Lets make the pitches wider.

Seeing as International defences, player speed and bulk are far superior to what they were 10-15 years ago, should the IRB look at making the pitches wider?

I’ve seen a number of articles saying that maybe union should follow league and cut the number of players down to 14/13 players to create more room and hopefully more tries and excitement, as the recent 6 Nations has shown even a low grade team like Italy can defend reasonable well against the bigger boys but offer nothing else, therefore games are dull to watch and will only turn people away from the game in the long run.

Most national stadiums pitches that I can think of could be made wider by about 5/6m.

Thoughts please.

If it is possible logistically id be ok for it.

However can most pitches really get wider by several metres. Im fairly sure that some stadiums would end up not suited to it.

Sure why not, I see no real issues with making the pitches wider at international level. Club level might be a good deal more difficult

I think it can be done, just means that the ball boys and the hangers on have to move over a bit more.

Clubs can stay as they are.

Couldnt we just make players thinner?

That could work Peter, maybe a height and weight restiction on Backs too.

I like the game the way it is. Sure bigger pitches means more tries so rugby becomes like basketball - a sport for people with a short attention span..............now what was I saying?

HERSH wrote:That could work Peter, maybe a height and weight restiction on Backs too.

Yes too many white orcs in the game these days.

or just have 7 players a side

Bad idea -Ashton would get cold and he'd probably need a megaphone to talk to the centres

It's a great idea then again we could just remove the flankers so there is more space on the pitch, and make the scrums passive to speed up the game!

Oh wait...

Why not just remove Adam Jones, we'd have acres more room

hugehandoff wrote:or just have 7 players a side

10 seems about right for me

I made this suggestion in 2009 and got shot down like a pigeon on a hunt.

How about we keep the pitches but plays crossways on them. Just ban forward kicks.

just remove knock-ons and forward passes.

plenty more scores!

Multi-ball anyone?

Multi-ball madness.

beautiful suggestion Carpe, beautiful .

If it was just down to teams being so good defensively, surely we wouldn't get ripped apart by Australia and the All Blacks all the time.

When you watch the All Blacks play, it rarely looks as though the pitch is too small.

If they can generate space, other teams should be able to as well.


To consider increasing the size of pitches, or reducing the number of players is simply an underhand way of trying to compete with better teams.

Afterall, we all said it was the Ozzies fault when scrum laws were changed to give them a chance.
In my opinion, changing the size of the pitch would be the same kind of thing to try to help us compete with the Aus / NZ.

Yes... multi ball.
We used to play multi ball touch rugby in training.

Sheer carnage....
(and not a lot of fun for a fat prop)

What about going back to the 8 men lineouts like in the past, so that a team that does win the ball should then have more room/space out wide in the backs with which to run with the ball. Also put a ban on backs wearing scrumcaps/headgear as these form of protective equipment allows for fully committed and fierce/ferocious tackling without having to have any concerns about getting injuries.

Two storey pitch is the only answer -

forwards doing the grunt stuff (scrums and defending) on the top level and the backs on ground level doing what their fans want.

SecretFly wrote:Two storey pitch is the only answer -

forwards doing the grunt stuff (scrums and defending) on the top level and the backs on ground level doing what their fans want.

You mean play half the game in England and half in Australia?

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:

SecretFly wrote:Two storey pitch is the only answer -

forwards doing the grunt stuff (scrums and defending) on the top level and the backs on ground level doing what their fans want.

You mean play half the game in England and half in Australia?

Whichever is cheaper on the away supporters

This is the best post I've ever seen from HERSH. Absolutely brilliant idea

Timely post, want to see some space,Hong Kong this weekend.

Although this could easily be done at international level - most international stadia seem to have plenty of space - most clubs seem to have stands very close to the pitch. In the AP especially the stands seem to be right on top of the pitch, of the AP games that I have watched it is the thing that seems to generate such atmosphere at places like Kingsholm, Stoop, Franklins and a few others.

Not sure what the cost would be to widen the pitch in these stadia but it could be quite prohibitive.

why not just make the pitch a square with four sets of posts, the ball never goes off, imagine how confused a flyhalf would be if he was put in the pocket for a drop goal!

This thread is finally beginning to get the sensible ideas after the flurry of Monthy Python ones at the beginning.

I do feel that the small Northen Hemisphere dead ball areas,limits a lot of attacking options.

I think at Eden Park it is currently 18 metres deep.

Just do this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIl45f6i1PU

(about 2 minutes in)

Would certainly work at making football better.

Nah just learn to attack better.

It seems a lot of tries are missed because teams don't see the wide players as it is, so would they miss them even more?

How about the All Blacks play with 10 players and the rest of us with 15.

I'm sure Scotland would still find a way to butcher the overlaps, though.

If you like I'll put together a paper stating the benefits of pitch widening and send it off to the IRB?

If we made the field 5 kms wide by 10kms long then the Kenyans and Ethiopeans would be world champs.

No room for fatties

Why don't they put a weight limit on rugby players. Let's say maximum weght 85KG for a back and 100KG for a forward.

They will all spend less time in the gym and more time practicing their skills. Which inevitably will lead to more gaps and better scores.

that would probably rule out the entire islands of Samoa, Tonga & Fiji... thee only lads who fitted the rules would be the national U14 side and below.

Strangely enough that was probably the average weight of backs & forwards prior to professionalism but they didn't score more tries back in the day and more tries were scored at the begining & middle of the last decade when packs were larger (Pre ELVs) then what they are now.

Billtong

Players wouldnt spend more time on skills, but more time keeping their weight down, and finding ways to increase strength and size without adding weight.

If you want to see lots of tries, plenty of free flowing stuff just follow 7's, that'll give you everything you want.

I want to see how teams are going to breakdown opposition, I want to see the arm wrestle in midfeild, and finding ways of creating space. Rugby is like chess, and long may it continue, anyone who was bored of this 6N isn't a true rugby fan. There was everything, intensity, pride, passion, last ditch defending, tries, contraversy etc... Yes the super games are littered with more tries and linebreaks, but they don't have the pressure that comes with 6N rugby.

wasps wrote:
Yes... multi ball.
We used to play multi ball touch rugby in training.

Sheer carnage....
(and not a lot of fun for a fat prop)

In multi-ball can two teams be in possession at once then?

Wales606

Where can I play this boblfotball????

That looks like the most fun ever, except I don't understand the penalty decision.