I’ve found myself pondering more and more about the amount of injuries during this year’s RWC. Is it just my imagination or are there more injuries this year than previous times?

In run-up to this year’s RWC we had constant injuries to Springbok and All Black players to the extent that everyone was starting to label it as ‘resting’ or ‘cotton wool’ procedures.

South Africa have players like Bekker, Vermeulen, Potgieter, Juan Smit (to name but the few I can now remember) who was not even considered for the RWC squad due to injury.

At the moment Matfield, Bakkies Botha, Jean de Villiers, Johan Muller, Flip van der Merwe, and Habana are all injured. In the All Black camp McCaw, Carter, Dagg and Mills Muliaina are all injured and can’t play on the weekend. 

Other than that we’ve got Andrew Sherridan and David Skrela on their way home due to injury.

Something is wrong. One can argue it is due to the intensity of the games which is probably partially correct but a bit of a flippant answer to a deeper laying problem.

My personal view is that this increase in injuries is a direct result of the new rule interpretation of the breakdowns which is ironic as the original reason why the tapering with the breakdown rules started was to reduce injuries.

The new breakdown rule interpretation has changed the game into trench warfare and a one dimensional phase recycle snore. It is virtually impossible to wrestle the ball from the opposition with the new rules and the result is that teams can control the match by keeping possession and just bashing the ball up in channels 1 and 2.

This culminates in flat defensive lines with muscle bound 100 kg gym-monkey’s bashing it up against each other for 80 minutes.

By now it should be obvious that I am not a fan of modern rugby. Only a few teams really succeed to play effectively with the new rules namely the All Blacks and Australia the rest is playing a hybrid-wrestling-rugby-league-atrocity that is neither attractive nor save for the participants.

I believe that analysis of injury prevalence in the major rugby playing countries (Wales, England, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, France) since June 2010 (when New Zealand introduced their new expansive game based on careful consideration how to play with the new rules) will reveal a signficant increase in injuries as compared to previous pre-RWC months/years.

No sport can survive once the rules reduce your ability to compete. We notice entire matches go by with less than 10 scrums and lineouts but hundreds of rucks. The rules don’t allow you to compete at the ruck so teams now stay away from the area were the opposition have a fair chance to compete like the scrum and lineout.

It is time for serious consideration of what is busy happening. The new breakdown rule interpretations are in my mind not moving the game forward. And don’t get me wrong I am not a fan of the high kick and charge game but the breakdowns need to be adjudicated in a manner which makes it a fair contest.

At the moment it is not a fair contest as the rules favours the team carrying the ball too much which is altering the game into a chest mashing trench bash-up. Yes it is exciting to see the minnows staying in contact with the Majors but that is the case only because the majors are trying to play rugby which see them trying their arms and making mistakes while the minnows (helped by the rules to hang onto the ball) play it safe and do nothing with the ball apart from hanging onto it.

Bring back the rule whereby the team going forward gets the feed to the scrum if the ball cannot be released from the ruck/maul/pile up/muck. One implication of that will be that if the defending team can wrap the ‘channel-charger’ up and drive forward they can get the ball. It will also stop the ground pile-ups and it will commit more forwards too the rucks and open up space in the backline. It will also get rid of the forwards standing in the backline.

Essentially it will ensure that a team can confidently retain the ball in hand, rather than kicking for the sake of it, because they know it is a matter of their own skill, application, technique, and effort to retain possession. Currently it is a lottery – with an arbitrary emphasis that changes each year on favouring either the attacking or defending team. Go back to the first principles of rugby that distinguish it from league: There should be a continual contest for possession, and that contest must be even. Rugby is such a complex integrated game, one change in the front row can drastically affect how much room a winger has to move. Law of unitended consequences is proved over and over and over again in rugby.

This proposed change/reinstitution of the status quo from before 1992 will also put an emphasis back on mauling, which is badly needed to ensure balance and variety in a team’s attacking repertoire. Currently, if you are tackled with the ball off the ground, and are unable to release, you lose the scrum feed, whereas if you get it to ground, you get the feed. Stupid rule was made to discourage mauling, whereas both rucking and mauling, done well, and with suitable variety, are equally valid, worthwhile, and entertaining methods to initiate starter moves, and general attack. Also calls on a greater variety of defensive skills.

That why we saw Welsh forwards diving to the ground before even making contact with the defender. They were literally diving to the boots of the incoming springbok defenders making it totally impossible to compete for the ball.

I did not enjoy the Wales SA match for exactly this reason. It is not fun watching a one side afair with the attacking team doing very little with ball.

All credit to Wales for playing the rules and doing it well but I won’t be watching rugby anymore if that is how the game is going to be played.