Rugby football
Freak forwards
Alan Watkins
It is a commonplace that people go to circuses in the hope they may see someone killed. In much the same spirit, I am told, they would attend concerts by the late Judy Garland: there was always the possibility she would fall down, go berserk or actually die. People do not yet go to Rugby matches for this reason, though it seems to be precisely why they go to Mr Kerry Packer's cricket matches. Certainly Mr Packer appears to be organising his teams, and the circumstances in which they play, with this kind of spectator in mind. With or without Mr Packer's assistance or that of someone like him (there have already been rumours of entrepreneurial activities), Rugby could well go the same way, though it has not yet. Much of the interest of the international season, which starts on Saturday 20th, will lie not in whether France or Wales wins the championship (though Mr Clem Thomas, I see, is predicting that Scotland will beat Wales and Ireland France) but in the attitude of referees, of players and of administrators towards dirty or dangerous play.
The distinction between 'dirty' and 'dangerous' is worth making because, while both categories have always been with us, it is the latter that has been growing. It has been growing not so much because of greater villainy among forwards as because of the intrinsically dangerous nature of the modern ruck. The ruck works, just about, provided everyone stays on his feet. But, as is only too evident, players do nothing of the kind. Usually they have no choice in the matter.
It is facile for New Zealand players and officials to say loftily that people should observe the laws, releasing the ball neatly and rolling quietly away after a tackle. The player or players on the ground generally agree fully with this sentiment. They would like nothing better than to be well out of the way. They find it impossible because neither their own nor the opposing side will allow it. In these Circumstances it is a little hard not only to be penalised for failing to release the ball (about which referees are frequently unjust) but also to be nearly kicked to death first.
Reasons and remedies have already been gone into by various Rugby writers. I hope to return to the subject in a later piece. For the moment I should like to deal with two causes of the present state of affairs which have not been much mentioned. The first is the encouragement of 'tough', 'aggressive' or 'uncompromising' forward play not only by Rugby coaches (whose urge to win has been written about quite often) but by some Rugby writers as well. In the Daily Telegraph, for instance, Mr John Reason has long been an advocate of front row forwards who will disrupt the opposing scrummage. It can be argued, of course, that this is separate from the question of dangerous rucking; further, that props form a special breed, tribe or trade union with their own rules and well-understood conventions of what does and does not constitute unfair play. Nevertheless a referee would be wholly within his rights in penalising a front row forward who disrupted the opposing scrum. I should like to see referees do this more often, not least because much Rugby trouble starts with dark deeds in the front row. However, to revert to rucking, Mr Reason (against whom I have no animus whatever) once wrote with evident admiration of Colin and Stan Meads, the former All Black locks, linking with each other and, in Mr Reason's word, 'hitting' a.ruck at high speed. I do not share Mr Reason's enthusiasm for this violence; I should share it even less if I happened to be at the bottom of that ruck.
The thought of the Meads brothers charging into a pile of bodies conveniently brings us to the second cause of the present situation. It is something that goes wall beyond the question of dangerous play. It goes to the root of the game itself. It is that Rugby football is becoming, if it has not already become, a game for physical freaks. Nowadays it is rare to come across an international lock or No 8 of less than 6 ft 4 in and 16 st. The flanker of under 6 ft and 14 st, the player like John Taylor, Haydn Mor gan, Mick Doyle or J. S. McCarthy, is now practically unknown at international level. And Ian McLauchlan is about the only example left of the smallish, mobile prop, formerly represcoted by such as Cliff Davies and John-Robins.
Immediately after the first World war my father played as a forward for the London Welsh. (There were then no specialist positions apart from hdoker always and wing forwards if you wanted to be fancy.) He was 6 ft and 11 st 7 lbs. He recalls playing against the great English forwards C. H. Pillman (Blackheath) and A. F. Blakiston (Northampton): 'Fifteen stoners. Fel ceffylau ["Like horses"1. What chance did I have?' Yet the records show he was not at quite such a disadvantage as he now believes. Pillman was 6 ft and 12 st 5 lbs; Blakiston 5 ft 11 in and 13 st 4 lbs. Going slightly further back we find the average weight of the All Black pack of 1910 was 12 St 10 lbs.
Now it is true that people generally have been getting bigger; true also that a certain size has always been necessary for a forward. But the rate of increase among forwards has, I should guess, exceeded the rate among the population generally. Clearly the rate of increase has not been proportionate as between forwards and backs. One can see this by comparing the 1950 Lions with those of 1977. The backs of the former contained numerous solid citizens of 13 st or more: Bleddyn Williams, Jack Matthews, W. B. Cleaver, Noel Henderson, Malcolm Thomas, D. W. C. Smith. Yet at 13 st 7 lbs the great Roy John — one of the finest line-out forwards since 1945 — would now be considered insufficiently robust not just as a lock but even as a flanker.
One could, I suppose, concoct all kinds of weight limitation schemes: we could have heavyweight, middleweight and (for the Japanese) lightweight Rugby or a total weight limit on all packs. These, however, are diversions for a wet Sunday in Ammanford. In reality there is nothing that can be done about the premium now placed on extravagant size among forwards. We should at least be clear about the consequences. The first is that people are going to injure themselves more frequently and more seriously: for men of 16 st and more charging into one another are presumably putting themselves at greater risk. I say 'presumably' because I have no hard medical evidence that this is so: but it seems ' probable. The second consequence is less speculative. The great boast of Rugby used to be that, as a game, it could accommodate virtually anybody. Boys who were neither natural athletes nor natural ball players could aspire to the yery highest levels, as they could not in, say, cricket or soccer. This was not wholly true of the two halves and of the full back. Moreover the really small were always at a disadvantage unless they possessed exceptional skill, speed or both. Nevertheless the Rugby boast had a certain validity. No longer. Forwards, as I say, now have to be freaks.
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