This year’s Rugby World Cup won’t just determine who has bragging rights for the next four years but perhaps more importantly, the game has an opportunity to extricate itself from an entanglement of its own making.
Rugby and its long list of laws, which are often open to interpretation, as well as its drive to be a safe sport has had many pondering its relevance.
The sport, so rooted in tradition, has tried to hold on to what connects it with the past while meeting the demands and expectation of modern society tired of testosterone-fuelled masculinity.
If the last World Cup in Japan proved a false dawn in exploring new frontiers, and broadening the base of the game, this year's instalment is about restoring faith in a sport struggling with its identity.
Much of the ambiguity in which the sport is shrouded centres on its laws and its often introduced variations.
Broadly speaking rugby has 21 laws. It has variations for Under-19s, Sevens and 10s.
Most of them pertain to basic requirements like jerseys, the ball, field demarcations and so on, but it’s the laws that govern the tackle and the ruck that have had the most dyed-in-the-wool fans scratching their heads.
The breakdown in particular is a battleground that is a befuddling muddle.
One of the game’s central tenets has always been the commitment to ensure a fair contest for possession. In theory, however, that isn’t always the case. “Possession is 9/10ths of the law” can easily be applied to the scrum, line-out and most definitely the maul.
The ball is routinely fed under the feet of the teammates at the scrum, the inside arm of line-out targets are often found, while an increasing number of northern hemisphere-based thinkers of the game have reached the conclusion the maul is legalised obstruction.
The ideal that the game should be a fair contest for possession has long been sacrificed at the alter of game flow and continuity. The accent is placed on the game becoming a spectacle. “Ball-in-play” minutes has become the yardstick by which rugby’s custodians measure their product in the quest to attract and retain eyeballs.
For most of the game’s existence it didn’t really have to bother about broadening its base or seeking new frontiers.
Then there are the law changes and amendments aimed at making the sport safe. Player safety is paramount and World Rugby has to be seen doing everything in its power to limit serious injury.
Neck and head injuries are firmly in their crosshairs and what might have been deemed an innocuous tackle a few years ago, is now deemed a serious offence.
It isn’t necessarily the overzealous application of those laws that grate the sport’s fans but the inconsistency with which they are applied.
England captain Owen Farrell’s most recent brush with the laws is perhaps the best example of the laws lack of clarity.
Though the sport’s best match officials aregathered at this World Cup the tournament will no doubt have many contentious moments. A high-impact sport played at breakneck speed makes that difficult to avoid.
Consistency, though, is what the rugby world craves. The sport is played by about 8.5-million people from the ages six to 60. It is no longer a pastime and its business end has been operating at a professional level for the past 28 years.
When it comes to the application of its laws, rugby of late, at times, has been distinctly amateur.
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