There's been a new fixation with rolling mauls from Super Rugby teams. Photo / Photosport
There's been a new fixation with rolling mauls from Super Rugby teams. Photo / Photosport
OPINION:
Justin Marshall is absolutely right when he says the rolling maul is a horrid thing to watch.
He's right too that it is corroding the entertainment value of Super Rugby.
Seeing a group of oversized men organise themselves into a slow-moving huddle advancing inexorably towards the tryline is alittle like watching a Jane Campion movie in that you know that there is genuine technical expertise involved and that the characters have credibility and integrity, but the whole business of watching them play their part is just fantastically boring.
Super Rugby's new fixation with launching rolling mauls from short-range lineouts is also in a sense, a breach of contract.
Fans feel like there was an unconditional agreement made way back in time that rugby in this part of the world would stay true to the spirit of adventure. There's been this unwritten rule that New Zealand's teams wouldn't be so crass and unimaginative as to stick the ball up their jumper and waddle over the line.
That sort of stuff might be all right for the chaps up North, but the whole deal about Southern Hemisphere rugby is that it has historically chosen the path of the righteous and prided itself on not having succumb to the temptation to use the driving maul as a cheap and inglorious means to score tries.
The objection to the rolling maul isn't built purely on its troubled aesthetics or the feeling of betrayal it generates for fans and the accusations of selling out that those who rely on it must carry.
The real problem with it is the sense of guilt that it engenders because it is a wretched, unlovable, ploy that perverts the course of rugby justice.
The rolling maul is to rugby what the shell company is to tax evasion – a legal loophole that everyone hates because it runs contrary to the highly regulated, consistent framework on which all other laws have been made.
Tom Robinson at the centre of a Blues maul. Photo / Photosport
The whole ethos of rugby is built on this one simple idea that there has to be a fair contest for the ball. The defending team has equal rights in every facet – except for this glaring anomaly where the rolling maul can't be pulled down or the ball carrier tackled.
An attacker who shields the ball carrier in open play is penalised for obstruction – but if you put a whole phalanx of bodies in front of the ball carrier in a highly organised, choreographed, virtually unstoppable way, then it is entirely legal.
Of course, it is wrong. Stupid even, and a terrible contradiction in an already complex game.
But however ridiculous it might be and nonsensical to have a patently contrarian element blighting the game, the rolling maul remains a valid and effective tactical ploy.
More importantly, there is little to no prospect of that changing. World Rugby has shown no interest to date in closing the rolling maul loophole and ridding the game of this archaic oddity.
However much the maul is hated in New Zealand and seen as the blunt tool of those lacking something sharper, it isn't going to be outlawed.
Offending Kiwi sensibilities has never been a problem for the Northern-based governing body and the increasing chorus of dissent emanating from Aotearoa may in fact harden the resolve to ensure that rolling mauls indefinitely remain an integral part of the game.
And far from lamenting the love affair New Zealand's teams are developing with the rolling maul, Kiwis should be embracing it.
The rolling maul is going to be a key weapon in the armoury of every team at next year's World Cup.
No one serious about winning the tournament will take the view that it is beneath them to scrummage for penalties that are then kicked into the corner to set up a lineout drive.
The All Blacks need a world-class rolling maul, not to overuse it or become heavily reliant on it as their only attacking weapon, but as something they may need to call upon from time to time.
It's a get-out-of-jail card, a quick fix for teams under pressure and often the best way for a team to haul itself back into the contest.
It's a valid, lower-risk means to collect points and will anyone really be chastising the All Blacks or painting them as flawed and undeserving if they make it through to next year's World Cup semifinals on the back of two tries scored from rolling mauls?
Of course they won't and while we may all wish that Super Rugby could retain its pass-and-catch, attacking purity, it is better that New Zealand's best players learn the art of rolling mauls now and turn up in France next year capable of executing them rather than with some pious indifference towards the craft.
