Sir, – Further to your correspondent Owen McKeown’s recent excellent “bar-stool” analysis of our Paris rugby collapse (Letters, February 7th), I would like to add my own humble “player-on-the-ditch” comments.
The modern game of rugby has, sadly, descended into an attritional battle between two sets of 14 heavyweight forwards, that is if you include the six-two split on the replacements bench. This is destroying the spectator appeal of the game as it providing fewer opportunities for gifted players to showcase their skills.
Referencing the number of missed tackles in Paris, surely the very idea of expecting a lightweight skilful playmaker to tackle head on a charging giant opposing forward is utter nonsense and a recipe for a serious head injury? This disparity in weights wouldn’t be accepted in the boxing ring, so why should it be the accepted norm on the rugby field?
If the powers that be insist on pursuing this increasing physicality in the game, then the only option for every team is to pack their back line with increasingly heavy defensive players and move their playmaker to the relative safety of full back. – Yours, etc,
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Charles Smyth,
Kells,
Co Meath.
