But there has been a universal meeting of minds that rugby has to change or it will die and that this year’s Super Rugby Pacific is being viewed as the blueprint the global game must adopt.
World Rugby has announced it is ready to introduce a whole range of law amendments designed to make the game flow better, and for the ball to get back into play quicker.
It says it will look to lessen the time teams can hold the ball at the back of a ruck without doing anything; that it will extend the remit of the shot clock to new areas; it will remove the ability to repeatedly opt for scrums; look at ways to give halfbacks more time and space and enforce – which Super Rugby already has – more sensible laws around the offside line as it relates to kicks.
These are all relatively simple changes to make yet they will have a huge impact in helping teams create space and generate aerobic contests that see the ball not only stay in play for longer but for those extended passages to be of a higher entertainment value.
There’s a school of thought that says increasing ball-in-time with dynamic content and reducing the ability of teams to manufacture prolonged breaks in play through scrummage resets and glacially-paced recycling to set up for a box kick will organically serve as a cure to some of the game’s other ills.
There will be a multiplier effect as a faster, more dynamic game may reduce the volume and nature of breakdown collisions, discourage teams from playing kick tennis and naturally lower tackling heights as attackers exploit space and produce more offloads and periods of continuity.
There may be some concern that adopting these changes will prevent rugby from being the broad church it currently is in terms of strategic approach, but it is hard to believe that a more dynamic, fluid game will lessen the importance of having a strong scrum, developing power athletes and being in possession of astute kicking ploys.
These recommendations are designed to weigh the probability in favour of producing more contests like the two World Cup quarter-finals between Ireland and New Zealand and France and South Africa, and less like the semifinal between the Springboks and England.
And really, rugby bosses around the world have been given no choice but to accept that they are in the entertainment business and their sport doesn’t currently effectively compete with other codes.
National unions are staring at ever-increasing holes in their accounts which are telling them, in the most painful way, that fans want a cleaner, faster game to watch.
It’s a shame it has taken for so many unions to feel such deep financial pain for these changes to be agreed but given rugby’s mad history of blithely ignoring the people who matter the most, this is definitely a case of better late than never.
It’s also a little bit of a relief to learn those running the game have realised that if they want to dig themselves out of the financial holes they are in, they have to look at the core product offering rather than fuss and fret around the edges.
It’s been apparent for some time, but illustrated most starkly by last year’s World Cup, that the laws are not fit for purpose and there is too much about rugby that doesn’t make sense, lacks consistency and encourages strategies that while effective, are impossible for casual followers to understand or enjoy.
Yet as obvious as that was, there has been a lot of discussion about whether players should have their names on the back of their jerseys and what sort of music should be played while there is a break in play, as if these are the issues hurting the sport.
Thankfully the message has got through that if rugby wants to win in the entertainment war, it needs the action on the field to be the best selling point.
Gregor Paul is one of New Zealand’s most respected rugby writers and columnists. He has won multiple awards for journalism and has written several books about sport.
