Having made the case for attacking rugby last Sunday, I have found myself on the defensive all week. My efforts to tweak the forces of rugby and rediscover a field where the conductor's baton is more useful than the lump hammer have been met with... I was going to say 'derision', but I think only 'contempt' will do. It seems that the rule of the bull-necked big-hitters is more secure than I thought. Wise old owls of the game have clipped me around the ear, as a reminder that contact comes first.
I am not going to surrender just yet. In fact, having felt their cuffs and that old ooze of fluid into an ear only minutes away from flowering into a cauliflower, I am determined to persevere. And, if what is to come sounds a bit like a sermon, then such are the wages of an auricular throb of indignation. Ahem. The theme is the pass off the ground after the tackle and the text is an Old Testament try scored by Terry Cobner, in his first international, courtesy of a flip off the floor by Gerald Davies.
Now, these were the days of the early 1970s, when debate raged as to what was permissible once a tackle had been made. Time was when you could do nothing if you were off your feet. You simply had to let go of the ball. And everyone else leapt on it.
But then, after a whole season went by with the ball buried beneath 20-player pile-ups, it was determined that if the ball did not touch the ground then the ball-carrier could pass, even if he was tackled and on the deck.
Or was it all the other way round? Did the flip pass lead to pile-ups and then they decided to tinker with the rule? Who can remember? These were the days when not too much attention was paid to the welfare of the laboratory beagles on the field. Except that Gerald Davies, who was more of a greyhound, once passed off the floor to Terry Cobner, and much debate ensued as to whether this was the season when the try should have been awarded or the pass penalised.
Nowadays it is much simpler. As long as the ball-carrier acts immediately, he can basically do what he likes with the ball after the tackle. He can reach for the tryline, or place the ball behind him. If he has a circus background he can very quickly spin the ball on his nose. Or he can pass it.
He doesn't have to twist while falling in order to land on his back and keep the ball off the ground. He can fall as gracefully or gracelessly as he likes, concentrating on only one thing: how to use the ball. And, if he does flip up a pass, it is the hardest type of offload against which to defend.
As the tackle has become more ferocious in the past seven years, so the ball that survives its destructive reach has become more precious. First the ruck became the chosen recycling tool. The All Blacks have always used it, but over here the maul was the preferred means of keeping things trundling after the tackle. Slow, but secure.
Until, that is, the tackles started smashing everything in sight. Those whose laborious duty it had been to churn the ball back by hand found themselves picking up only body parts. So, the ball-carrier prudently opted for the ruck, with ball taken quickly to ground. The cavalry drive arrived from the supporting players, who could take out a few opponents as they ran over the ball and maintain forward momentum.
Except that the opposition put fewer and fewer players into the ruck zone. Opponents fanned out in anticipation of the next wave and it was hard to maintain forward thrust when you, the rucker braced for contact, ran into precisely nobody.
Next came the Will Greenwood age: the ball-carrier who was strong enough - or, in the England centre's case, tall enough - to raise the ball over the tackle and pass round the tackler's back. Very elegant, but now the defenders either hit in pairs, high and low, or a floating opponent fills the hole into which such a pass is aimed.
The one pass that is difficult to read is the pass off the floor. Once a tackle is made, players are automatically thinking of the offside line. There is always a moment's hesitation before play continues, as players on both sides check their stride as the carrier goes down.
If the support runners can build the tackle into their equations and time their runs accordingly and if they can run more from directly behind the ball-carrier than to his side, then the attacking side should sweep through a checked defence.
Of course, as soon as any notion to promote attacking play is put forward, some defence coach will work out a way to nullify it. So, in this series on the new adventures of rugby, born of early-season optimism, I'm not going to tell you what the contents of the next chapter are. All I can say is that they are unstoppable and spectacular and not even your firmest blows to my ears will prevent me from promoting it, if only to myself.
