2y ago

i thibk we can al agreee that tmos ruined big parts of the WC

i.stuff.co.nz

Mark Reason: Why rugby's new $700 microchipped mouthguards are scary

Very interesting article about how world rugby is forcing full tracking on all players, increasing the potential of completely killing the game (privacy issues aside).

6 comments

Meh, players having to start playing legally instead of playing the ref? How dare they!
Cricket have a literal phrase about this and I'll be happier to see speedier rucks, safer collisions and more attractive rugby. I think Rassie has proven the bench needs looked at if we're interested in rules
And I'd love to see what union looks like without a number 8
Well, with players suing their unions WR and the other unions will do things that make it “safer”.
WRT to the TMOs, if the fans pick up an error the referee doesn’t it also brings unhappiness. I am pretty sure the TMO didn’t go all the way back, he probably saw it in real time and then decided to look at it.
What is the privacy issues with wearing a chipped mouth guard? They are already wearing a chipped jersey. With the mouth guard the will be able to see the direct effect of the hits on the player and can pull a player for a HIA directly when he goes over certain limits. The injuries from the chip is a concern though.
WR is in a tight spot, they need to show they are doing something about player welfare. These things will show how they progress as well.
- The problem is that what they've done to address concussions is shown to not work. Even folks up north chipping the SH for being too lenient and not causing players to change behaviour must admit that as many NH players get carded as SH. Their focus has been on penalising when things go wrong (ambulance at the bottom of the cliff) rather than making changes to try to ensure things don't got wrong as often.
  Setting aside the privacy issues for now, the mouth guards should help measure how many concussive impacts are nothing to do being tackled high. I think this is good because there's all sorts of other problems around whiplash, hitting the ground, being the tackler, etc etc which just aren't really measured at the moment.
  But I suspect the bigger and more impactful changes are coming around changing laws to define a legal tackle height. Too much of the carding at the moment comes under the foul play rules, and mostly around dangerous/recklessness. These rules don't really define what a good tackle is, more just some vague thoughts about what a bad tackle is and the interpretation puts all the onus on the tackler and very little on the ball carrier.
  What we are seeing moves towards now is a much clearer definition on what WR thinks a good legal tackle is, and penalising when players go outside of those bounds. That's great but it still doesn't really account for situations like Sam Cane's where its a microsecond adjustment and he had neither time to make a good tackle, nor time to get out of the way.
  In terms of player safety there's lots of other things I'd like to see WR take a serious look at:
  Competing in the air is inherently dangerous, particularly when the kicking team's chases are taught to hare after the ball and deliberately disrupt in the air to try to cause messy ball. The safety answer is to only allow the defending team to jump, and penalise any interference within a couple of metres of them. If things don't change, its only a matter of time before an incident like Arendse-Barrett last year kills a player.
  Jackalling has to be looked at. Its the main cause of players throwing themselves into rucks at speed and rolling defenders out of the way etc. You could go the other way and penalise the attacking team even more but that is a net negative for rugby as it will make it even more likely teams won't want the ball. Remove the jackal and the ruck should become a lot safer for everyone.
  The bench, particularly as used by Rassie, has gotten stupid and means bigger players hitting each other harder for a greater proportion of the 80 minute game. We need to de-power the bench in order to shift the balance back to fitness rather than size & power.
- Totally agreed, parents won't send their children to play if it doesn't get safer either

6 comments