The game was varied and this didn't happen in the decades that the 5m rule applied. I thought when it was introduced it was change for changes sake.Mike posted:
Dave - you have to admit that there is a chance that teams would not throw passes to players standing deep and wide when there is a good chance they would lose ground on every play when face with a defence starting only 5 metres away.
Again, watch some of the older games.Even when the attack has 10metres worth of time they opt for flat passes, surely all an attacking team with a defence moving up from 5metres back could afford would be a single pass from dummy half before the defence are on top of them.
I don't think we would. Certain players would adapt immediately and revel in the role. Others may see their effectiveness reduced dramatically.Certainly we would have to wait at least for the next 5 years before any perceptible increase in skill level would appear, if ever.
On average, the players of the past were not as fit, as big or as strong as they are today - and that left room for skill players to really make their mark.
I think this a red herring. The players when the 5m rule was in force were not lumbering unfit players. The 10m rule was brought in to try and open the attacking game up but it has had other consequences:
To quote an SMH article:
Some statistics from NRL games last season show as much as 90 per cent of each ruck is handled by the dummy-half running into the defence for a yardage play, or it goes one pass wide of the ruck. The role of the five-eighth has been usurped; nowadays the hooker and the halfback orchestrate the moves and the athletic centres and fullbacks have to come roving into the attack as extra men close to the play-the-ball to see any action.
"It has got to the point where there is repetitious and boring dummy-half running that has overtaken the game like a disease," Ryan said.
"It is currently a brick-wall game. Some men like Shane Webcke and Petero Civoniceva tuck the ball under their arm and run into this brick wall and the great movements of attack from the greats are so rare."
The quotes from Ryan above suggest it is a direct consequence and I agree with him.Nowadays far too little focus is put on skill, but I don't think that's due to the 10m rule, rather to a false focus on physical stature as the be all and end all of rugby potential.
Well I think the 10m rule works against employing the likes of McQuire and Burrow in tandem at international level. I think the 10m rule was introduced to solve one problem but has changed the nature of the game in itself.IMO the problem with the skill level in the UK game is that there are too few coaches at all levels who can take a player with potential, for example Luke Robinson or Danny Brough, and teach them to take their natural skill and become a complete player. Too often they end up rough diamonds where you have to accept that they will make as many game losing mistakes as they make game breaking plays - and they end up with clubs like Salford and Castleford. The focus in the UK is on size and "staying in the armwrestle" as McDermott likes to say. I'm afraid our coach is a culprit as well. As GB coach he never trusted playing McGuire and Burrow as half back partnership - perhaps because they don't offer enough size or defence, but maybe that's part of the problem - when we see players with natural ability we don't allow that ability to flourish, we try to teach them to play some other way or offload them to some other team.
Dave