How to confuse younger generations of rugby supporters

[Niegs]

Get them to do the maths!

[Hal Jordan]

Bristol vs Leicester from the letters for positions days.

[Niegs]

Bristol vs Leicester from the letters for positions days.

I get mildly annoyed when people call the scrum half and fly half "the nine" and "the ten". Maybe I should start calling them "the I" and "the J" (though Bristol's went in the opposite order?)

Union numbered RL style back in the day too, didn't it? With FH and SH being 6 and 7?

[petej]

Bristol vs Leicester from the letters for positions days.

classic. Didn't Bristol have the A being the full back instead of the loosehead prop?

I can remember standing at the welford road end prior to the stand being built on a cold miserable winters day and Tigers winning 3-0 with Richards at 8 (I mean H) making sure the ball rarely got near the backs. If he was lucky Rory Underwood might have got the ball once in 80 minutes.

[Brazil]

Get them to do the maths!

I don't understand it. Was there a period where pens/DGs were worth 4 when we were in the 5pt try era? I freely concede there are creatures in the Mariana Trench with better maths skills, mind, that's why I was mostly a forward.

[Hal Jordan]

Bristol vs Leicester from the letters for positions days.

I get mildly annoyed when people call the scrum half and fly half "the nine" and "the ten". Maybe I should start calling them "the I" and "the J" (though Bristol's went in the opposite order?)

Union numbered RL style back in the day too, didn't it? With FH and SH being 6 and 7?

Bristol did indeed go in the opposite direction.

1950s England numbering was 1 Full Back etc.

[epwc]

On the points I was confused too, so I did some digging:

Code: Select all

Year   TRY         CONV           PEN       DGOAL        GOAL (FROM MARK)
1886     1            2          -              3         3
1889     2            2          -              3         3
1891     1            2         3              3         3
1893     3            2         3              4         4        
1905     3            2         3              4         3        
1948     3            2         3              3         3        
1971     4            2         3              3         3        
1977     4            2         3              3         -
1992     5            2         3              3         -        

I think this is accurate. I'd never heard of a Goal from a mark

[Niegs]

Get them to do the maths!

I don't understand it. Was there a period where pens/DGs were worth 4 when we were in the 5pt try era? I freely concede there are creatures in the Mariana Trench with better maths skills, mind, that's why I was mostly a forward.

I only know the answer to this particular moment... tries still worth three, if converted, called a 'goal'. If unconverted, just a 'try'. I'd heard this before, but the confusing bit was that both five-point converted tries and three-point penalty goals/drop goals are in the same column. So that's where England's 8 comes from. New Zealand converted four of their tries and missed the kick on one.

Just learned that drop goals were 4 points until 1948. So it'd be interesting to see a scoreboard in those days.

[Oxbow]

Didn't it originally used to be you scored a try so you could literally earn a 'try' at kicking a goal.

[Niegs]

On the points I was confused too, so I did some digging:

Code: Select all

Year   TRY         CONV           PEN       DGOAL        GOAL (FROM MARK)
1886     1            2          -              3         3
1889     2            2          -              3         3
1891     1            2         3              3         3
1893     3            2         3              4         4        
1905     3            2         3              4         3        
1948     3            2         3              3         3        
1971     4            2         3              3         3        
1977     4            2         3              3         -
1992     5            2         3              3         -        

I think this is accurate. I'd never heard of a Goal from a mark

From wiki, sounds like it was both rare and difficult:

The goal from mark was seldom seen for several reasons: the kicking team would have had to make the mark comfortably within the range of the opponent's goal, usually implying a gross error on the part of a defending player. The player making the mark would presumably have considered a drop goal attempt from open play less likely to succeed than a goal from the mark. The defending team were allowed to advance as far as the mark, meaning that the kick had to be attempted from still further away, and were moreover permitted to charge the attempted kick as soon as the ball was placed on the ground, the kicker started to run up or offered to kick the ball.

It also suggests this was still possible until 1977 ... so was being able to call a mark anywhere on the pitch (a la AFL) still in play that late?

[epwc]

I started secondary school in 1976, don't remember anything about Goals from a Mark

[Enzedder]

Ah yes, the goal from a mark. The Don Clark special.

He's the only one I can remember doing it.

[SaintK]

I started secondary school in 1976, don't remember anything about Goals from a Mark

I started in 1964 and don't either
Admittedly I didn't play my first game of rugby until 1969

[Niegs]

Has anyone ever seen a 'dribbling rush'?


Was it mostly kicking the ball on the ground at random? In the clip where I got the screencap, the ABs wheel the scrum and just as they're about to break, the England scrum half dives on the ball. McLaren said it looked like the ABs were about to launch into a 'rush' because of the wheel until the SH bravely dove on the ball. I'd love to see a good one in action.