The cant ????

then again I refer you to the Leeds Semi-Final where both teams managed it very successfully.

There is an arguement that the 10m rule has perhaps stifled the variety of attacking options ie the close passing or short ball game.

Players like Topliss could open up a defence with a wide variety of skills.

Totaly different and not a true comparison... the RU defensive line merely has to be behind the ball at the ruck .....not 5m.

Try watching a few classic RL CC finals and tell me then if the slow PTB and the 5M rule stiffled the attacks.

I've watched a few in my time, although many particpants were a lot less fit than today's crop.

Maybe I should expand on this a bit: I started watching in the mid-seventies. The notion that Pitchford and Cookson (say) would defend a 5m gap as effectively as Peacock and Sinfield is laughable (no disrespect to the former players intended). You simply can't compare eras in this way and surmise that similar games will be a product.

Did they? How many times each over 80 minutes of action?
Surely a bigger gap and more time gives more options, rather than less?

He seemed to do it with regular ease against Leeds IIRC





Would you say that adage applied to the game last Saturday ???



The counter arguement is it simply invites the one man drive from the PTB to make the gain line for 5 tackles then a kick downtown to hunt the opposition mistake

But watch what the defences did. Stood back and waited, or at best jogged up slowly, and usually out of line with each other.

Pssst I was comparing the ATTACKS not the DEFENCES

I have watched a lot of "Top Level" union this year in the shape of Super 14.

I am sorry to say but it's (it being the whole competition and games on average) faster, more skillful and a hell of a lot more exciting than any game of SL I've watched for a a long time.

I've said before that I have started turning RL off to watch it. And I know from certain other posters that I'm not alone.

There, I've said it.

Then you need to think about the respective qualities of the defences they were/are up against. Do you honestly think that Topliss (good player as he was) would have found so many gaps in our defence today as he did all those years ago?

Who? How many?



Last Saturday? Attackers chose from multiple options, short passes, long passes, inside and outside, behind dummy runners and to short runners crashing into gaps, scooted from acting half and employed both short and long kicks both high and on the ground, and ran both ahead, outside and back to the inside.. What options do you feel they failed to use that would have been encouraged by a closer defensive line?

Genuine question as I've never watched it: how come it's so quick compared to the english prem? Different rules, better players or some other reason?

short answer YES

His skills / fitness would have increased with the extra full time and professional training / coaching.

You are the one comparing pre SL with SL. If the players of the likes of Topliss Holmes Dyl and Dick etc had the advantages of the modern players just imagine what they could do.

I only saw one side take those options remind me again what the other side did

and where the majority of the scoring options came from



How many clear breaks where there in the full 80 mins ???

Honestly I think it's do with physiology. Whereas rugby players in Europe are generally those who are the wrong shape for Soccer. (And let's be honest, ask any European rugby player if he'd rather be playing Soccer for £10k a week let alone £100k and you know what the answer would be) Super 14 players are like performance athletes, they're animals. Super quick, powerful and smart. Whereas European Rugby is very scrum orientated the bent in Super 14 seems to be running with the ball, and my word do you see some running, defence seems almost optional sometimes.

I never thought I'd say it but I have seen the best of Mark McLinden in Union, he has so much time with the ball. He was good in League but now he's a different animal altogether.

Actually, it was you instigated the pre SL/SL comparison by suggesting I should watch some classic CC finals where the 5m rule was in force



I can imagine Holmes and Topliss in the modern day, Dyl I'm struggling with (too small?). Not sure if Dick would last 10 mins with today's refs

I should have qualified that statement with the phrase Northern Hemisphere in it.

Most of the Premiership stuff I've watched over the last 12 months has been a series of lengthy kicking duels for field position and hunt the error.

Not dissimilar to the SL Grand Final, in that respect.

I dont think SL has declined, it may have declined this season from a spectators point of view but I think thats down to defences improving rather than attacks being poorer.

As for comparing it to old CC finals, in terms of quality of skills there is no comparison. The speed of defences, quality of passing, tackling, and especially PTB's is far superior than it was back then. Thats not to denegrate the old players from that time its simply a product of being full-time.

I would say the old games were probably better to watch since there was much more space and much more opportunity to attack and get the ball out wide than there is today.

I am well aware of what you were referring to. And I wholeheartedly agree with you. Northern RU is for the most part dour bilge. S14 however is crackers.

Interesting that Bryan Habana was whinging about the ELV's when they were introduced saying they made the game of RU too much like RL. Personally I think he has a point, but as I love my RL to be fast and flowing that suits me just fine.

Both sides took those options. One team was better at reading and stopping them.
How does this lead to you wanting to close the 10m gap to 5m?

Surely thats not possible with a 5m defensive line ????

Forgive me I must have been watching a different game. IIRC Saints persisted in 5 drives and a punt for at least 90% of the game.



I didnt say I "wanted" it changing just posed a question.

I was seeking to establish if others thought it was relevant to the development of the SL game.

It was a huge change from the 5m to increase it to 10m and it has forced the game and the players to change.

Has it been for the better thats all I was asking really.

I'd be interested to compare how many games there were this season with more than 60 points in total and less than 20 gap between the sides. In the early years after moving to summer I can remember a lot of games finishing with scores like 42-34 and the game being compared to basketball.

Is a tight, tense 20-16 game more or less entertaining that say a 46-all draw where neither side looks like it fancies doing any defending?

Hey the "Gonna score one more than you" approach made Man Yoo one of the best and most exciting teams to watch for a generation.

I think it must have been a different sport, let alone a different game

The problem IMO isn't the PTB its the intensity of 90% of SL matches isn't suficent to prepare most of the players for the step up to test rugby. If the majority of games had the same intensity of a Saints Leeds game then I think a lot of our players would be able to handle test rugby a lot better than they can now.