John Roughan: A flashback to great game of rugby

It seems a lifetime but it was only three years ago that rugby was worth watching.

Last weekend gave glimpses of a recent past when the ball was freed to backlines that ran and beat defenders with miss-out passes and looping links to wingers of the old Rokocoko class.

Remember the joy of Super 14? I have a vivid memory of sitting high in the north stand one night watching the Blues launch sweeping attacks across the field like long ocean waves. Wave after wave.

The reason I retain that memory is that it occurred to me that night how how normal this had become.

It was only three years ago.

Back then, we would hardly have remarked on the All Blacks' excellence against France last Sunday.

Their handling was almost as accurate as it routinely used to be.

Back then, we became so accustomed to the fast, open game that, unbelievably, the press box decided this was not how rugby was meant to be.

In unison, the game's analysts began to wistfully recall the dour struggles of old, invoking great names of amateur days who they imagined would by tossing in graves at all this risky passing and frothy running.

I used to wonder whether the sportswriters were serious or merely suffering a peculiar disease of this industry called desperate critical need. The latter it seems, for they have had enough of the stodge now.

They would have had a worrying week or two watching this northern tour, when it seemed Graham Henry had been taking them seriously.

At the end of a miserable season by his standards, when the All Blacks emphatically answered the question, "Where would we be without Carter and McCaw?", Henry seemed to settle for beating Wales and England at their own game. "Kick and scrum-collapse", as someone called it.

Then, sweet surprise: at Marseilles both teams were prepared to play. If Henry's commitment to running rugby needed revitalisation I hope that game was enough.

The bumbling season is finished; tomorrow's finale with the Barbarians aims to express the finest form of the game but it doesn't really count.

An interesting letter in the Herald after the England game made the desperate suggestion that we might rescue rugby by challenging an internationally selected Barbarians team to an end-of-season match at Twickenham every year under the good old rules.

"Rucking will be allowed," wrote Christopher Dunn, "Scrums can collide as soon as they are ready and props are penalised only if they fail to grip ..." I see what he means. Rucking pulls in forwards and leaves backs with room to run.

With rucking restored, tackled ball might not be released as quickly as it is from today's rules that allow players to scrabble for it with their hands. But the finer print of those rules - come in from the back, stay on your feet - produces a penalty as often as not.

Rugby is being ruined by penalties. I don't know how long I'm going to go on watching a sport in which the flow is constantly broken, and games quite possibly decided, by trivial infractions that I cannot see.

So help me, I don't care if scrums collapse. I don't see that it matters if players join a maul from the side. Let them ruck over a tackle and send them off only for truly dangerous acts such as head-raking and eye gouging. Actually, get them permanently out of the game for deliberate eye gouging.

I've been watching rugby since childhood and right now I couldn't imagine not watching it, but a few years ago I'd have said the same thing about cricket, a game I liked more.

Yet cricket has lost me - not for any reason that I can pinpoint.

It probably had something to do with the fact that matches and series didn't matter any more. There were so many, they lost meaning. Rugby in the same predicament.

Greater minds than mine have been trying to conceive new competitions that can sustain interest. It can't be too hard; European soccer, American football, basketball and baseball, Australian rules and league all run the same competition year in year out and keep their audiences enthused.

Right now the only contest that really matters to rugby fans unfortunately occurs only one year in four. So it matters far too much.

It is a knock-out tournament and if the game's leading exponents have an off-day, its benchmark drops for the duration of a World Cup cycle.

The day will come, I fear, that I will turn off the force-back kicking, scrum collapses, defensive screens, the chaos of breakdowns and the whole mysterious penalty lottery, forever.

I don't know how near that day might be but I know I'm not alone.

Graham Henry's stubborn commitment to the game he gave us three years ago is our greatest hope.