The Committees of the Rugby Football Union, Premiership Rugby and now World Rugby have all got themselves in a complete tissy, trying to react to Coronapop. For the last few weeks they have continued their delusion that rugby can start up again by the beginning of July. That way they think they can complete the 2019/20 season as if nothing had ever happened.
They are in a rarefied world of their own. It is all about the money they can secure from selling TV rights and sponsorship. Club seasons are interrupted by International matches that attract more revenue. Central contracts rob club sides of their best players for half the season. They have long forgotten the fans or that they themselves used to be rugby players☹️
Now it is obvious, even to the thickest prop forward, that Rugby is a contact sport, the “ old farts “ are working on how to maintain social distancing during the game. Here are some of their very best ideas:-
- Reduce the number of players from 15 to 13. A bit like Rugby League.
- Don’t contest line-outs, just restart the game. A bit like Rugby League.
- Scrap scrums, award a free kick instead. A bit like Rugby League.
- Forbid mauls, have another free kick. A bit like Rugby League.
It took a lot of brains to work this out. Prop forward brains 🤡
Guess who the two players no longer required will be ?
🏉The new game will be called “Rugby League”🏉
P.S. By the way the fans won’t be able to watch the games live, but they will be able to watch it on “pay” TV channels.
P.P.S. I doubt this means they will refund our season tickets !
GrumbleSmiles 
What a come upance! a southerner believing or wish to follow in the Nothern traitions, all though I must admit you are north of ‘WATFORD GAP? but slightly south of the WASH-Bristol Channel line? but never mind a ”southerner too boot!, and a RUGBY townee or follower?
Jesus! Crikee? you are suggesting the ‘TIGERs’ Play in the summer, and with 13 men aside, and maybe in a league playing for that ‘Challenge CUP’? Good on yer!
But Hey wait a minute i thought the Union game was by consensus and invitation only, gentlemen playing gentlemen on a ground of mutual consent and holy significance!, not a rag bag of clubs playing in a league that was not gentlemanly and sedate, and tea and biccies afterwards by the ladies of the club, not pieces of lemon, where one would squirm at the tartness of the company one kept?
I must admit my side in my day was OTLEY who now and again would support and have on an occasion WATERLOO Union club, and a quiet game of the Roses would ensue? It did not matter the result? I was born in Waterloo, and spent my School Days in NW Leeds of which Otley was our nearest swimming pool, and the beauty spot ‘Otley Chevin;
Still John cannot be outdone, I am sure if the route cause of conern is ‘MONEY’ I am sure JOHN in his loudest voice at the next match/game 13 or 15 men can shout ”’ COME ON YOU PUSSY’S?? and go home PURRING with delight!!
you are too cynical for 5 stars, I mark you with 3, as I am unsure what you are on about?
Fruit cakes and fairies
Well I never! I must reflect in my younger days, while leaving my school days behind, and my first 2 years at college as an apprentice.
I left school in Harrogate {Secondary Tech}, then in the JULY, and worked in our local village in Aireborough at a Gents Outfitters ‘ADDY’s’. Good fun, great experience. For the major part of my time I was dispatched on my bicycle to the branch Shop in Bramley, a town I knew as every Saturday we [Scouts] went swimming in the indoor baths their. {44 LCT Bus from Kirkstall to Bramley-Stanningly}. Alas I am gossiping: The Addy’s store manager was a gent-Nutty and as fresh as a fruit cake. At closing time 17.30 I would return HOme on the bike. Why mention Bramley, well in Johns briefs? Above he mentions Rugby League, and Bramley Town had such a team in division 2- Not the quality of the Leeds RHINO’s or The Bradford Bulls- who incidentally played at Odsall Tops??? I never watched or supported any of the above but in my memory I am drawn to as I mention, to Fairies and Fruit cakes, It was all part of growing up. Then during my first year of apprenticeship, of the 2 year collage OND Course; my company forwarded me to British Thomson Huston [BTH] plant at or in RUGBY, and the midlands. This company produced/manufactured many of the equipments/machines for the British and International Shipbuilding Industry, such as main and auxiliary gear trains, main and auxiliary steam turbines, transformers, switchboards, generators/alternators and ac/dc motors again for main and auxiliary outputs. {Main propulsion could be in excess of 30.00 Shaft Horse power, or auxiliary power a fractional horse power unit- quite a range of design electrical products, not forgetting a light bulb or two?}. One of the names in the hall of fame in BTH Turbine Testing Shop was the fact that Sir Frank Whittle in the 1940’s tested his first production model of his gas turbine for the aero industry: Which proved successful allowing the development and production of the worlds first jet propelled aircraft [ the Glouster Javelin?].
All this going on in John’s Warwickshire Parish, and a game of gentlemen’s Rugby going on in the schools and in the RUGBY school playing fields. No Fairies or Fruit Cakes here???? 15 men and true, not 13 men and not ‘’flapper’s’’. It is all in the world of growing up, and going to sea as an apprentice, where the delights of the world awaited me in the countries and ports of the world, where at times one could look through a window and wave to the occupant who I believe who may offer one an entertaining time???? Life dear sirs/ladies is but an experience??
Dear John, are you intending to lead me astray in my older age, as my memory dims! Ghore Blimey!!!
Small world David. Sir Frank Whittle lived in the house over my back garden wall. Yesterday a spitfire flew over and saluted the house.
4 stars now? can we get to 11 and my soccer team at school?
Me lords, Oval? All balls what ever the shape?
As I read John’s pray! This converted southerner, into the northen delights of all ‘BALL-Sports’? I just wonder what is in his soul? He is certainly not ‘our soul’ Maybe MO’s! at a or with a pinch of salt? John is blethering on at length about the summer season, and its encroachment by the Rugby Union Leagues, and not forgetting the profession football leagues at all levels of the game. I remain unmoved and just wish to note my comments! For the record!
Comments- Both the RUF and the FA [leagues] are endangering of making a manly mud doing sport with a bit of muscle, into a summertime fairies and Fruities spectator sport? Who is going to take a fall on a hard baked grass {all browning surface}, with out the fear of an ambulance chaser wishing to claim on some personal injury insurance policy, or the puff of a ref’s whistle to declare a penalty and the chance for the star to score: maybe an open goal?
All this during the ‘hallowed’ summer months of a game of ‘cricket’ Me Lords’ forgotten is that ‘OVAL’ ball, and all those misfits, but just the gentle patter of leather on willow, and a thrashing to the boundary mark [field] for a 6, or it 4 if it is a ‘grass cutter’ The ‘Bird’s in various plumage on the boundary line, politely talking and eyeing up the athletic talents of the various gentlemen alleging to play the game? While in the clubhouse sit the ‘old crows’ with their tea and cucumber sandwiches, waiting for the next umpires signal, to say time for tea, and they can stop talking put down their knitting and crotchet, never having missed a stitch of word of gossip?
It is a far distant game from that of my youth, on the estate roads or green spaces, playing ‘TIP and RUN’ and no pads, or gloves for any one , no boxes, or at school, the bats man had one pad left or right leg [depending how he chose to bat? The only padded/gloved person/player was the wicket keeper- no helmets or visors, just a mind and a voice! Watch the bowler as he approached the wicket count 1,2,3 and swipe? If one was lucky the ‘corkie ball’ [ not a leather one-this was reserved for inter school matches,] went over silly mid on or off, and your fellow batsman would shout ‘run’, and off one would scamper to the other end. In the street it was just literately if you touch the ball one had to run! The scourge of school and street cricket was the local fast bowler, who was no gentleman and played for the man first with a ‘’grass cutter’’ then a off or on side wicket bouncer and then straight for the man, middle wicket, or was it ‘’leg’’ I cannot remember?
Just imagine what all these sporting souls are missing? An Englishman’s Genteel summer game for a crumby winters knock about with a ball and 11 , 13 or 15 men chasing it around on a piece of grass? While in the summer Gentlemen, watched by ladies, hear the gentle knock of leather on willow, by two opponents, while the other 11 players make sure that the batsmen; their opponents our ‘OUT’ and cucumber sandwiches are served for tea, with a gentle ear bashing and a cuppa? What is wrong with a summers day, come rain or sunshine, it is all to look forward too, not backwards, and the season that may have been???? It makes one crease up? With laughter? BUT- That is for you to decide!!!!
just one slip and one was Out?
I am just wondering on the ‘refund’ of season tickets for a ball game? What is more rewarding, than sitting in an easy chair in the garden and a sniffter, and a good book, with a twisted story, like the current positioning of the rugby Union league matches, with the clubs made of ‘Tigers’ or was that Pussy’s- Meow??.
My book of pleasure and intrigue is Rogue Lawyer, actions, by John Gresham, a story full of nearly the correct, but completed within the spirit of the law / rules, as are the RUF/AF Leagues rules, all done to the wishes of a referee blowing his whistle, and the sponsors/spectators paying a fee to watch from the stands/terraces, or if shown on TV Rights a programme called ”Watch this space for the truth”
TV Programmes themed on the films from the ‘CARRY ON’ Series.
A title maybe ‘Carry on Fairies’