seems to me that Ireland are as fit and physical as anybody but far less injured and absent. The seriousness of the IRFU in resting players post-Lions is telling to. The problem isn't the modern professional game, it's the fact the coaches and club bosses are tired to out of date science on fitness (more is better) and fantasy assumptions about players invincibility , hence why they are always rushed back.

I've heard short, sharp sessions in club and international rugby have been the order of the day for some time now. Do you have any evidence that this is an Ireland only thing?

eldanielfire wrote:I believe that is largely due to stupid and missunderstood science. The fact is coaches go to improvement technique is "train harder". I posted a podcast a while back that pointed out under Joe Schmitt that super hard training sessions have disappeared. He has changed them to short but far more intense sessions, more breaks and when he's done the rugby stuff the fitness and conditioning coaches work individually with players, who will work with each players body. Now under his reign it seems to me that Ireland are as fit and physical as anybody but far less injured and absent. The seriousness of the IRFU in resting players post-Lions is telling to. The problem isn't the modern professional game, it's the fact the coaches and club bosses are tired to out of date science on fitness (more is better) and fantasy assumptions about players invincibility , hence why they are always rushed back.

He has changed them to short but far more intense sessions, more breaks and when he's done the rugby stuff the fitness and conditioning coaches work individually with players, who will work with each players body. Now under his reign it seems to me that Ireland are as fit and physical as anybody but far less injured and absent.

JM2K6 wrote:Yeah, big if tho. Was peeved that he went to SR and did so well - a big miss by the local scouts.

Which side are you on? The romantics will be rooting for Exeter in this weekend’s Premiership final. The club which built their way quite brilliantly to the top. On and off the field, Exeter are role models for the rest of England. A brilliant coaching set-up, a brilliant academy; if they are not your favourite team, chances are they are your second.

Saracens do not engender such affection. There has been the South African connection through the years, the drudgery of endless territorial kicking and the “wolf pack” — the nightmare contrast to the Exeter fairytale. Yet, I will, of course, be supporting Saracens, despite a respect that overflows into pools of affection for their opponents.

But there is another side to Exeter, extreme in its efficiency and brutal in its sheer boredom. It is their absolute worship of possession for its own sake. The tactic reached its apotheosis last Saturday when Newcastle Falcons were ground into the Devon dust. At half-time the statistics showed 93 per cent of possession for the home side.

Exeter keep the ball until the opposition commit an infringement — in which case they tend to kick for the corner and go for the old, and much detested outside Leicester, short-range catch and drive — or they eventually chisel an opening with the help of gifted footballers such as Henry Slade.

Admirable as Exeter are, at their best they are boring. Boring and the leading example of the English club evolution that plays a brand of no-risk rugby centred on the breakdown. Exeter, as I have written before, push the laws at the tackle. They frequently seal the ball-carrier off in attack with techniques that tiptoe into the illegal. Players are supposed to stay on their feet, which enables the other side to counterruck. Instead, Exeter players skim low over the tackler and use their arms and hands to protect their bodyweight. This is dubious to say the least. But watch the feet: the toes so often touching the ground. They have made an effort to “stay on their feet”.

Rob Baxter understands the zeitgeist of professional rugby in England. The referees are encouraged to keep it positive. Defensive teams “killing” the ball are penalised off the park while attackers escape because they are trying “to be positive”. The law of best intention has created a world where there is all too often no contest for the ball.

The defence spread out across the field like rugby league, the attack keeps the ball for as long as it can. There is no six-tackle rule here. Just endless recycled, uncontested tedium. Exeter are not so much the architects of this system as the arch exponents, the ones who best worked out how to play not only the opposition, but the referee.

Eddie Jones isn’t making excuses when he says the Premiership mitigates against the development of good open-sides. The Premiership is a league where teams have decided not to contest possession. The odds are stacked against the defences. The advantage bestowed on the team in possession is not benefiting the game, it is breaking it.

There is no blame attached to Exeter. I admire their ruthless exploitation of officialdom. It is smart rugby but outside England, where the breakdown is more strictly refereed, it leaves English teams in a hole of their own devising. Hence England’s breakdown problems in the last two years (does the ascendency of Exeter have anything to do with it, perhaps?) and English club rugby’s failure to make an impact in Europe.

The endless recycling allows the coaching team to create one of the most structured systems ever seen. Decision-making is left to a few players, the rest do what they do ad infinitum. Much is made of the fact Exeter can field so many different players, season to season, game to game, and yet still keep winning. It is an unspoken testimony to a coaching philosophy which puts structure before personnel.

But this structure can collapse if officials referee with more accuracy and ill-advised “empathy”.

Wayne Barnes, the referee, is the most important man on the field on Saturday, more important than Owen Farrell. Barnes refereed the Champions Cup final quite magnificently. Racing 92 had a defensive plan that saw them commit numbers into the collision. They were rewarded with a tactical victory. Leinster were slowed down to such an extent the foregone conclusion ended on a knife edge.

Barnes adjusted his decision-making to what was in front of him, not what was needed to create a glossy perception for the game. There was no advantage for the attacking team. His even handedness created the contest Exeter seek to avoid. Saracens, superbly coached and full of dynamism up front, have it in them to knock Exeter out of their stride as Racing did Leinster. Barnes has to live up to his billing as one of the world’s best referees, not play the Premiership role of promoting “positive” play.

The sport needs a contested breakdown, England need teams following any template but that of Exeter’s; it is incumbent upon Barnes to penalise Exeter for going over the ball in attack as much as Saracens slowing it down in defence. This is a game with more at stake than a Premiership title. England, in particular and the game in general, could do with a Saracens success.

Nieghorn wrote:Mike Brown on the wing! That'll kick some life into this staggering thread ...

Nieghorn wrote:Mike Brown on the wing! That'll kick some life into this staggering thread ...

TedIV wrote:Jones really has a hard-on for Mike Brown, doesn't he? He's slow for a 15 but as a left-winger?! Even big Lesley was quicker.

TopNacker wrote:

TedIV wrote:Jones really has a hard-on for Mike Brown, doesn't he? He's slow for a 15 but as a left-winger?! Even big Lesley was quicker.

Ditto Robshaw and Ford. Jones just cannot see beyond them, which is beyond most of us who watch rugby every week.

Raggs wrote:

TopNacker wrote:

TedIV wrote:Jones really has a hard-on for Mike Brown, doesn't he? He's slow for a 15 but as a left-winger?! Even big Lesley was quicker.

Ditto Robshaw and Ford. Jones just cannot see beyond them, which is beyond most of us who watch rugby every week.

Well, except for the fact that it's pretty obvious what Ford and Robshaw can bring. Even if one is being played out of a position, and the other is being handicapped with a 12 with a limited attacking game, and a pack failing to find the front foot.

englishchief wrote:Ford is the one that holds Farrell's hand, not the other way around.

TedIV wrote:

englishchief wrote:Ford is the one that holds Farrell's hand, not the other way around.

englishchief wrote:Although this does come from the biased view of an Exeter supporter, it is not their fault that the referees don't blow them up on it. Don't complain about Exeter, Barnes, complain about the inconsistency between the written laws of the game and what the referees actually interpret.

It is not the same as cheating in a way where the referee/TMO won't see it- it's in full view.

Scrumhead wrote:

TedIV wrote:

englishchief wrote:Ford is the one that holds Farrell's hand, not the other way around.

Laugh if you want, but englishchief is correct.

When Ford plays without Farrell, we’ve always looked good (certainly better in attack). When Farrell plays at 10, we don’t. Simple as.