Every rugby player has done it. Whether it’s going down for an ‘injury’ when your side is up by a point in the dying minutes, ‘accidentally’ running in another player’s path, or ‘mistakenly’ taking a quick tap on a penalty awarded to the opposition, rugby affords players a huge number of opportunities to stretch the laws of the game to provide their own team with an advantage – but when does stretching the law become cheating?
Today's Anglo-Welsh Cup saw flanker Marty Holah of Ospreys caught on camera tripping runners, interfering with the ball at the ruck, and blocking defenders to create space for his team-mates to run, all without punishment from the referee. All in a day's work for a professional flanker, players who are effectively selected on their ability to disrupt the opposition play, even if it means breaking the rules.
Some would argue, therefore, that it’s only cheating if you get caught – the referee and his assistants have been placed on the field to regulate each match, and if you can break the laws of the game without being spotted, you have in fact played within the unwritten rules of “gamesmanship”.
Neil Back provides a famous case in point. In the Heineken Cup Final of 2002, Leicester were leading Munster by 15 points to 9. Munster won a scrum deep in Leicester’s 22 with only minutes left to play - a fantastic chance to score the converted try they needed to win the match. With the referee distracted on the other side of the scrum, Back illegally swatted the ball out of Peter Stringer’s hands before the put-in, allowing Leicester to win back possession, clear their lines and hold out for victory.
Fans and the media were in uproar, and the Munster players must have been fuming. But it seems they eventually came to accept it as a part of the game, and for all their anger some may even have felt that they would have done the same thing. Stringer even came under fire from many people for not being more savvy, especially seeing as Lewis Moody had already attempted the same thing at the previous scrum.
But just because Back’s misdemeanour went unpunished, does it mean that such blatant cheating is a legitimate part of the sport? Many will tell you without the slightest pang of conscience that in such situations you have to do whatever is necessary to win, that the end always justifies the means.
But shouldn’t this only be true of professionals, whose financial rewards and career success rely on taking whatever edge they can get? Why on earth should we, who play sport for fun, stoop to the ungentlemanly lows of professional fouls?
It perhaps because of players such as Back that most of us feel quite happy pushing the boundaries of sportsmanship, if not blatantly cheating. I would venture that relatively few, if any, have had the nerve to attempt such an audacious piece of gamesmanship as the former Leicester and England flanker, but there is not one of us who hasn’t blocked a chaser, pulled a shirt, or knocked the ball out of the scrum half’s hands as he seeks to release his backs – we accept it as a part of the game, and let’s face it, the opposition would do it if you didn’t.
There are certainly different degrees of gamesmanship, and perhaps each of us has a line at which our rugby-playing conscience allows us to sleep at night. Some are happy throwing punches at the bottom of rucks, while others feel bad kicking the ball away. For some, it seems there is a thrill to be had in gamesmanship: the knowledge that you have won a small battle against your opposite number or gained an unfair advantage for your team without being sanctioned; the knowledge that you were momentarily above the law; in Neil Back’s case, the knowledge that he turned possible defeat into certain victory.
With all the technology available, gamesmanship could certainly be removed from professional rugby – American Football, with its endless replays, challenges and “flags on the play” have proven that it is possible for the correct refereeing decision to be made each time.
It seems we do not want the same precision in our game. Of course, players should be cited for dangerous or harmful play, but we are happy to let cheating and gamesmanship stand, even when it has been caught on one of the many cameras that surround the pitch. It lends the game an unpredictability, an imperfection that pleasingly makes each match different, like the bounce of the rugby ball itself.
Remembering fondly our school days under now England 7s coach Ben Ryan, in the week building up to the match against Rugby School, Ben putting aside a brief 5 minutes during a rucking drill..."When the opposition player in possession is on the ground at the breakdown and you are the first player there, put your hands on the ball pushing it into the players chest resisting his release of the ball, while calling to the Ref 'SIR! HE'S NOT RELEASING!!!'".
ReplyDeleteCome match day we were inside the oppositions 22 at the birthplace of rugby, in the position of the trouble making flanker I was first to the breakdown, with the opposition in possession, in the split second I had to think...steal the ball, surrounded by the enemy, isolated from any of my own support...or what was that Ben had said? Holding firmly onto the ball and player I let cry the words at the top of my already bursting lungs: "SIR!!! HE'S NOT RELEASING!!!" The ref dutifully looked on with a degree of pity to my apparently unrewarded hard work of arriving first to the breakdown only to be denied possession. The whistle went...the fly half kicked the points and we edged out the lead a little further.
We won that day, I recall Steve-O scoring a good try, I doubt my gamesmanship was the deciding factor, but it gave us a cushion to build on at a tight stage in the match and though I did not score that day nor have my best game, I left the pitch feeling like I had made a difference and in the spirit of the sport "played" one of the finer aspects of the game to great avail...at the birthplace of rugby no less! Would old Bill have been proud, who knows...he was probably thought to have been cheating by his peers when he picked up that football and ran with it. I know the poor bloke on the ground surely felt I was cheating something in the innocence and hurt look in his eyes, as did my team mates as they gave me a knowing look and a smile as we formed up to chease the penalty. I can tell you I slept well that night and on others when I have sought comfort in rugby memories to cheer me up that particular one is up there with the best of the tries, the hits and the wins.
Gamesmanship in this form and many others certainly has a place in my heart and surely makes this sport more exciting to the connoisseur and player alike.
Banjo certainly was a master of gamesmanship, in all its forms. I particularly liked the standard sevens scrum tactic of taking a step or two back as the ball came in - bet he told the England boys that one!
ReplyDeleteCantabs always cheat! That's how they usually beat Oxford. However i do agree with the word you use 'gamesmanship', we are far past the days of corinthean ethos and as a result of the proffessional era, a lombardian ethic is perhaps more appropriate. It doesn't matter what you do as long as you win! Personally i don't agree with that, but if it keeps someone in a job, and/or pays the bills is it not one's perogative to use the skills (regardless of what they may be) that they are blessed with?
ReplyDeleteBob