I decided to watch the England/France rugby this weekend, and was reminded of their, in my opinion, very sensible rule of stopping the clock when the game stops, and ending the game after 80 minutes play precisely. How often do we dispute the additional mniutes added at the end of a football match which seem to make no sense at all ? If referees did not have to worry about time, they could concentrate on getting decisions right.
Their system also allows Rugby to take the time to re-run on the screen difficult decisions, and get them right. Our fourth official could order a screen check on balls having crossed the line, fouls off the ball etc, enabling the referee to take appropriate action. What does anyone else think ?
0
Comments
If we followed your suggestion we'd miss the last train home. The ball is not in play much more than hour in football, there is a hell of a lot of fannying around.
Only if you're called Will, Rory or Toby.......
Stop clock: maybe (but with a shorter match time)
It would bring the magic back to football and todays journos would have to write about the game rather than the personal lives of the players.
And they'd only get paid normal wages.
Then why not just make the game 30 minutes each way and stop the clock every time the ball goes out.
Well I probably would but it's not up to me. Sorry.
TV wouldn't work in Football. In rugby the TMO is only used on the immediate scoring of a try, they don't adjudicate on anything else, so offside in the build up or another offence half way down the pitch can't be called. The biggest reason why it won't work in football is that the game does not stop in the act of someone having a scoring attempt. In Rugby the after the attempted process of scoring ends, the game stops and the ball is dead, if you haven’t scored there is a law relating to the restart of the game that everyone is aware of, that is the same for every single rugby match across the world. In Football someone attempts to score, the ball is still live till it goes out of play, when does a game stop for the TMO to check if a goal was scored? When the shot happens? till it goes out of play next? When the keeper saves it? And how then does the game start again? Freekick to defending team? Freekick to Attacking team? Drop Ball on the line?!
Jumpers for goalposts?
Good point. How often does the ball actually go out of play in Rugby? They seem to spend most time trying to get it out of some other butch guy's arse.
I hate Rugby. Why? The pitch at Notts County for starters.