When men were men and backs were girls

AS WE get older, our view of history becomes increasingly jaundiced.

When we gaze back through the haze of time, we squint and see mighty deeds where, in truth, only humdrum ones existed. That is why those dinosaurs among us, who played this great oval game of ours in the old amateur days, recount as ‘epic’ matches which were, in reality, merely mud-splattered fist-fests decided by penalty kicks.

The next six weeks will introduce people to a game which is light years removed from the rugby which existed in days of yore.

World Cup 2003 will be dazzling in every sense, a scientifically-prepared extravaganza of skill, strength and supreme athleticism.

And yet ...

While one accepts that rugby is a far more satisfying spectacle than ever before and acknowledges that this tournament will be royally entertaining, there is still a part of this particular dinosaur that hankers for yesteryear, when simplicity held sway over science.

Peter Fitzsimons, the former Australian second-row now working as a rugby writer, wrote passionately this week about how the game has evolved.

“The raw emotional stuff is, for me, the lifeblood of the game ... and yet it seems under attack at elite level. When you now hear elite coaches talk of rugby, you need a slide rule, a computer and a dictionary to work out what they are on about.”

And it used to be so simple.

Take the pre-match rituals. God be with the days when players walked the pitch three quarters of an hour before kick-off, then entered the dressing room, put out their smokes and began the process of getting psyched.

“What do we want to do?” the captain would ask. “Win!” they would yell back,

before clattering whoever was next to them and charging out onto the pitch.

NOWADAYS, the warm-up is almost as tiring as the match itself. Forty minutes of drills, sprints and tackling bags, enough to quell the ardour of even the most enthusiastic.

And the line-outs. Watch these carefully over the next six weeks. The line-out has become the rugby equivalent of performance dance.

Bodies rush around, shouting, swapping positions and dummying their dummies. It’s Simple Simon meets Michael Flatley and, of course, it frequently goes amiss. Count how many times hookers are left stranded, gazing helplessly at the heaving chorus-line of confusion before simply lobbing the ball in, 1980s style, out of sheer exasperation. Remember when all a jumper used to do was nod at the hooker before launching his backside and his elbow at his opposite number?

There was a plethora of tricks one could use to win line-out ball off your opponent. Just before the ball was thrown in, you could slap his hand, stand on his toe, tug his shorts or throw something distracting up in the air like a shiny chewing gum wrapper or an old pound note (particularly effective against Kerrymen and Scots).

A personal favourite when jumping at two was to go up and have a chat with the hooker just before he threw it in. When you rejoined the line, the other team would double mark you and then your hooker would throw it to the free man at the back. Rocket science? No, but it was darned effective.

The scrum was a veritable Aladdin’s Cave of tricks and wheezes and, although not versed in the front row’s art, I used to be let in on some of their dark secrets.

Props would deliberately go into games with a three-day stubble which they would use to rub against the opponent’s cheeks.

Referees might pretend otherwise but they’ve never had a clue what goes on at scrum time and one of the great tricks when you had a put-in under the opposition posts was to deliberately collapse it, allowing the ref to award a penalty try after assuming the home side buckled under pressure. I even heard of one prop who used to put methylated spirits in his hair and flick it into the other prop’s eyes as they engaged.

Ah yes, the science of yore.

So, lets prepare yourselves for an oval tour-de-force over the next six weeks, a demonstration of the art of rugby football played at a level inconceivable to the amateurs of yesteryear.

But, as we dinosaurs sit there dazzled by it all, permit us a wistful wander into the past when men were men and backs were girls.

Call it a Jurassic pang.