Has the Game soften by the years

[Bryan Habanna]

hello guys, Don't you think that the game of rugby has softened by the years with examples of the new scrum engagement rule and for High tackles/dangerous tackles the referee with let go instead of giving out red or yellow card because now there giving less cards and the discipline of the game is disappearing by the days

 

[Big Ewis]

I don't know if the game has softenED, but I sure hope no welshman comes across your thread. That picture alone is 4 years of high anticipation wasted !...painful stuff.

 

[dasNdanger]

Lemme see...this past weekend I saw a leg get snapped, a lot of bloodied faces, a shoulder injury, a concussion or three, a big bloke dropped hard by his lifters, and a shirt totally ripped off, and I'm just halfway through all the matches I still have to watch.

I'd say...no, it's not been softened by the years.

Here's a few things to mull over:

The ACC forked out nearly $64 million for rugby injuries in the past year - with almost 70,000 active claims for players at all levels.Figures released to the Herald show Accident Compensation received 59,124 new claims for injuries in its 2012/13 financial year and handled 68,437 active claims overall. The cost reached $63.94 million, the highest in at least five years.
As treatment costs have increased, several high-profile, on-field incidents have also highlighted the risks associated with the national game.
Last month, a senior club rugby player died in Auckland after he collapsed at the conclusion of a match, and two weeks ago, a 17-year-old player was placed in an induced coma after his head hit the ground during a 1st XV game in Dunedin.
Despite the treatment numbers, both ACC and rugby officials say they are making "good inroads" to reduce serious incidents - including spinal injuries.
This is especially so in light of the increase in player numbers to more than 150,000.
The All Blacks-Wallabies test in Sydney on Saturday was the first match played under a new rule to reduce risk to players in a scrum. They are now required to bind arms before engaging in the scrum - lessening the impact and increasing balance to reduce scrum collapses.
The International Rugby Board (IRB), which sets the rules of the game, said player safety drove the change. The new law is also being used in the provincial ITM Cup and will be rolled out into club rugby next season.
"Tests have demonstrated that the crouch, bind, set engagement sequence has the ability to reduce forces on engagement by 25 per cent," said Dominic Rumbles of the IRB.
The rule will also be monitored by ACC, which will collate claims data to report scrum-related injury trends since its introduction, said ACC spokesman Glenn Donovan.
He said ACC analysis showed that 46 claims per 100,000 lodged by
Revealed: The $64 million a year rugby injuries cost ACC
rugby forwards were for neck, back and spine injuries between 2007 and 2012 - the period coinciding with the previous "crouch, pause, touch" scrum law.
RugbySmart, a joint campaign between ACC and the New Zealand Rugby Union, was introduced in 2001 and had reduced the number of serious spinal injuries from more than 10 a year to fewer than three, said NZRU spokesman Mike Jaspers.
The RugbySmart initiative focused on tackles and scrum, ruck and maul techniques, physical conditioning specific to the demands of rugby, encouraging the use of mouthguards and the appropriate treatment and management of injuries.
It was compulsory for all coaches to attend RugbySmart workshops, which taught them how to ensure players were physically and technically prepared for the game.
In July, Takapuna player Willie Halaifonua, a father of two, clashed heads with another player towards the end of a match.
He collapsed a short while later and was placed in an induced coma with a brain bleed. He died in hospital three days later.
On August 3, Dunedin schoolboy Matthew Martin, 17, was critically injured and placed in an induced coma after hitting his head on the ground when tackled during a 1st XV match.
On Sunday, a 12-year-old was flown to Palmerston North Hospital with neck injuries after a tackle during a game in Dannevirke. He was discharged the same day.
- Morgan Tait of the New Zealand Herald

APNZ

http://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/269506/rugby-injuries-cost-nz-64-million

And:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/ru...ng-number-head-injuries-suffered-players.html

So, no, I say it hasn't softened. While on the surface it may seem a bit softer, it seems more due to cracking down on foul play (like eye gouges), and not so much due to the overall way the game's being played. Have they tried to make the game safer? Yes, but as the above articles show, it certainly hasn't turned it into powderpuff rugby.


das

 

[RyotoTheDragon]

Yes, in the sense that the refs are penalising solid aggressive tackles. It also seems nowadays as though you cant pick a player up and dump him on his back (not head), what the hell? That use to be looked at as a dominant tackle? Now its worthy of a straight yellow.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Not in the slightest.
Every year players get bigger stronger and faster. It's a much more physical game than it used to be.

 

[William18]

Yes, in the sense that the refs are penalising solid aggressive tackles. It also seems nowadays as though you cant pick a player up and dump him on his back (not head), what the hell? That use to be looked at as a dominant tackle? Now its worthy of a straight yellow.

No. It's not a penalty unless you take him below the horizontal.

 

[Patchey]

Not in the slightest.
Every year players get bigger stronger and faster. It's a much more physical game than it used to be.

This. While the laws and refs would have allowed higher tackles, spear tackles and the like back in say the 1970s today the size and strength of players wants they have to be stricter. That is a very different thing from the game going 'soft'.

 

[gaston le gaff]

You only have to go into the changing rooms after the game and see what state the players are in, nobody would ever suggest it is getting softer if they see what i am privelged to see.
In the old days 70/80's most players were in the bar before the stadium had emptied, and did not leave till many hours later. The Front row made tram lines down the pitch inbetween the 15mts lines, only at line outs did the forwards ever find the touch line!!!!!!!! No today rugby is much harder but also safer, but unfortunately you still do get the nastiest of injuries + today what they call contact injuries are much more in evidence than they used to be.

 

[Big Ewis]

it's safer, that's right. I remember reading about freak accidents back in the day, like some 70's Tour where some All-Black gets his scrotum opened up by some guy's shoe in the rucks....
With the pro era now, cameras and refs everywhere and the discipline they instill into the players, you wouldn't ever see smt like that happen.

 

[nickdnz]

it's safer, that's right. I remember reading about freak accidents back in the day, like some 70's Tour where some All-Black gets his scrotum opened up by some guy's shoe in the rucks....
With the pro era now, cameras and refs everywhere and the discipline they instill into the players, you wouldn't ever see smt like that happen.

It was his match against France in 1986. He had his scrotum torn but asked for it to be sewn up and continued until he lost some death and got a concussion.

He's famous in New Zealand as one of the hardest players.

 

[psychic duck]

It was his match against France in 1986. He had his scrotum torn but asked for it to be sewn up and continued until he lost some death and got a concussion.

He's famous in New Zealand as one of the hardest players.

Buck was tough, but that incident is a myth.

 

[TRF_stormer2010]

It was his match against France in 1986. He had his scrotum torn but asked for it to be sewn up and continued until he lost some death and got a concussion.

He's famous in New Zealand as one of the hardest players.

What am I reading? Is he now immortal or something?

 

[Big Ewis]

It was his match against France in 1986. He had his scrotum torn but asked for it to be sewn up and continued until he lost some death and got a concussion.

He's famous in New Zealand as one of the hardest players.

right. That's it.

Buck was tough, but that incident is a myth.

Actually it's possible in the setting of Rugby. In a ruck if you're not careful, bending over your whole package/anus area are exposed, and a boot in there with studs...big kick...with those thin shorts...well I dunno, just saying it's likely to be true.

 

[psychic duck]

Actually it's possible in the setting of Rugby. In a ruck if you're not careful, bending over your whole package/anus area are exposed, and a boot in there with studs...big kick...with those thin shorts...well I dunno, just saying it's likely to be true.

So because it's possible it's therefore true? I hope you don't consider a career as a judge. It was just a kick in the nuts which has been exaggerated over the years.

 

[lynam1104]

It's more fun to think that his sack was ripped open though. Even if the Buck one is a myth i'm pretty sure it actually happen in a super league game last year.

 

[TRF_stormer2010]

The only scrotum being ripped open I know of in rugby is a fan jumping a fence at Newlands a number of years back; I was still in school and was there and it was not a pretty sight.

 

[dasNdanger]

It's more fun to think that his sack was ripped open though. Even if the Buck one is a myth i'm pretty sure it actually happen in a super league game last year.

Ruptured testicle happened during the Grand Final and even made news here in the States:

Now that takes balls!

In a courageous display for the ages, British rugby league player Paul Wood suffered a ruptured testicle in a match Saturday in Manchester ... and kept playing.

Paul Wood, 30, who plays for the Warrington Wolves, took a knee to the groin early in the second half of the rugby league Grand Final as he was tackled by Kallum Watkins of the Leeds Rhinos. The force of the blow ruptured his right testicle, but the Warrington prop continued to play on for more than 20 minutes, the Daily Mail reported.

"I've been hit a few times in the groin area and normally you can run it off," the married father of two told the newspaper on Monday, "but this just got worse."

How bad? The size of a tennis ball, bad.

"The physios kept asking me if I wanted to go off but I said, 'No I'm fine, I'll get through it.' I came off after 25 minutes and that's when it started getting really bad. It swelled up to the size of a tennis ball."

Wood told the Daily Mail that winning the Grand Final was his primary focus.

"I wanted us to have a chance of winning," he said.

Unfortunately, Wood's heroics went for naught as Warrington lost 26-18.

The ruptured testicle was removed during emergency surgery Saturday at Hope Hospital in Salford, but the doctors left his sense of humor untouched.

"Just coming out the hospital to go home ... Seriously feel like I've left something?" Wood tweeted.

"Tony Smith (Warrington coach) did say in his pre-match team talk last night 'your balls are on the line here guys!' I didn't think he meant literally."

Wood says he plans on wearing a protective cup the next time he steps on the field.

"I'll definitely be protecting my other one now," he told the Daily Mail. "I've never worn a cup before, so it's just whether I can find one that's comfortable to play in."

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/m...ticle-playing-article-1.1178377#ixzz2f47LhHI9

Not sure if that was courage, or pure stupidity.

das

 

[Big Ewis]

So because it's possible it's therefore true? I hope you don't consider a career as a judge. It was just a kick in the nuts which has been exaggerated over the years.

well no, I'm just saying if it went down as that (tear of scrotum) there were people there, it's a test match, with a crowd, a ref, players etc....and it's just 1986 it's not like it was in 1850 where absolutely nothing in sports was verifiable or worthy of credibility now.
I'm just going with the flow and will believe that story because it's a) totally possible physically, b) the above comment.

And no, thank God, I won't be considering that career.

 

[gaston le gaff]

You are talking about nasty injuries in todays MIDI OLYMPIQUE 16th Sept page 34 AND I QUOTE.....
an Australian rugby leagur player Anthony Watts 27 playing for Tugun Seahawks was tackled just short of the try line not much to his liking as he was held down at the same time so he decided revenge was the best course of action, he bit the sex of opposing player name not mentioned who played for Bilambi Jets, probably not his finest hour and the poor Player not the best blow job he ever received.
The outcome was Video, commision discipline, the player pleaded guilty and got (5 weekends giving blow jobs up the Cross in Sydney, no only joking) he actually got suspended for the next 8 games in the Gold Coast Championship, apparently he had previously been in trouble for beating up his former girlfriend sounds like a really nice chappie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[big ginger 8]

Leo Cullen had his scrotum ripped open by George North a few seasons ago against the Scarlets. (Not North's fault btw but Cullen's tackling technique.)

Many of the collisions nowadays have the same force as a small car crash definitely not softened.