Marto Midweek: Rugby 360 host Greg Martin on how to rid the game of ‘shocking cheating’
I’VE been watching and calling Super Rugby for its entire 21 years and I thought that was the best opening weekend there’s ever been.
Six tries per game compared to four last year — and last season was a good attacking year.
However, I reckon we can make our great game even better.
My big bugbear from week one was players deliberately slowing the ball down at the breakdown — and the Aussie teams were some of the worst culprits.
Fox Sports Lab stats show that the five Aussie teams conceded 36 ruck and maul penalties, while the five New Zealand teams gave away just 19.
It was noticeable how much faster the game moved in the two New Zealand derbies compared to the games involving Aussie teams, which all featured a lot of penalties and breakdown shenanigans.
My solution is for referees to dish out more yellow cards and earlier.
Anyone who’s slowing the game down, just get rid of them early and players will quickly get the message.
Overall, the Brumbies were fantastic in thrashing the Hurricanes but there was also some shocking cheating and very defensive stuff.
David Pocock has great breakdown timing rather than deliberately trying to spoil the ball but, jeez, Saia Fainga’a of the Reds looks like he’s trying to destroy games.
He could have been yellow carded a couple of times.
Teams should get one warning for a breakdown offence and then the next time the ref should go to his pocket.
Sanzaar should also look at reducing yellow cards for breakdown offences to five minutes instead of 10 but hand them out more often.
Sanzaar can make that tweak themselves, they don’t have to go to World Rugby.
Nine yellow cards were handed out in week one, including six for breakdown offences, but I think there should be much more.
A BOUQUET FOR THE BRUMBIES
While the Brumbies got away with plenty at the breakdown, you had to admire their work in the maul and at set-piece.
Many predicted the demise of the Brumbies maul this season but that theory has been well and truly debunked.
They’ve actually turned it into even more of a weapon.
Not only are they using it to barge over the tryline but they’re also using it to carve out 30m territory at a time and defences are powerless to stop it.
Their mauls led directly to tries to Scott Fardy and Josh Mann-Rea.
It’s still one of their best tactics and their lineout and scrum are also brilliant.
They’ve got so many lineout variations and the Waratahs analysts will be working overtime this week ahead of Friday’s big derby.
The Tahs’ players heads will be swimming with information and that can be confusing — I think the Brumbies’ lineout will be even more superior on Friday.
The Waratahs went well against the Reds and won easily but their scrum struggled and I’m picking the Brumbies with confidence this week.
They’re so far advanced on everybody else in terms of their combinations and execution and they’re challenging nearly every breakdown which makes it impossible to get speedy attack.
Having said that, all the New Zealand teams still looked really good, even the Hurricanes who were outgunned but still showed plenty and just ran into a lot of bad luck.
Often week one of Super Rugby is full of bumbling play but — apart from the Force v Rebels — that is the best the early season handling has ever been.
Bring on week two.
— Rugby 360 host Greg Martin will be back on air with Rod Kafer on Fox Sports 502 at 7.30pm each Wednesday.
— Tonight the boys will be joined by Wallabies coach Michael Cheika and the All Blacks’ secret weapon Mick “The Kick” Byrne.
— Marto will be writing a provocative column each Wednesday for foxsports.com.au.