Phil Waugh: Super Rugby must speed up to lure fans back

Seriously? The fans respond to WINNING. So, get your own house in order before flinging out distractions. No matter how “fast” the game is, until you complete your restructure, nothing will change. Focus, man. FOCUS!!!!

So they sit in a room with a whiteboard, and decide how they want to change the game, but no-one asks the fans what they want…hmmm. TBH, as an avid fan, super rugby as it’s known is dead. cancel the current unworkable structure. Let all players play club rugby (not contracted thus reducing the massive head office overheads, or paying players who are not worth the investment), which will continue great grassroots crowd support, then pick an amount of teams from each country based on form players from those clubs, that then get paid for making those “rep teams”. These rep teams then play a tournament against the other participating countries, which leads to being picked for National representation. drop the amount of tests a country plays, as there is too much rugby, thus lowering overheads that are high from all head office staff and paying professional salaries of players, and making the test matches desirable to watch again, as there will be less played. The current cycle of feeding the beast going around in circles is not working. The more you play, the more it costs, and if NSW need 23,000 people to break even, you have to wonder when you start to reduce costs to stage the match.

All nations use different EVLs to improve rugbies spectacle, so why aren’t some of these ELVs used to improve the philosophy of rugbies spectacle even more?
 
Won’t tweaking and adding some more experimental variation laws create a better spectacle with more ball in play, while creating more time for the precision of the TMO to make sure the right teams wins. Like reviewing some tries back five phrases for fouls. Otherwise any team could win a Super rugby game or the RWC by cheating and many people would stop watching it.
 
1/ The TMO ref alone must become the sole judge of maul or ruck tries, to help the field-ref avoid being called BIAS because they haven’t got an eagle-eye. All ruck or maul tries or any technicalities leading up to a try must be checked by the TMO within the last five phrases before rewarding a try or the game of rugby will become a joke, because that stops teams from cheating to win. Or lose some spectators!
 
Only a few tries need checking, which wastes very little time. You can see everything that the TMO sees on the big screen as common-sense anyway. Just as having “no” field-refs ‘soft or hard’ decision given, “could” influence the TMOs eagle-eye to become blind?
 
To use the TMO correctly only takes very little game TIME. To not use the technology correctly when it suits, is to make the wrong team win the game like sanctioned undetectable cheating. Why watch this game if the spectators don’t get the vital decisions judged correctly?
 
2/ To combine Australasia’s 20-minute red card with the RWCs TMO bunker system. Which would eliminate most pedantic penalty sanctions as technicalities while speeding the game up!
 
3/ Why is the field ref legally allowed to sanction any player with a CARD without a quick TMO review?
 
4/ Using the TMO as a timeclock would eliminate a lot of dead time making 20-minute quarters very necessary. Having 20-minute quarters helps rehydrate a team and can speed the game up, by only allowing subbing in every quarter (Subbing during game slows the game up). Why aren’t 10 subs allowed on the bench to avoid golden oldy scrums, while creating heaps of extra combinations and extra coaching to keep the game simple?
 
5/To make all attempted intercepts that aren’t intercepted to be at least a scrum advantage or when they stop a try from being scored to be an automatic yellow-card sanction.
 
6/ To allow only one scrum to stop penalties, then a free kick. All scrum infringements should be free-kicks. This will stop teams scrumming for penalties and matches won’t be decided by contentious penalties.
 
7/ To make all 50/50 calls within the oppositions twenty-two, to be given to the attacking team to help the field-ref avoid bias as he hasn’t got the TMOs eagle-eyes, that will obviously create more tries.
 
8/ To limit four consecutive penalties within the twenty to be a YELLOW CARDED sanction.
 
9/ For every twelve penalty in a game to be a team sanctioned penalty as a YELLOW CARD.
 
10/ To not allow any advantage to go passed 5 phases (use it or lose it), as a team could take a scrum.
 
11/ To only allow the golden-point rule as a tie-breaker to be used only in the playoffs where the first try is the winner of the game. (kicking goals should be irrelevant as the wind can do that by itself).
 
12/ If a player catches the ball on the full from any kick outside the twenty-two, they can call ‘mark’ tap and go. This will discourage teams from doing box kick after box kick and actually attack with the ball. The kicks they should use should be grubbers or chips to find grass. Then bounce of the ball could go either way.

13/ Players cannot ‘jackleg’ for the ball at rucks (e.g. can’t put their hands on the ball in a ruck). Players aren’t trying to win the ball, but rather win a penalty. To turn the ball over, they will need to counter ruck and take that space. This should lead to more clean turnovers, take the referee out of the game, plus make the breakdown safer.
 
14/ To only have a losing ‘bonus point’ for a loss of five points and under and to ditch the four try ‘bonus point’ as a team’s ‘for and against’ shows that stat anyway?

The game will become more attractive when administrators recruit/train referees who understand the purpose of the game - 14 players putting the 15th in a scoring position.
Technical penalties at scrum time, over zealous refereeing of defenders slowing down ruck ball when the attackers have reasonably quick possession and attention-seeking TMOs are all blights on the game.

All good noises. Good to hear South Africa are still heavily involved. Good to hear they are not resting on there laurels after last seasons success. Great that they are talking about further investment in the product!

Waugh really needs to get to grip with the fan base and how to perform his role. They do not need to hear that there are plenty of lesser Mark Nawaqanitawase out there that they can enjoy instead. They (and I’m not sure RP is reporting him accurately here) do not need to hear lingo speak like “speeding up the game and having the ball in play longer”, like what the hell is sped up? Players are going to run faster? We need to hear that you are going to reduce the amount of silly and pointless penalties, especially at the ruck, that stop the flow of the game, the momentum that leads to breaks and scoring plays, and give rest periods so players aren’t as fatigued at the end of the game.

Reducing things like video reviews aren’t as critical if you invest and put value into them. Many sports make those interruptions key parts of the sport, like the NFL and Cricket, as a means to going into detail and provide understanding about skill execution. If they can get much closer to how efficient the NRL does, just adding more value to in the process, that would be a huge improvement in quality.

Also, although this is mainly because the lack of quality from the author of this press release, the BiP time is not so much of a concern, comparatively. I think the other leagues have already targeted this stat metric and have had their refs blowing stoppage of time at any point possible. This can actually be somewhat annoying to view. Just keep working on the real reasons fans tire of watching and I’ll be happy.