Article about Rugby fans' attitudes to football

[McTallshort]

Ha! How are we jealous

 

[goodNumber10]

Ha! How are we jealous

It's money, it's profile.

I don't think it's that simple, but I wonder how many people are turned off rugby by that perception we're stuck up, stiff, self righteous red trouser wearing sanctimonious hypocrites?

 

[McTallshort]

Mate I think you don't like yourself very much. As for people being put off by us frankly I couldn't care less

 

[goodNumber10]

Mate I think you don't like yourself very much.

That's quite an assumption to make based on the fact i think the holier than though stuff is misplaced.

 

[McTallshort]

Why do you care what people think of rugby?

 

[goodNumber10]

AFAIR, I haven't said i do.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

I despise everything to do with football.

Load of old sh**e.

 

[ZeroTwo]

I care about what people think about rugby.

The more accessible the game, the more top quality players there will be! Got to learn from mistakes made in other sports, as well as mistakes being made now.

 

[Feicarsinn]

I despise everything to do with football.

Load of old sh**e.

You despise well run European club competitions, having more than a couple of competent referees, enough quality international sides to make world cups interesting and to have an international calendar with a bit of variety? Better coverage and analysis? Far more emphasis on skill than on size? A game far more prone to upsets and giant killings? Far fewer ambiguous rules?

You can dislike the game if you want, but you're mad if you think that there isn't a lot that football does better than rugby. I love football. Obviously there are massive flaws in administration and the theatrics that have crept into the game in the last 15 years are very sad, and the sport itself isn't to everyone's taste, but there are a lot of things that exist in football that I would absolutely love to have in rugby.

 

[Peat]

I despise everything to do with football.

Load of old sh**e.

You despise well run European club competitions, having more than a couple of competent referees, enough quality international sides to make world cups interesting and to have an international calendar with a bit of variety? Better coverage and analysis? Far more emphasis on skill than on size? A game far more prone to upsets and giant killings? Far fewer ambiguous rules?

You can dislike the game if you want, but you're mad if you think that there isn't a lot that football does better than rugby. I love football. Obviously there are massive flaws in administration and the theatrics that have crept into the game in the last 15 years are very sad, and the sport itself isn't to everyone's taste, but there are a lot of things that exist in football that I would absolutely love to have in rugby.

I'm awaiting Olyy's reply here eagerly, it better be good to avoid a crushing victory for Feic.

Feic's got a point for my money. Football's superior mass and longer professional history gives it a huge advantage in certain areas, areas in which rugby union still looks very amateur. I don't really care too strongly about the limited pool (football's freakish in that respect tbh) but the stronger rules and quality of ref, I'd kill for, the administration of the game's laws is killing it for me. Rugby really needs to sort it's act out there.

One thing where I do disagree is better coverage and analysis. There might be more football in the papers, but there's more football than rugby, so games aren't vastly better coveraged; you can see just about every pro game every weekend (if you have no life) and while the analysis mightn't be that much, the same's true of football tbh. Throw in the internet, throw it blogs and forums and guys like Murray Kinsella, and you have all the rugby coverage you can want. I suppose they are one up in that it's easier to find the football, which means it'll pick up more fans, but there's sufficient rugby to work with.

I don't really want rugby to be as big as football to be honest - in fact, I don't really want football to be as big as football. But there's no denying that size comes with some good shizzle beyond more money in pockets.


Anyway, is there any point in reading the original article, or is it just clickbait covering the same old points we've seen before?

 

[goodNumber10]

don't think it's click bait, was published in the main magazine last month, it's just their monthly opinion piece/rugby rant.

It's reasonably sound, and a bit tongue in cheek.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

You despise well run European club competitions, having more than a couple of competent referees, enough quality international sides to make world cups interesting and to have an international calendar with a bit of variety? Better coverage and analysis? Far more emphasis on skill than on size? A game far more prone to upsets and giant killings? Far fewer ambiguous rules?

 

[smartcooky]

I personally don't "get" football. All I see is a bunch of guys kicking the ball around until one of them manages to lose it, and then occasionally, a goal might get scored through some flash of individual skill. I would find not being allowed to pick up the ball immensely frustrating, so I could probably only ever be a goal-keeper. However, that is my own issue, and it does not mean that others cannot enjoy what they see in or get out of the game.

I also don't give a shıt about some of the stuff being complained about in the article. So their players are well/over paid... well so what? Its their game, they can pay their players whatever they like. Likewise, if their hierarchy is corrupt (yes, I'm looking at you Mr Blatter) that is for their sport to deal with, or the authorises, as it seem is happening now.

No, there are only some aspects of football infecting the ethos of Rugby that concern me.

Diving & feigning of injuries.
Stuff like that act of cowardice by Huget last year must to be stood on hard. There needs to be an addition to Law 10.2 Unfair Play to make it clear that simulation and feigning of injury is not tolerated, and an entry in Regulation 17 Appendix 1 that gives a Low End entry point of at least 12 weeks to severely punish transgressors and to send a clear deterrent message to others.

I completely agree with this paragraph from the article

[TEXTAREA]"On that note, please stop applauding rugby players who slam each other in the face with punches, then make up after. If you're going to lambast footballers for diving, then cheer for a punch-up, your moral compass is spinning away from you."[/TEXTAREA]

Neither diving nor punching have any place in rugby.

Total lack of respect for Match Officials.
Every week we see in football, instances of players surrounding the referee, screaming abuse at them and sometimes pushing and jostling them. I do not want to see this sort of carry on ever coming into our game:

Even worse is the lack of effective support for abused referees from the football hierarchy. Two seasons ago, Wayne Barnes sent off a player for calling him a "fvcking cheat". If a football referee had done that, he probably would not have been refereeing again at that level for some time. Football bosses don't care about the abuse of the referee, perhaps they think its ok and all adds to the drama, but they still want players who take off their shirt in celebration yellow carded. Work that one out!!

Soccer Hooligans.
We don't want them in our game or our stadiums or our public streets, ever!! Period!!
.
.
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[Hulk Hogan]

I personally don't "get" football. All I see is a bunch of guys kicking the ball around until one of them manages to lose it, and then occasionally, a goal might get scored through some flash of individual skill. I would find not being allowed to pick up the ball immensely frustrating, so I could probably only ever be a goal-keeper. However, that is my own issue, and it does not mean that others cannot enjoy what they see in or get out of the game.
.

The first time we have seen eye to eye hahahahaha

 

[Every Time Ref]

Anyone remember that Holland-Portugal game in the World Cup a few years ago when there were like 5 red cards or something? The poor referee was lambasted in the press afterwards for "losing control of the game", as if he was somehow responsible for the appalling behaviour of the players. People committed offences, so he dished out cards, like it says in the rulebook. What was he supposed to do, not send someone off for a headbutt in order to "keep control of the game"? I'm sure that would have worked. And I don't recall him getting any public support from FIFA either, unsurprisingly.

That was a watershed moment for me in the process of giving up on football, because it showed how a lot of fans don't even expect the slightest sense of responsibility or maturity from footballers. To the extent that if 22 of them get distracted from the task of winning a crucial knockout game and instead spend 90 minutes trying to injure each other, it's somehow not even their fault.

 

[TRF_heineken]

I don't see the point in making this an argument/debate

I love both Rugby and Football(soccer).

Both have its place in the world. Both have good and bad things.

I hate diving, bad calls, and foul play, and they present in both.

People who say bad things about one and praises the other can do so, they have the freedom of speech to do that. We have no right in saying otherwise. Hooliganism is different thing and is attached to violence. I have seen hooliganism at both rugby and football events. It's not something that happens just in one sport.

The Zinedine Zedane incident in the world cup in 2002 was something that left a sour taste in my mouth (especially because I was cheering the french team on), but then incidents like Bryce Lawrence refereeing in the 2011 RWC quarter final left and equally sour taste in my mouth.

It happens, and life goes on.

 

[goodNumber10]

I think the "football hooligans" thing is a bit of a red herring.

In as much as it's not about football, it's just about violence, in the same way you get street gangs in Mexico and the West Coast or New York, hell even the Maori gangs street gangs in New Zealand etc... it's just attached itself to Football because it's the biggest sport, if rugby was that big it'd have had the exact same problems - because to these guys the sport is irrelevant it's just about the violence.

Regardless FIFA and co certainly took steps to eradicate it and it hasn't been as prominent in football since the lates 80's/90's..

And Rugby is not exempt from crowd trouble, the big brawl at Newlands a few years ago, the fans in New Zealand spitting on people and throwing bottles... hell the guy at bath last week screaming at tigers players in the tunnel.

Just to be clear it has no place in any sport, but as someone who grew up in a school that was considered affiliated to the ICF I can speak from experience that these guys didn't care about football, they just came and recruited guys who liked to fight. It's tribal and that is reflection of the people not the sport..