New legal limits free up the game

A pity, isn't it, that this year's Six Nations Championship didn't conclude with the opening round of fixtures. Imagine if England were coming to Dublin this Saturday in a Grand Slam decider? Even Bertie and JP's stadium could have been filled a couple of times over, and the touts would still have had a field day.

Ah well, maybe another day in another year. Even as things stand, Irish rugby has plenty to be happy about after the last three restorative wins, although after the glory of Paris it would be a shame if the bald wonder and the boy wonder et al didn't finish off the job and secure the runners-up place next Saturday.

Unattractive favourites at home to Scotland and Italy, financially remunerative last Sunday week at a generous 9 to 2 when beating France (when Paddy Powers suffered their biggest rugby loss), Ireland aren't worth a penny at a reactionary 2 to 7 to beat Wales and are even unappealing at minus 10 points on the handicap.

The championship's only other surprise was Italy's opening day win over Scotland when 4 to 1 outsiders, even in Rome. It's no coincidence therefore, that aside from England's enduring excellence, those two against-the-odds victories probably did more to elevate the championship for the wider international audience than any of the other games.

France-Ireland was easily the pick of the last round, Ireland winning despite having less than half the possession, as much through brilliant defending as brilliant attacking. As a game of rugby, it had pretty much everything you could want.

By comparison, the Wales-Scotland game was stultifying, and once the fizz went out of the Italian challenge against England in Rome the ensuing procession was only marginally less boring. But in the heel of the hunt, the rugby has been better to watch than in the World Cup.

Generally, the amended tackle law which obliges the defending players to go into the tackle situation from behind has freed up the game - in part because coaches and players have so far obediently adhered to it - thus rewarding those who place a premium on quick ruck ball and moving it wide.

The use of the sin bin has had occasional flaws, Paddy Johns being a case in point given his error of judgment in preventing the possibility of three points (from a drop goal) in return for the probability of three points (from a penalty). But in the white heat of battle Paul Honiss's decision was perhaps understandable.

As a team reduced to 14 men reputedly concedes an average of 1.4 tries while a player is binned, this merely underlines Ireland's resilience in those 10 minutes. The best example of its use was the binning of Austin Healey against France for deliberately preventing the ball's release after the tackle to prevent a strong likelihood of a try.

If continuity is the desired aim, then discipline is a key ingredient, and the sin bin has helped enforce this. Now foul play or a professional foul is a team offence, whereas in the past it was an individual offence, the punishment for which was usually no more than a meaningless yellow card.

The amended scrum laws may have produced the odd wrong-doing, and have enabled defending tightheads to manoeuvre wheeled scrums and ensure turnovers, but in turn this has had the primary effect of producing quicker scrum ball all round.

Arguably the biggest blight on the championship has been the soft seven-pointers accrued by scrumhalves' close-range tap penalties, such as Laussucq's for France against Ireland. This was particularly galling for Ireland and may explain Mick Galwey and Kieron Dawson's objections at the time, given Honiss had intimated to the respective half-backs beforehand that quick taps would be permitted in the middle chunk of the pitch but not to the same degree close in.

The worst example had come 24 hours earlier when Alan Lewis, in an otherwise good championship debut, wrongly allowed Matt Dawson to take not one but two successive quick taps, the second taken on the run before he sauntered in by the posts untouched.

Where before quick taps which yielded tries were an art form, as practised originally by the likes of All Black Zinzan Brooke, now it has become a farce which demeans the value of seven points. Defenders can't lay a finger on the attacker as it will concede a penalty try and a sinbinning.

This needs addressing, but all in all the new rules - after their experimental airing in this championship - are likely to be ratified by the IRB next month.

THE other, far more serious blight on the championship has been the eligibility rumpus in Wales and Scotland, and this is liable to hold centre stage at the IRB's annual meeting in Dublin this Thursday and Friday.

The whiff of cordite in the air, engendered by Southern Hemisphere desires for sanctions against the offending Celts, is a bit hypocritical, as was witheringly pointed out by Stephen Jones in The Sunday Times two days ago. The holier-than-thou attitude of the Australians rankles particularly given their history on this issue, primarily their handling of the Willie Ofahengaue saga in 1991, not to mention former Springbok captain Tiaan Strauss.

As for the Southern Hemisphere's campaign to have the residency qualification reduced from three years to two years (thus further assisting their pillaging of the Polynesian islands), and ancestral eligibility confined to parentage rather than grand-parentage, this can be seen for what it is - pure self-interest with scarcely a thought for what is morally right.

As it would require 16 of 21 votes to be ratified, and the celtic bloc of six will vote against it, thankfully it is doomed to failure and probably won't even obtain a simple majority in any case.

In comparison to the sound of chickens coming home to roost in Wales and Scotland, for their unashamed fast-tracking of non-native players to the international cause, Ireland seem comparatively pristine white on this one. Admittedly the Brian Smith saga still sticks in the craw but the IRFU, in tandem with the current team management, have not only behaved honourably in recent times, but also with more foresight.

Credit where credit is due, as we've been known to say hereabouts.