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In some ways, watching rugby on television is more enjoyable than the live experience. At half-time these days, for example, you discover that, without warning and not so much as a how’s your father, beg your pardon or thank you very much, the code’s money-grubbers have sold off the rights to your ears. At the ground, we have no protection from the inanities of the evil contemporary pollution that we too politely call advertising being poured into our earholes, from where it makes its way to offend whatever grey matter and aesthetic sensibility we might still possess. With television, at least you can mute the flood of this modern junk.
On the other hand, some aspects of the game itself don’t translate onto the small screen, such as the rolling maul. Nothing in rugby can attract, mesmerise and thrill a crowd like a rolling maul. Perhaps it’s the surprise of its appearance that grabs stadiums. Many plays have the potential to become rolling mauls, but usually you’re lucky to see a single good maul per match. At the ground, you can feel the crowd focusing when one of these rolling monsters begins to take shape and go forward. If the pack make a few metres, the applause will also begin to roll, and it will rise, metre by metre. If the maul rolls long enough, it cannot but provoke the whole house into a mighty roar, the like of which can never be conveyed by television.
I’ve not been alone in favouring the rolling maul as one of the weapons that the Wallabies should have developed to defeat the All Blacks. It’s obvious that France and South Africa have put enormous work into perfecting the extraordinary feat of teamwork, strength, discipline and skill that is required to get one of these things off the ground, and then keep it that way. The logic appeals, because a good maul will draw all the opposition’s forwards in, creating space for line breaks when the ball is finally let out. Thus, this weekend we’ll see two teams that are among the best exponents ever of one of rugby’s unique features, having practised it to a very high degree as an integral part of the thinking they’ve put in over the last four years to defeat a standard that’s already flown home to New Zealand.
How will the RWC semi-finals go? Everyone in the world bar their own supporters would love to see the Springboks go down to the Argies, as unlikely as that prospect seems. No doubt each and every tragically hollowed-out Wallaby fan will be barracking for France over England. Whatever the results, I expect to see more of those great rolling mauls, even though it’s a real pity that this will only be on television.
Update: Another bleak result, with the Poms winning 14-9 in a close contest that could have easily gone the other way. The tragedy of it was that the French completely forgot they were French, and tried to beat the English at their own game. With this crazy thought in their heads, they blighted their attacking skills, surrendering their superb rolling maul and clever running backs to the field-goal option, which kept returning rested Pommie forwards to the mid-field. What a sad state of affairs we’ve come to, given that we look like being reduced to supporting the Springboks to deny England an unthinkable sequence of Cups. Can the Argies save the world at the 11th hour with a miracle finish? I wouldn’t put my house on it. Woe.
Update: South Africa won 37-13. I didn’t see the game, but the reports suggest I didn’t miss much. Going into the final, I guess we’re all Springboks now.
Vaya Argentina !
Others are not so enamoured of the rolling maul. American academic Dave Gwydion tests his theories about the rolling maul in the staff common room, while a more recent post from an Aussie world cup observer concludes that the rules of Rugby should be changed, on the grounds that if the English are beating the Aussies winning then there is something seriously wrong with the entire sport.
American academic …
Umm, to just type those two words is enough to disqualify Dave’s opinion in the high court of rugby.
Seriously, I wouldn’t bother to defend the rolling maul on technical grounds, although it can be defended on the basis of the degree of difficulty in its successful execution. My defence would rest solely on the experience of the extraordinary way in which it always thrills real rugby crowds … live, and live only.
All good things rugby should be tested and verified in the staff common room; I would have thought that obvious – especially the rolling maul which is perfectly suited for it. Facetiousness aside, I didn’t much like schoolteachers, and on second thoughts there’s a little merit in it.
I’d contend that a bloke like Wilkinson does more harm to the game as a spectacle. (Easy to say, but when we’ve Matt Burke kicking points all over the place I guess the perspective changes).
Certainly, the rolling maul gathering momentum – no, even from the start, with the ball under arm, the gathering of energy and psyche as players ready will do it – can leave you speechless as much as it rocks a crowd. 65 metres out, first hit next next in quick succession, steady, away again, hit hit and soon the snowball. Try!
Why are rolling mauls like that always about ten metres or so in, and why always a try in the corner? Ah, the mysteries of it.
Something rivetingly inspiring when forwards roll the maul as though backs don’t exist at all. And the nobility of the pack as it victory walks back for the kick off after try time from it. No jogging back after those tries, and no one wants them to, savouring the fresh memory of it. The feeling can last for years.
But I’d also contend an individual length of the field run, every which way, rocks a stadium (as much? let’s not compare). Campo comes to mind. Maybe one is lightning, the other thunder. Seriously impressive. Yes, has to be live.
Buzzed just thinking about it.
Watching the England Aus match I was certainly struck by the apalling lack of goal kicking ability. Now Bomber Thompson might be a bit hard to get, but even Choco Williams mob could have outkicked that lot and he might be open to offers at present.
You’re right on the money there observa ol’ son. I cannot believe how brain-dead Australia has been in that area over recent years, repeatedly selecting teams, and only then trying to figure out who will take the goal-kicks.
The Wallaby selectors should have the following message nailed to their foreheads: The only time the first player selected is not the goal-kicker is when he is the second player selected. The failure of the selectors in this dept has been nothing short of unfrigginbelievable.
Maybe one is lightning, the other thunder.
I have to agree of course, having suddenly been reminded of what it’s like to see a streak carve up the field live. What does television do better than live, apart from advert muting? Allows you to hear the players sing anthems, awfully?
Actually, I guess it makes some of the ref’s rulings clearer than they seem live, and it also allows you to more precisely identify the tacklers. After that, I’m struggling. Certainly most of the real virtues of the game are substantially reduced on the box – and perhaps, if I thought about it long enough, I might also conclude that television magnifies the game’s downsides.
I’m with you on getting cameras out of the faces of players during anthems. (And this goes to where Ten’s coverage failed dismally – there was no occasion of place provided this year.) Why not show footage of what the anthems mean? Why not show past glories on the field, creatively edited? Why not show the countryfolk in daily life snapshots for whom the players represent? A wide shot at low angle is enough to capture the players’ emotion, and is all that is needed to be included. A gross attempt to suck that emotion from players in close-up down the lens for some fallacious voyeuristic end reduces the whole point of the anthems, the emotion, the history. It is reduced to ridicule when, as happened, cameras get in the faces of the team whose anthem is not being played!
Rugby and anthems have tremendous representative qualities and significance – television coverage has all the time in the world to prepare footage for those moments.
The whole “day out” adventure of going to live matches is missed of course with television. Holding the ticket in your hand makes it real. The characters around the place. The momentary relationships as an event is shared with strangers. And then to be close enough to feel and hear the physical collisions is incomparable. Part of this is experience of heightened reality is the rhythm created from the action being up close and then moving away – this enhances the physicality of it and is largely rewarding. To hear a collision from most of the field away is awesome. To “give” the action to another part of the crowd where they have the up close impact experience – and hear them respond as one resonant voice – is also part of the joy. To be up high in the stands misses this of course, yet another experience is obtained as that onfield action transmits from the closer rows and translates up the stands.
The weather becomes a player – something to contend with, and heightening the experience of what players go through. A swirling wind and a high kick, fifty thousand mouths and a full back’s mouth agape as the ball swerves downward – you know those few seconds of descent are very real and its having to be dealt with at the lower end, by a human being, grabs hearts and shoves them in those mouths. Even simple things like sitting there freezing, two pairs of socks, watching a player stand in shorts, possibly soaked with rain, perfectly warmed by action brings it all home.
And of course when players spoke real language, it was wicked to hear a word or two between them for a move to be cooked – then snap! Into it they go.
But treating visiting supporters like captive consumers is not good. There are better ways of getting across advertisers’ messages.
Rolling mauls? Goodness gracious me.
Forget the advantage line contest and bone crunching defence, flowing backline plays, angle running, reverse passes and speed in possession, the most mesmerising thing about rugby union is fourteen overweight men sticking their heads in where they don’t belong to huddle together and push each other backwards. Lucky genuine lovers of rugby have rugby league where they can delight in a genuine advantage line contest and running play, and not a mass exhibit of Greco-Roman wrestling.
Whatever.
The odd thing is that I not only never feel inclined to watch League, for I promptly fall asleep whenever I try, but it would never occur to me in a zillion years to read a league blog, let alone bother to comment on one. I cannot imagine anything more boring, except perhaps reading a blog on what it’s like to watch cement dry. Yet, my rugby posts are regularly rudely interrupted by over-opinionated know-all league nutters. Why are league blockheads so defensive when it comes to rugby? It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that tunnel ball is so threatened by the mere existence of rugby that its followers just cannot live and let live. It speaks of a very weak faith indeed, which doesn’t surprise me now that I come to think of it. Relax Dally. Go watch some League and try to forget about us. I hope you enjoy it.
Personally, I quite like hearing and seeing the players sing the national anthems. It is such a window into their attitude and preparation – look at the argies sing theirs!
Speaking of which, damn it all, but I hope they win this stupid cup now.
I don’t mind watching them so much, it’s the listening to their godawful voices that I can’t stand. A quick cut along the row could work with Robert’s ideas. In the Australian case in particular, I can never avoid thinking they’re under instructions to sing (except for Nathan Sharpe – who could only go that Troppo of his own volition). I always used to like the fact that Matt Burke never sang. For mine, real Wallabies, as distinct from passionate Argies, don’t sing.
I put a poll up at Sidelined which you may use to express your feelings at the dismal conclusion of this event.
http://sidelined.com.au/
All said and done, my big complaint about tv coverage of rugby is that the broadcasters have a League mentality when it comes to tries. As with League, the focus is always on the last movement immediately before the try.
With League, that’s usually OK, as it’s basically a game of sequences of set-plays, and so the tv logically catches the last set-play that resulted in the try. This particular set-play is usually the only one to show, as the scoring of the said try is usually the only way that you can distinguish one League set-play from all the other League set-plays. For league, the replay system works.
With rugby, on the other hand, this is hopeless, as the try as often as not derives from preceding open and unstructured play, sometimes several movements prior to the line being crossed, sometimes from a long sequence of uninterrupted open play. The appalling consequence is that the genius behind rugby tries is often missed altogether in replays. There needs to be some serious quality control inserted into the production at this point. It is bleeding obvious that the replay, a replay, any replay of anything at all for that matter, will always aim to replay best bits, as this defines why replays exist in the very first place. Rugby auto-pilot try replays as often as not miss the best bits.
So, in only replaying the very last pre-try rugby moves, we have a pre-format production, the manifestation of decisions on replays being made without regard to the facts, a by-the-numbers ritual set against alien League standards, a regular serving of double-doses of a part of the game that frequently misses the most extraordinary aspect behind what it purports to be pretending to exhibit. It’s a flaming joke when you really think about, and I cannot help but put it down to sheer pre-programmed corporate snooze-button lazyness.
Pulling this rant together, on the basis of quality, as often as not, the first part of a rugby movement may just as easily be the most important as the last, so there is no more logic to showing the last bit than regularly replaying, by rote, the first bit. Either option, by rote, misses the idea of reading the game itself; it imposes a technological randomness of quality on the reinforcing aspects of its representation, which is damned irritating.
You end up having to say to mates, yeah, but did you notice that earlier pass, hoping someone else might have also been on the ball, for validation and celebration. Rugby tv try replay gurus need to wake up to themselves.
I do not believe your characterisation of league telecasts is correct. They are always showing a variety of plays, from different times and with different results. You can fault Nein for alot of things but I don’t think that is one of them. Gus is aalways wanting to rant abou what happened 23 tackles ago, and there is always half time discussion of those things.
Your point about union coverage may stand, dunno, but you should drop the league comparison. The only other thing to say is, obviously, there are time constraints on what they can show immediately after a try. Logically that is going to be the money shot of the bloke going over the line.
I do not believe your characterisation of league telecasts is correct.
Yes it is. OK, I agree, you can argue the same point with League, as it still holds in that context to some extent, as whoever Gus is reflects. The distinction is that the disjuncture between try scoring plays and the preceding plays is usually much sharper. In League, showing the try from the tackle to the line is usually a coherent narrative, however consequential earlier set plays may have been. In rugby, on the other hand, the actual “money shot” is, as often as not, well before the bloke going over the line, which can have no more status than a formality.
I don’t think we have the same definition of ‘money shot’ but I’ll leave it at that.
The point being, contra cs, league telecasts have a significant component of anaylsis of back play, off the ball, the sequence which lead up to a try and so on. Your argument about union telecasts is weakened by the spurious and incorrect characterisation of league telecasts.
Cut the telly people some slack, anyway. They don’t get alot of practice talking about or showing tries in union. It’s natural they’re still finding the best way to do it.
On that note, you two should get a room.
Friggin’ Leaguies. I accept the point is applicable to league, only not nearly to the same extent, which is my point. In union, the lead-up to tries is, as often as not, not something that could be called “back play” (this league term thus also making my point). Rugby has been around forever, so the telly people need a kick up the Kyber. They are missing the front play.
I chose “back play” not as a description of play leading up to a try but deliberately the most marginal activity on the field and yet it gets highlighted when it needs to be and thus disproving your point league telecasts only focus on the last play. I am trying to help — your argument is stronger without the league comparison, which knobbles it from the start.
Patrick: pull your flippping head in.
I still think you are wrong, and too sensitive about League. The proof is that no-one would argue for League replays to show, as often as not, any plays that precede the immediate tunnel-ball thingo that leads up to a try. Likewise, no-one would argue for rugby replays to show, as often as not, plays that precede a scrum, penalty or line-out that led to a try. The logical punctuation mark is the preceding set-piece, which in the case of rugby and unlike League, may, as often as not, be many plays prior to the try.
When do you propose to have the time for these extended revisitings during playing time?
The tv stations merely have to keep longer tape on tap, with a Mark Ella or even someone cheaper like me to tell them where to start the replay from. The proper replay can then be shown in any number of breaks in the play, usually including the time the goal-kicker takes to line up the conversion, or anytime at all in delayed telecasts. At worst, it would much better to have one or two decent replays than the present practice of mutiple angle last play replays. It’s all very simple. You merely have to change the mindset from the present last play fetish.