Referees will be keeping a close eye on what happens in the tackle in Super Rugby Aotearoa. Photo / Dean Purcell
Referees will be keeping a close eye on what happens in the tackle in Super Rugby Aotearoa. Photo / Dean Purcell
COMMENT:
We all, wrongly, got sucked into thinking that the biggest challenge with Super Rugby post-lockdown would be getting used to the domesticated nature of the new competition.
Not that anyone thought it would be much of a challenge. We knew we would love New Zealand sides playing New Zealandsides.
The retro vibe would kindle a lot of memories; appease a lot of us older sorts who have been saying for years that the game needs to reconnect with the old-school values that drew us to it in the first place.
Afternoon kick-offs, tribal rivalries, kids on the field after the game – it's what we have been asking for and 10 weeks of this will be magic.
But the challenge isn't going to be the format or getting used to having rugby in our lives again.
That much has become obvious after a weekend which showed Super Rugby is being shaped not by closed borders, but by the officials who have presumably had it impressed upon them the need to enforce the laws of the game.
There's no shortage of people will tell you that the law is an ass when it comes to rugby. That there are too many rules, and too few that make sense.
But those who subscribe to that point of view tend to forget, or fail to realise, that typically when rugby fails to deliver the sort of flow and space everyone is after, it's rarely the fault of the law book.
It's almost always the fault of the officials who, in the last few years especially, pretty much gave up with keeping a tight handle on the fundamentals such as policing the offside line and keeping players on their feet when they enter the breakdown.
Rugby is bad at letting common practice dictate law interpretations. It's always been that the players have bent the referees to their will – managing for years to effectively legalise the jackal tackle and somehow also make officials believe that neck rolls are all part of the game.
Referees and those to whom they must report, have rolled over these last few years and pretty much said that they will opt out of everything bar the need to determine high tackles.
Defensive lines were able to set up offside and rush early. Players were able to dive into the breakdown and secure the ball and referees said nothing, almost as if they believed the only valid act they were there to make was to penalise any contact with the head.
It pretty much stuffed the entire World Cup and obviously, with nothing much else to do in the empty hours of lockdown, those running the game in New Zealand obviously dreamed up a new vision for the game which is one where the referees are in charge and not the players.
And it is one where players will be forced to observe the offside line and stay on their feet.
Rieko Ioane of the Blues on the attack against the Hurricanes. Photo / Dean Purcell.
The penalty counts in both games were through the roof, not because there was pedantic whistling, but because all four teams played with ingrained bad habits and an expectation that they would get away with being offside on defence and flopping over the ball if they were the first man to arrive at the tackle.
At Eden Park there was almost one penalty per breakdown but it wasn't as if any were marginal and the next nine weeks are going to be a battle of wills as much as anything else.
Referees are not suddenly going to give up on policing what they should always have been policing and those players who can't shuffle back that extra metre or resist the temptation to leave their feet to ensure possession is retained, are going to be relentlessly penalised until they either amend their behaviour or find themselves dropped by their respective coaches.
Whoever has driven this change – broadcasters, sponsors, executives – it's not temporary or whimsical. It's going to be militant and relentless because New Zealand is attempting to instigate the major correction required to build the space that attacking rugby needs to flourish.
The Hurricanes will say it was their set piece that cost them, but it was actually their attitude.
They seemed oblivious that they were playing a new sort of game where they couldn't get away with what they always had.
They had no ability to adapt and instead, seemed to think that TJ Perenara could badger the referee into changing his philosophy rather than taking responsibility themselves.
As much as the next nine weeks will be determined and shaped by innovation and creativity, conformity might end up being the key attribute.
